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Saturday, May 6, 2006

2006 Nebula Award Nominees

Location: Tempe, Arizona

Comments: 2006 was the first year in which the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy was bestowed, going to Holly Black for her novel Valiant. The SFWA steadfastly maintains that the Andre Norton Award is not a Nebula Award despite having an identical nominating and selection process that involves essentially the same people serving as judges. But I am just as obstinate as the SFWA, and as the old saying goes "If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck" then it must be a Nebula Award, so I am listing the Andre Norton Award here with the Nebula Awards.

One thing that seems puzzling is the SFWA's insistence that the Andre Norton Award (and the Ray Bradbury Award) is not a Nebula Award. Given that the awards are functionally identical, why the differentiation? Is it so that writers of adult fiction can pretend to honor authors who write young adult works and still look down their noses at them? Or so that book writers can pooh-pooh those who write for filmed media? These distinctions drawn by the SFWA simply don't make sense except as a way to exclude certain authors from being able to assert that they have won a Nebula.

Best Novel

Winner:
Camouflage by Joe Haldeman

Other Nominees:
Air by Geoff Ryman
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Orphans of Chaos by John C. Wright
Polaris by Jack McDevitt

Best Novella

Winner:
Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link

Other Nominees:
Clay's Pride by Bud Sparhawk
Identity Theft by Robert J. Sawyer (reviewed in Red Planet Blues)
Left of the Dial by Paul Witcover
The Tribes of Bela by Albert E. Cowdrey

Best Novelette

Winner:
The Faery Handbag by Kelly Link

Other Nominees:
Flat Diane by Daniel Abraham
Men Are Trouble by James Patrick Kelly
Nirvana High by Eileen Gunn and Leslie What
The People of Sand and Slag by Paolo Bacigalupi

Best Short Story

Winner:
I Live With You by Carol Emshwiller

Other Nominees:
Born-Again by K.D. Wentworth
The End of the World As We Know It by Dale Bailey
My Mother, Dancing by Nancy Kress
Singing My Sister Down by Margo Lanagan
Still Life With Boobs by Anne Harris
There's a Hole in the City by Richard Bowes

Best Script

Winner:
Serenity by Joss Whedon

Other Nominees:
Battlestar Galactica: Act of Contrition/You Can't Go Home Again by Carla Robinson, Bradley Thompson, and David Weddle

Andre Norton Award

Winner:
Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faery by Holly Black

Other Nominees:
The Amethyst Road by Louise Spiegler
Siberia by Ann Halam
Stormwitch by Susan Vaught

Go to previous year's nominees: 2005
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 2007

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