Comments: After winning the Best Novel Nebula in 2003 for American Gods, Neil Gaiman continued his winning streak in 2004 by claiming the Best Novella Nebula for the delightfully creepy Coraline. Since 2000, Gaiman has dominated the speculative fiction awards in a way that few other authors have in history, gathering in awards at a prodigious rate. The only other author I can think of who seems to have been so consistently honored is Harlan Ellison, and he spread his award winning stories out over a wider span of years than Gaiman has. At his current rate, by 2020 it seems like Gaiman will have more awards than every other author in the history of speculative fiction.
In the Best Script category I once again wind up scratching my head. Not because The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers won the award - that was almost inevitable, and was a fairly well-deserved win. But rather because the movie Finding Nemo was on the final ballot at all. While I will agree that the movie Finding Nemo is a good movie, and I am rather fond of it, I cannot figure out how it is either science fiction or fantasy. Yes, the fish, whales, sea turtles, and crustaceans talk, but by that standard Bambi and The Lion King are also within the speculative fiction genre. And other than the anthropomorphized sea creatures, there's simply no speculative fiction element to Finding Nemo. There is simply no excuse that could make having this movie on the Nebula Award ballot justifiable.
Best Novel
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
Other Nominees:
Chindi by Jack McDevitt
Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold
Light Music by Kathleen Ann Goonan
The Mount by Carol Emshwiller
The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson
Best Novella
Other Nominees:
Breathmoss by Ian R. MacLeod
The Empress of Mars by Kage Baker
The Potter of Bones by Eleanor Arnason
Stories for Men by John Kessel
Best Novelette
The Empire of Ice Cream by Jeffrey Ford
Other Nominees:
0wnz0red by Cory Doctorow
The Mask of the Rex by Richard Bowes
Of a Sweet Slow Dance in the Wake of Temporary Dogs by Adam-Troy Castro
The Wages of Syntax by Ray Vukcevich
Best Short Story
What I Didn't See by Karen Joy Fowler
Other Nominees:
The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
Goodbye to All That by Harlan Ellison
Grandma by Carol Emshwiller
Knapsack Poems by Eleanor Arnason
Lambing Season by Molly Gloss
The Last of the O-Forms by James Van Pelt
Best Script
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Stephen Sinclair, and Peter Jackson
Other Nominees:
Finding Nemo by Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, and David Reynolds
Futurama: Where No Fan Has Gone Before by David A. Goodman
Minority Report by Scott Frank and Jon Cohen
Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki, Cindy Davis Hewitt, and Donald H. Hewitt
Go to previous year's nominees: 2003
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 2005
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