Saturday, May 21, 2011

2011 Nebula Award Nominees

Location: Washington D.C.

Comments: By 2011, the Nebula Awards had taken their modern shape. At least if you call the form they took by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century their "modern" form. Given the somewhat chaotic state the awards have been in, and their ambivalent relationship with filmed science fiction, only time will tell if the current arrangement with young adult novels honored by the officially non-Nebula Andre Norton Award, dramatic presentations honored by the officially non-Nebula Ray Bradbury Award, and the Nebulas themselves being handed out for novels, novellas, novelettes, and short stories.

The Nebulas also seem to have matured somewhat in the areas of gender and racial equity, although much is still to be desired in those areas. Women are well represented among the winners and nominees (despite being conspicuously absent from the nominees for the Ray Bradbury Award), and non-Causcasian authors are common enough to be noticed in the ranks of the nominees.

Best Novel

Winner:
Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis

Other Nominees:
Echo by Jack McDevitt
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
The Native Star by M.K. Hobson
Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Best Novella

Winner:
The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window by Rachel Swirsky

Other Nominees:
The Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi
Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance by Paul Park (reviewed in Fantasy & Science Fiction: Volume 118, Nos. 1 & 2 (January/February 2010)
Iron Shoes by J. Kathleen Cheney
The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang

Best Novelette

Winner:
That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made by Eric James Stone (reviewed in Analog Science Fiction and Fact: Vol. CXXX, No. 9 (September 2010))

Other Nominees:
The Fortuitous Meeting of Gerard van Oost and Oludara by Christopher Kastensmidt
The Jaguar House, in Shadow by Aliette de Bodard (reviewed in Asimov's Science Fiction: Vol. 34, No. 7 (July 2010))
Map of Seventeen by Christopher Barzak
Pishaach by Shweta Narayan
Stone Wall Truth by Caroline M. Yoachim

Best Short Story

Winner:
(tie) How Interesting: A Tiny Man by Harlan Ellison
(tie) Ponies by Kij Johnson

Other Nominees:
Arvies by Adam-Troy Castro
Ghosts of New York by Jennifer Pelland
The Green Book by Amal El-Mohtar
I'm Alive, I Love You, I'll See You in Reno by Vylar Kaftan

Ray Bradbury Award

Winner:
Inception by Christopher Nolan
Other Nominees:
Despicable Me screenplay by Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul; story by Sergio Pablos; directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud
Doctor Who: Vincent and the Doctor written by Richard Curtis; directed by Jonny Campbell
How to Train Your Dragon screenplay by William Davies, Dean DeBlois, and Chris Sanders; directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World screenplay by Michael Bacall and Edgar Wright; directed by Edgar Wright
Toy Story 3 screenplay by Michael Arndt; story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich; directed by Lee Unkrich

Andre Norton Award

Winner:
I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

Other Nominees:
Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
The Boy from Ilysies by Pearl North
A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner
Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
White Cat by Holly Black

Go to previous year's nominees: 2010
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 2012

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