Monday, December 31, 1973

1973 Nebula Award Nominees

Location: Unknown.

Comments: The first thing to note about the 1973 Nebula Awards is that Isaac Asimov won the Best Novel Award this year for The Gods Themselves. There are many people who denigrate Asimov's writing, and at times he can definitely be a little dry, but those of us that love his books can always point to the fact that his peers awarded him the highest honor they could for the quality of his prose. Given that their two careers seem to have been inextricably intertwined, it seems fitting that Arthur C. Clarke also won his first Nebula in 1973, for the novella A Meeting with Medusa.

The second thing to note is that Robert Silverberg dominated science fiction of the the early 1970s in a way that few other writers have dominated an era. And he did it in a weirdly unobtrusive manner, with only one award for novel writing - his 1972 Nebula win for A Time of Changes. But although he didn't win any Nebula Awards in 1973, he was nominated for the Best Novel award twice, and also garnered a nomination for Best Short Story.

Best Novel

Winner:
The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov

Other Nominees:
The Book of Skulls by Robert Silverberg
Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg
The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad
The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner
What Entropy Means to Me by George Alec Effinger
When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One by David Gerrold

Best Novella

Winner:
A Meeting with Medusa Arthur C. Clarke

Other Nominees:
The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe
The Gold at the Starbow's End by Frederik Pohl
Son of the Morning by Phyllis Gotlieb
With the Bentfin Boomer Boys on Little Old New Alabama by Richard A. Lupoff
The Word for World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin (reviewed in The Hugo Winners, Volume 3, Book 2)

Best Novelette

Winner:

Other Nominees:
The Animal Fair by Alfred Bester
Basilisk by Harlan Ellison
The Funeral by Kate Wilhelm
In the Deadlands by David Gerrold
A Kingdom by the Sea by Gardner Dozois
Patron of the Arts by William Rotsler

Best Short Story

Winner:
When It Changed by Joanna Russ

Other Nominees:
Against the Lafayette Escadrille by Gene Wolfe
And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side by James Tiptree, Jr.
On the Downhill Side by Harlan Ellison
Shaffery Among the Immortals by Frederik Pohl
When We Went to See the End of the World by Robert Silverberg

Go to previous year's nominees: 1972
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1974

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