The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has announced the finalists for the 2019 Nebula Awards, including the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, the Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book, and the Nebula Award for Game Writing.
The winners will be announced at SFWA’s 55th annual Nebula Conference in Los Angeles, CA, which takes place from Thursday, May 28th through Sunday, May 31st at the Marriott Warner Center in Woodland Hills, CA.
Congratulations to all the nominees! You can find the complete list of finalists below.
2019 Nebula Award Finalists
Novel
- Marque of Caine, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
- The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow (Redhook; Orbit UK)
- A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine (Tor)
- Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey; Jo Fletcher)
- Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com Publishing)
- A Song for a New Day, Sarah Pinsker (Berkley)
Novella
- “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom”, Ted Chiang (Exhalation)
- The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com Publishing)
- This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Saga)
- Her Silhouette, Drawn in Water, Vylar Kaftan (Tor.com Publishing)
- The Deep, Rivers Solomon, with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson & Jonathan Snipes (Saga)
- Catfish Lullaby, A.C. Wise (Broken Eye)
Novelette
- “A Strange Uncertain Light”, G.V. Anderson (F&SF 7-8/19)
- “For He Can Creep”, Siobhan Carroll (Tor.com 7/10/19)
- “His Footsteps, Through Darkness and Light”, Mimi Mondal (Tor.com 1/23/19)
- “The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye”, Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny 7-8/19)
- Carpe Glitter, Cat Rambo (Meerkat)
- “The Archronology of Love”, Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed 4/19)
Short Story
- “Give the Family My Love”, A.T. Greenblatt (Clarkesworld 2/19)
- “The Dead, In Their Uncontrollable Power”, Karen Osborne (Uncanny 3-4/19)
- “And Now His Lordship Is Laughing”, Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons 9/9/19)
- “Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island”, Nibedita Sen (Nightmare 5/19)
- “A Catalog of Storms”, Fran Wilde (Uncanny 1-2/19)
- “How the Trick Is Done”, A.C. Wise (Uncanny 7-8/19)
The Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book
- Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, Carlos Hernandez (Disney Hyperion)
- Catfishing on CatNet, Naomi Kritzer (Tor Teen)
- Dragon Pearl, Yoon Ha Lee (Disney Hyperion)
- Peasprout Chen: Battle of Champions, Henry Lien (Holt)
- Cog, Greg van Eekhout (Harper)
- Riverland, Fran Wilde (Amulet)
Game Writing
- Outer Wilds, Kelsey Beachum (Mobius Digital)
- The Outer Worlds, Leonard Boyarsky, Megan Starks, Kate Dollarhyde, Chris L’Etoile (Obsidian Entertainment)
- The Magician’s Workshop, Kate Heartfield (Choice of Games)
- Disco Elysium, Robert Kurvitz (ZA/UM)
- Fate Accessibility Toolkit, Elsa Sjunneson-Henry (Evil Hat Productions)
The Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
- Avengers: Endgame, Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (Marvel Studios)
- Captain Marvel, Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck & Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Marvel Studios)
- Good Omens: “Hard Times”, Neil Gaiman (Amazon Studios/BBC Studios)
- The Mandalorian: “The Child”, Jon Favreau (Disney+)
- Russian Doll: “The Way Out”, Allison Silverman and Leslye Headland (Netflix)
- Watchmen: “A God Walks into Abar”, Jeff Jensen & Damon Lindelof (HBO)
That best novel lineup is just beyond great. A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE and GIDEON THE NINTH were unquestionably my favorite books of 2019, and TEN THOUSAND DOORS and A SONG FOR A NEW DAY were among the best debuts I read last year. GODS of JADE & SHADOW, meanwhile, sits atop my TBR.
Congratulations to Elsa and to the Evil Hat team for the Fate Accessibility Toolkit! Evil Hat has been doing great work for years, not just on tabletop roleplaying systems and scenarios, but on inclusivity and diversity in a scene long dominated by dorky-white-guy stereotypes. Their artwork always includes a variety of types of people; their scenario booklets go way beyond elfy-dwarfy fantasy and space-opera and dig into lots of non-Western cultures and myths; and now the Accessibility Toolkit steps up the game even further.
(I’m not associated with them at all; just a fanboy)
I must admit I haven’t heard of any of the novel nominees.
I also must admit I just added five books to my TBR pile.
The novel list is wonderfully chosen.
However the young adult list seems to be missing a lot of books (and has many I’ve not heard of on it). Where’s books like: One Word Kill (Mark Lawrence), A Curse So Dark and Lonely (Brigid Kemmerer), or any of the YA fantasy heavy hitters like Holly Black or Leigh Bardugo?
That said, I always like the Nebula list to add more books, especially novellas to my TBR
I really thought I was doing better at keeping up. And yet, I’ve read only one (1) nominee from each category.
That said, it was all good stuff.
(“For He Can Creep” is an enduring delight.)
Outer Wilds is a great choice for game writing! Finished this game a month ago and still thinking about it…
@1. Hi Joel! Welcome to publishing on Tor. Sad to hear about the B&N blog purge. I lurked there quite a bit, even when I didn’t post.
Ooh, The Child vs. Crowley and Aziraphale. This could be a tough decision.
I’m super excited about all of these novel and novella finalists!
Like Mel, though, I’m a bit perplexed by the Norton Award. Nothing against any of these titles individually, but as a set they add to my vague impression from the last few years that this is an award given by people who don’t really follow or care about children’s books, feeling pestered into pretending like they do.
And this is on top of my feeling that there’s less of need for the Norton in the first place. A lot of genre awards were created in response to mainstream awards’ refusal to consider SF/F on its literary merits, but big name awards in children’s books don’t share that bias. On the other hand, passionate SF/F readers are looking for different things in standout children’s books than, say, the ALA, and it’s always good to highlight great books, so I think this award can be tremendously valuable and interesting.
(As a side quibble, why do we call it a YA award? Don’t get me wrong, I think the field being more inclusive is a good thing, but most years half the nominations are middle grade, with occasional appearances of crossover titles aimed early reader or adult, and it this point it’s just misleading, or maybe now I’m being pedantic.)
“Give the Family My Love”, A.T. Greenblatt (Clarkesworld 2/19)
One of the BEST short stories from 2019. Simply a wonderful, hard science fiction with a bit of futuristic “social” SF mixed. in.
Just SO SAD no shorts from ANALOG and ASIMOV’S magazines. E.g., “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, by Phoebe North (Analog, 2019-JULY) and “Paradise Unbound”, Edward M. Lerner (Analog, 2019-SEPT) , were the 2 best SS I read last year.
None of my favorite / best books from last year have even been nominated. Ah well, they win my best of the year prize. I should make cookies for each of the authors (would they dare eat cookies from a fan?). That would have to be better than getting a trophy!
Congrats to all the nominees!
I wanted to like Gods of Jade and Shadow but couldn’t finish it. The setting (Mexico 1927) seemed clumsily done and the plot seemed video-gamish– travel to a place pick up an item, go someplace else, get another item etc, so somehow the hunky god can get his rightful place as Lord of the underworld back.
I noticed a lack of Analog and Asimov magazine short stories. I wonder why?
@@@@@ 5. Mel-EpicReading
I don’t think Leigh Bardugo put out any YA this year – just Ninth House, which is adult
@Sunspear I definitely remember your handle. You posted more often than anyone else! We were never able to foster a great community of commenters over there. Usually just a bunch of trolls accusing us of being SJWs.
What is the appeal of Gideon the Ninth? I know it’s an industry darling but it was the most disappointing of the bunch for me. Maybe the hype was just too much? I’m excited to see Ten Thousand Doors of January on the list though, that book contains magic!
@17. Jaia: you’re not a fan of breaking down necromancer personality types and traits?
Excited to see 2 of my favorite authors on the YA list!
Naomi Kritzer and Yoon Ha Lee
I read both “The Ten Thousand Doors of January” and “Gods of Jade & Shadow” when they came out last year. And they both settled into my top ten books of the year. Thrilled to see them on here. I was kinda wishing that “Gilded Wolves” by Roshani Chokshi had landed in the YA fantasy category. It was that outstanding.
Good luck to all of the finalists!