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2003 Nebula Awards
seattlenerd writes "The 2003 Nebula Awards were awarded late Saturday night in Seattle (for the first time ever) by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Winners: The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, Coraline by Neil Gaiman, "The Empire of Ice Cream" by Jeffrey Ford, "What I Didn't See" by Karen Joy Fowler (the previous two both published on the SCI FICTION site), and the script for Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Noteworthy were comments made by GrandMaster honoree Robert Silverberg and Harlan Ellison, who introduced Silverberg, along with guest speaker Rick Rashid of Microsoft Research. To say nothing of Cory Doctorow's acceptance speech he didn't get to make, but has made available for "alternate historians."" I was at Penguicon this weekend, along with Neil Gaiman - congrats to him on the win, and to all the others.
The Empire of Ice Cream....I want to live there
Anyone else read that as the "Nebulon" Awards? As in "get out of here Nebulon, no one likes your style." -- S.B.
Rapidly approaching the Zener knee...
I picked up this book, expecting an original and exciting story. Instead I got a patronising modern-day Alice in Wonderland with a simplistic and unchallenging story, two dimensional charicatures for characters and a boringly predictable plot. It had no point. Try Darren Shan, Anthony Horowitz or Frank Cotteral Boyce instead.
I could be mistaken, but wasn't the script for The Two Towers written long before 2003? And even the film itself opened in 2002, right? How then does it win the 2003 award?
I read Coraline for the first time this weekend. The book says it's for ages 8 and up, but this would have freaked the hell out of me when I was that young. It is definitely worth picking up if you like Gaiman's other stuff.
Did the writer of 'Gigli' get anything?
This signature is a waste of 42 characters
With amazing computer skills. I expect it will go down well with Slashdot readers
Who's 0wnz0red now, Cory?
There's something sort of arrogant about publishing your acceptance speech when you didn't even win.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Fanfiction conglomeration heaven - What I Didn't See was the Empire of Ice Cream because The Speed of Dark was too great.
Tomorrow, Microsoft announces support for Open Source.
Neverwhere is good, but it has a strong British bent to it that won't necessarily carry over everywhere. American Gods might do better.
I took it the other way. It is that the artist called himself out. In a way, after winning a Hugo (already recognized once) it's not out of the ordinary to imagine himself having won another award.
It's embarrassing enough that he thought that he could have won, but couldn't make it anyway. But to go as far as finding someone to read the acceptance speach by proxy...and then NOT win. My goodness. Well may as well tell the whole world himself.
The other way to take it? He thought his short speach to witty to deny the world it's creation.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
Congratulations to not only a great author, but also a great person.
:)
If you don't beleive me, read his journal at:
http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/journal.asp
Keep up the good work with your journal Mr Gaiman, in these dire times of terror attacks and economic instability, your journal gives us poor lost souls an interesting and inspiring reading and above all, hope.
For those who hasn't done so already, please consider reading American Gods and the Sandman stories they are great
Reading the awards-list makes me wish I read more sci-fi.
I recently finished a piece of horror-fiction, Michael Gruber's Tropic of Night, whose literary quality was high enough not to require the reader to make allowances for the genre. In my experience, such a requirement is a pervasive shortcoming of both the horror and sci-fi fields.
If there are astute slashDot readers out there who understand my lament, and who know an elusive sci-fi title (or two) that does manage the rare crossover, please identify.
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
When and by whom are the 2003 Nebula Awards likely to be awarded next?
Well, you could do worse than to look up Nebula winners of years past. The list is on the SFWA Web site:
Past Winners of SFWA Nebula Awards
I have to say, though, that if your opinion of SF is so low that you think only " an elusive sci-fi title (or two)" will make your cut, I'm not terribly optimistic. As someone who reads (and writes) mostly SF but does read a fair amount of other fiction, I'm of the opinion that the crap-to-good-stuff ratio is pretty much equal no matter what section of the bookstore you're browsing. A lot of readers, OTOH, tend to mark down a book simply because it is SF, rather than judging it fairly on its merits. If you're one of them, nothing I or anyone else says is going to help you.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
He's supposed to be working on "Again: Dangerous Visions"; he hasn't got time for this stuff.
With amazing computer skills. I expect it will go down well with Slashdot readers
/Rain Man
Well, at least I earn, ummm, like, a couple of hundred dollars a month. That's probably way more than you make!
moviepig.com writes: If there are astute slashDot readers out there who understand my lament, and who know an elusive sci-fi title (or two) that does manage the rare crossover, please identify.
Take a look at some of the books Robert Silverberg wrote in the 1970's; some of them are "Dying Inside," "Son of Man," and "Thorns" -- they are little gems. You have to ignore the dates in SF of that age (the "future" is now, at least chronologically speaking) but there were some interesting people writing interesting stuff back then.
OK, now what?
And which were worth reading? Been away from Sci-fi for too long.
If you follow the nebulas, you might be interested to see the recently announced shortlist for the other big SciFi awards, the Hugos:
http://www.noreascon.org/hugos/nominees.html
The Hugos are voted for by the attendees/supporters of the World Science Fiction Convention, whereas the Nebulas are voted on by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, in case you were wondering what the difference is.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
They're just angling to get a Nebula award for best fantasy writing. They would have tried for a Hugo, but Scientology is already trying for one with their fantasy retro-history about how Elron Hubbard invented science-fiction. And since Hugos are awarded by fans, they figured they didn't stand a chance against all the Battlefield Earth fans block-voting.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
My Nebula report is here, on the new Slashcode site TruFen.net.
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Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
And while the actual visual/acting aspects of the scenes are well-scripted, the storyline is obviously not original.
Does "script" cound as just the acting cues etc, or is storyline included. I'd imagine that the latter has a seperate award - but if that isn't the case then it doesn't make much sense for a book-based-movie to win a script award?
Hmm...I think American Gods is better Gaiman book. Neverwhere was adapted from a BBC miniseries he wrote, and while enjoyable, it ended up a bit too loose, it even ends with sequel bait. The plot is straightforward, but it feels like the setting is the star of the show. American Gods, while it has a couple of long digressions, has a stronger showing I think.
That said, I've read a lot of Gaiman, so whats vaguely uninteresting to me, may be new to other readers.
If we're going for younger fare, I've enjoyed what I've read so far of The Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. Its not got the straight fun aspect of the Potter books, but the world from the start is a more adult and complex one.
My point's not all that elitist. "Great" sci-fi (e.g., Arthur C. Clarke) is usually so deemed for its scientific perspicacity/creativity ...but is (understandably) lacking in the enteratining and/or engaging qualities we tend to demand from "genre-less" fiction. But, very occasionally, a book holds its own in both arenas. Any dearth of such books merely reflects the small intersection of multiple high percentiles.
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
Dude, the day you are nominated for a major award, by your peers, and don't win, and then don't tell anyone what you would have said, is the day you get to call Cory Doctorow arrogant.
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Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
I have but one response to that:
"The South Beach Diet": Sales Rank 4
He's a PR whore. This reflects neither well nor badly on his writing.
But that doesn't change the fact that you have to be a bit of a prick to publicly post an acceptance speech for an award you didn't win.
damn that game (Nebulus) ruled; so did Eliminator! whatever happened to Hewson (the company) and where's the source!?
GrimRC
When it was announced on PEELified that Futurama was to be nominated for another award (2 years after cancellation now) we were surprised to see that it was in the same category as LOTR and 3 other films, "Best Script".
Does this not show the high-quality of the show, being able to be nominated in the same category as 4 other films? Of course, we weren't surprised when it was beaten by LOTR, but it was reassuring that, try as they might, FOX can't ruin the show's brilliance and reputation.
It is also a very, very good read.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
Can somebody tell me why some titles are in boldface whereas the others are double-quoted?
Check out Altered Carbon and Broken Angels by Richard Morgan.
The first is more sci-fi / noir, although there are some Very bloody torture and violence scenes. Broken Angels is more a sci-fi war story, with elements of vodun thrown in with slow death from radiation.
Both very good, both horrific in their own way. I've never made any allowances for either book based on it's genere.
A Human Right
You can see the nominees and winners for "Best Books" [Novels, collection, anthology, nonfiction] "Best Short Fiction", Best Movies, and other that put the Hugos and Nebulas (and British SF Awards, Arthur C. Clarke Awards, World Fantasy, Horror...), many of which are "cross-overs", for every year 2000-2010 at:
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....
http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/timeline2
and for every other year when such awards were issued via:
http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/timeline.
And then , through the latter link, best literary/media events of every year in human history
The magicdragon.com site gets over 40,000 hits/day and is rated in the top 10 by Google, Yahoo, MSN, Teoma, etc. for "science fiction."
Oh, and naturally Gaiman is terrific a writer as well.
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. --Niels Bohr
"What I Didn't See" is a good story. But why is it included in a SciFi/Fantasy award?
The audio cd is phenomenal. Look for it used. If you don't want to pay full price. The author reads it really, really well. There is some spooky haunting music that accompanies it. Very nice and worth the effort to track it down. It is unabridged as well. See Coraline CD [UNABRIDGED]
Well moviepig, I'd hope you're not being elitist since you have a spelling error in your post. ;)
;)
Anyway, when you read 'genre-less' (whatever that means) stuff, what do you look for? Are you a characterization guy, er, pig? Can great prose cover all the sins in your world? Do you like Deep Thoughts on Big Ideas? You can always hit rec.arts.sf.written on Usenet or Google groups and say "I like AB&C for their XY&Z qualities, who else writes like that?" They'll be able to give specific and probably endless authors and books to try.
I don't know what you like, but here's my free (and no doubt worth every penny) ideas: Harlan Ellison and Neil Gaiman.
Ellison writes almost exclusively shorter stuff, but find "Deathbird", "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" and "Just Adrift Off the Isles of Langerhans" in one of his many collections and see if you like them. Be warned though - he has some opinions that will piss you off either by themselves or by his presentation of them, especially in his non-fiction. How can I say this when I know basically nothing about you? Read some of his stuff and you'll know...
Gaiman on the other hand, writes some creepy, creepy stuff, but seems like he'd be a great neighbor - only too hapy to loan you his tools or cook out with you. _American Gods_ always gets trotted out as his masterpiece, but I liked _Neverwhere_, _Stardust_ and especially _Good Omens_ (with Terry Pratchett) more. He's also written childrens books (_The Day I Traded My Dad For Two Goldfish_ and _The Wolves in the Walls_) and, of course, The Sandman comics. And he got namechecked by Tori Amos in "Tear in Your Hand".
And of course Vernor Vinge's _Fire Upon The Deep_ and _A Deepness in the Sky_ are always worthy of pointing out to someone.
"Bugger this, I want a better world." - Jenny Sparks
Try William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Mikhail Bulgakov (I think "The Master and Margarita" qualifies as sci-fi, and it's amazing, ask literally any Russian, if they've read at all they will have read it, and I haven't met anyone who hasn't liked it), Douglas Adams, Stephen Donaldson (OK, he tends to try real hard to make his stuff really unpleasant but his prose is great, "Daughter of Regals is a little more positive), Michael Crichton (hit or miss on the plots, but his better stuff is well written), Clifford Simak (a lot of his books repeat similar stuff, but it's good considering how long ago it was written), Edgar Allen Poe, HG Wells... Avoid Asimov, Heinlein, Forward, and most other authors of the same generation if prose quality is a concern. Not that their books are that bad overall, but their level of written english is pretty low. I'm bad about this, I would read junk mail from some of the suggested authors for the prose. I have not read quite a number of great books, sci-fi and classics, because I can't deal with the prose (especially that "dear reader" stuff from way back). Pisses me off with some authors, too. James Joyce wrote beautiful prose when he cared to, but spent so much time being clever that not much of what he published is beautifully written. Brilliantly written, yes, but not beautiful, and not intended to be.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
"My point's not all that elitist."
Not if this is still the 1950s. What are you, a time traveller? The "big three" of the '50s and '60s were Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein, yes. But we've come a long way since then (baby). The sixties introduced the first major "literary" movement in the F&SF genre(s), the "New Wave", and gave us Bradbury, Vonnegut and others, whose literary credentials are, I think, unchallenged. While the older, "pulp" style is still around and going strong, the descendents of the New Wave and other, later movements are widespread -- so much so that Gabriel Garcia Marquez doesn't look out of place when cited as a genre writer.
Basically, literary SF is an almost separate genre from pulp SF, with a separate (though somewhat overlapping) set of fans. If your friends are still citing Clarke (my Ghod!) as one of the "greats", perhaps you need to look for some more literate friends, instead of blaming the genre you obviously know so little of. I haven't cited Clarke as a "great" in decades. He's been surpassed by those who came later to such a degree that I'm not even sure he'd make the cut as "average" today.
Even the "pulp" side of the genre has higher literary standards than it once did. I'll match Orson Scott Card against most of the authors on the NYT bestseller list any day of the week.
"But, very occasionally, a book holds its own in both arenas."
If we limit ourselves to works published before 1970, I might agree with you. As it is, I have to say that you simply have no idea what you're talking about.
My book club recently read The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, which won the Nebula for Best Novel. Although barely science fiction, we all thought the book was excellent. My wife, who doesn't even like science fiction at all, thought it was one of the best novels she's ever read. I'm really glad to see it won the Nebula.
The first six or seven pages are readable on Amazon. Check it out and see what you think.
Coraline, Neverwhere and American Gods are very good. But the best of Neil Gaiman books is Good Omens, with Terry Pratchet (The same Pratchet of the Discworld Series).
You might enjoy China Miéville (Perdido Street Station is the only one I've read -- sort of an urban fantasy/horror).
I've really liked the Starlight series of short SF collections. I think they're out of print, but $ONLINE_BOOKSTORE should have them.
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."