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.

Comments

hmmm

[spangineer]

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?

Re:hmmm

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Nebulas are given for works released during the previous year (i.e., the 2003 awards go to 2002 works, etc.) When the work was written doesn't matter -- remember these are primarily literary awards, and it's not uncommon for a book to take several years to be written, and then several more to be published. (I would assume the same is true of scripts, in general, though of course LOTR is kind of a special case.) For those interested in the process, it works like this:

1. At any time, a SFWA member may nominate a work published a year ago or less at the time of nomination.
2. At the end of the year, works with sufficient numbers of nominations are placed on the preliminary Nebula ballot.
3. Early in the following year, SFWA membership votes on the works on the preliminary ballot; in each category, up to a certain maximum number of works -- 5, IIRC, but don't quote me -- are qualified for the final ballot.
4. The membership then votes on the works on the final ballot, and the awards are determined.
5. This being science fiction writing, you'll notice there is no "Profit!!!" step in the list. Er, unless you're Peter Jackson. <1/2 g>

So this is why it takes so long, and why the 2003 awards are given for 2002 works in 2004.

Re:Anyone else read that as 'Nebulon'?

[Seth Finklestein]

"Nebulon" is mentioned in this cartoon on the Homestar Runner web page. Please note that you'll need to have Macromedia Flash installed in order to view it.

Coraline is really freakin' creepy

[fingerbear]

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.

Re:Coraline is really freakin' creepy

[rudbek]

I read it one chapter a night to my 7 yr old daughter. We both really enjoyed it. For what it is worth, she wasn't freaked out by it and it has been several weeks since we finished. (knock on wood).

did they?

[eclectus]

Did the writer of 'Gigli' get anything?

Re:did they?

[Ride-My-Rocket]

Did the writer of 'Gigli' get anything?

A swift kick to the nuts, in the hopes that inspiration of the type that spawned Gigli will not be passed on through the bloodline.

Speed of Dark is about an autistic social failure

[Slashdot Hivemind]

With amazing computer skills. I expect it will go down well with Slashdot readers

You know.

[Kiryat Malachi]

There's something sort of arrogant about publishing your acceptance speech when you didn't even win.

Re:You know.

[outrage98]

There's something sort of arrogant about publishing your acceptance speech when you didn't even win.

I haven't written my book yet, but I've just about finished my acceptance speech.

Re:You know.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Cory Doctorow is like that. Trust me. He's a very clever guy, but not as clever as he thinks he is.

Re:You know.

[theLOUDroom]

There's something sort of arrogant about publishing your acceptance speech when you didn't even win.

Dude, it was on his 'blog.

Blogs are a place where people often post their casual musings, like what they'd say if XXX happened. It's not really any more arrogant than posting what you'd do if you won the lottery on slashdot.

Re:You know.

[AndroidCat]

And in person, it's a very friendly arrogance. Quite a lot of successful F&SF writers have gone a long way on friendly arrogance. :)

Tee hee.

[gregduffy]

Fanfiction conglomeration heaven - What I Didn't See was the Empire of Ice Cream because The Speed of Dark was too great.

Re:Coraline? Pfft

[rtos]

Um... you do know that Coraline is meant for ages 8 and up, right? It's a kids book... and a damn good one at that. Creepy as hell, but told in classic children's story-book style.

Taken in that context, it's highly enjoyable, quick read for adults too. I thought it was a fun little book.

If you want Gaiman fantasy made more for adults, check out Neverwhere (1997). It was one of the best books I read last year.

Re:mmm....Ice Cream

[Otter]

FYI, the name is a play on The Emperor of Ice Cream, by Wallace Stevens.

Hmmm, I was unimpressed by it in high school, but with the advantage of maturity -- I still don't like it.

Neil Gaiman

[lurwas]

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 :)

Re:a plea

[Daniel Dvorkin]

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.

good stuff if old stuff

[mactov]

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.

2004 Hugo Award nominations also announced

[Andy_R]

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.

My Nebula report and more on Cory Doctorow

[Jack William Bell]

My Nebula report is here, on the new Slashcode site TruFen.net.