So I got way off my carefully planned schedule of reading for the Nebula awards. For anyone who may be playing along at home, I didn’t give you assignments for the second and third weeks of the five week program. Sorry! But, this makes it like real grad school. You know the place where they give you an impossible reading load and you can’t face it so you go to the bar instead. For ten weeks? And then you have to read it all anyway?
Well, this is like that, except instead of dry academic monographs, or scientific journal articles, you get to read science fiction and fantasy.
And let’s be honest. Some of my friends have not been reading along at all. Have you? HMMM? Now is not too late to start. The good news is you can eliminate what you don’t like fairly quickly. Read three chapters of a book and then decide whether you need to read the rest. If you don’t feel a compulsion to finish the book after three chapters, can it possibly be your Nebula pick?
And if you do feel a compulsion to finish the book after just three chapters, Congratulations! You’ve found a good book. Enjoy it.
Hopefully you began the voting period having read at least some of the works on the ballot. If not, consider reading more new fiction in 2012 so you can have a head start next year.
As I’ve said before, I am trying to encourage people to read and vote on the Nebulas, because the more that people participate by reading, nominating, and voting, the more meaningful and special the award is for everyone. The more it represents the best of our genre.
I’m dividing the remaining works into two batches. One is for this week. One is for next week. Then vote!
Novels (read at least three chapters):
Novella:
- “The Ice Owl,” Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy andScience Fiction, November/December 2011)
- “The Man Who Bridged the Mist,” Kij Johnson (Asimov’s Science Fiction, October/November 2011)
- “Sauerkraut Station,” Ferrett Steinmetz (Giganotosaurus, November 2011)
- “Six Months, Three Days,” Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com, June 2011)
- “The Migratory Pattern of Dancers,” Katherine Sparrow (Giganotosaurus, July 2011)
- “Mama, We are Zhenya, Your Son,” Tom Crosshill (Lightspeed Magazine, April 2011)
- “Movement,” Nancy Fulda (Asimov’s Science Fiction, March 2011)
- “Shipbirth,” Aliette de Bodard (Asimov’s Science Fiction, February 2011)
- Doctor Who: “The Doctor’s Wife,” Neil Gaiman (writer), Richard Clark (director) (BBC Wales)
- Hugo, John Logan (writer), Martin Scorsese (director) (Paramount)
- Chime, Franny Billingsley (Dial Books; Bloomsbury)
- Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Hodder & Stoughton)
- Everybody Sees the Ants, A.S. King (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)