2014 Nebula Award Winners Announced 52
Dave Knott writes: The winners of the 2014 Nebula awards (presented 2015) have been announced. The awards are voted on by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and (along with the Hugos) are considered to be one of the two most prestigious awards in science fiction.
This year's winners are:
Best Novel: Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer
Best Novella: Yesterday's Kin, Nancy Kress
Best Novelette: "A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai'i", Alaya Dawn Johnson
Best Short Story: "Jackalope Wives", Ursula Vernon
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation: Guardians of the Galaxy, directed by James Gunn
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy: Love Is the Drug, Alaya Dawn Johnson
2015 Damon Knight Grand Master Award: Larry Niven
Solstice Award: Joanna Russ (posthumous), Stanley Schmidt
Kevin O'Donnell Jr. Service Award: Jeffry Dwight
Best Novel: Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer
Best Novella: Yesterday's Kin, Nancy Kress
Best Novelette: "A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai'i", Alaya Dawn Johnson
Best Short Story: "Jackalope Wives", Ursula Vernon
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation: Guardians of the Galaxy, directed by James Gunn
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy: Love Is the Drug, Alaya Dawn Johnson
2015 Damon Knight Grand Master Award: Larry Niven
Solstice Award: Joanna Russ (posthumous), Stanley Schmidt
Kevin O'Donnell Jr. Service Award: Jeffry Dwight
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Having a constitution, accredited ambassadors and a seat in the U.N. does not prevent the US from spying on all its citizens and strip searching travelers and jailing people who own the wrong chemicals.
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As though stepping through an airport scanner compares to being thrown off a roof for one's sexual orientation.Small wonder that everyone is laughing at the moral equivalence liberals.
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As though stepping through an airport scanner compares to being thrown off a roof for one's sexual orientation.Small wonder that everyone is laughing at the moral equivalence liberals.
And what you describe (i.e., invalidating any rightful criticism of Muslims, with this -ridiculous in my opinion- "moral equivalence") is always ridiculed by those unfortunate to live among, and inevitably oppressed by, Muslims!
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FTFY
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nope, i'd say libertarians don't really care what other people do over there, it's their own rights they're concerned about.
get your own house in order... and all that.
the liberals say, don't criticize, it's a cultural difference, the abnegation of their own moral standards to the altar of moral relativity.
and the conservatives say, hey that's wrong... but protect your own people first, and that over there, is not my responsibility.
as the west wing put so humorously.
"Republicans want a huge military but th
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So, nothing to do with what GP was talking about then?
"Republicans want a huge military but they don't want to send it anywhere. The Democrats wants a small military and they want to send it everywhere."
That was a cute joke in the 90s. Sadly, recent history's kinda fucked that up, no?
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"Republicans want a huge military but they don't want to send it anywhere. The Democrats wants a small military and they want to send it everywhere."
Were you in a coma between 2001 and 2009?
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overwhelming majorities in both houses.
we don't have distance to view that decade through the long lens of history yet.
i'd say the idea still describes the character of the two parties during normal decades.
give it a bit more time, though it's a tiny tiny amount, we've still got war fatigue... or pocketbook fatigue at least.
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How many people have been released from Guantánamo Bay without charge after multiple years of enforced captivity?
Re:Most bloodthirsty fiction (Score:4, Informative)
You stay anonymous with all that hate, the rest of us will keep civilization afloat.
Seriously, Nancy Kress?
I gotta go with you on the Nancy Kress nominee. A spacefaring disease that floats through space as a spore cloud is a stretch. You need to start with panspermia or convergent evolution to even start to think about it. Then there is the whole traveling interstellar distances and it targeting compatible worlds.
Note I am biased, I haven't cared for her work since Beggars in Spain, which also completely broke suspension of disbelief.
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Or the thread (as in 'thread from the sky', not this kind of thread) in the Anne McCaffery Pern [wikipedia.org] novels.
Nebulous award (Score:4, Funny)
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Larry Niven (Score:5, Insightful)
'bout damn time.
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TANJ. Or at least, there's justice now.
OTOH I read the award as "Knight Grand Master" and I had to check if this was the Nebula awards or something else.
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I guess that the "Damon Knight Grand Master Award" is some sort of lifetime achievement award. [Googles]
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I disliked "Bowl of Heaven" enough that I'm not going to bother with the sequel. I was expecting something much better from Niven and Benford. The astoundingly poor (or non-existent) editing really killed it for me, too.
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IMHO, Niven by himself is pretty awesome. Niven in collaboration? Not so much (with exceptions for Jerry Pournelle, but not for all of them).
Steven Barnes? Forget it.
But for "Ringworld" and "Ringworld Engineers", and the rest of Known Space; if he'd done nothing else with his life he still deserved the award.
AC
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The Southern Reach Trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance) is pretty good. Not space monsters or aliens, but well written and entertaining.
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The problem is, it ends without answers - which seems to be an issue with many authors these days (Alastair Reynolds, I'm looking at you - several good concepts either dropped or petering out). Why does this seem to be a trend these days?
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Huh? That's the best response I can give without using spoilers but I'm not sure you've read all 3 books.
As for the series I'm not sure I liked all of it, the later two books certainly dragged on slightly too long and probably should have been compressed into one novel. However the series as a whole, especially the first book, certainly know how to generate an incredibly creepy atmosphere with everyone lost in a strange world of paranoia and genuine weirdness.
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The protagonists seem to be making the same dumb choices the teenagers do in the haunted house that gets them killed.
Maybe it's good, but the summary didn't entice me to look further into it.
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Just read the summary at the link, but it feels to me like it's the plot of a horror B movie. The protagonists seem to be making the same dumb choices the teenagers do in the haunted house that gets them killed. Maybe it's good, but the summary didn't entice me to look further into it.
Judging a book by its blurb is only one step up from judging it by its cover.
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Plenty of good books (Ursula Le Guin, Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, Terry Pratchett, David Mitchell, Susanna Clarke, Joe Haldeman...) over the last decade on that list. What do you think is 'worth reading'?
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Ursula Le Guin's 'Lathe of Heaven' (I waited for the movie) was freaky and I liked it. Anything that takes you out of your headspace is good.
I'm old school though. I'd rather re-read something I know I've forgotten than venture out there for stabs in the dark as often disappointment follows.
These awards should be for those writers that can do this. There is no harm in not giving an award if it is undeserved.
Met a couple of the Jurists (Score:4)
I met a couple of the Nebula folks at the Chicago Printer's Row Lit Fest yesterday. Very nice people, with a genuine interest in Sci Fi and deep knowledge of the Genre.
A really nice change from the Hugo acrimony of weeks past. I'm delighted to see Niven in there ... he's certainly waited long enough! I'm even more delighted to see a number of books I haven't read yet winning ... looks like my pile of summer reading just got higher.
Gratifying (Score:3, Interesting)
Niven was a major influence on me as a budding SF author, and Schmidt was my editor on several Analog stories. Plus, Damon Knight was one of my instructors at Clarion back in 19[mumble][mumble].
Very satisfying.
You know its a bad year when... (Score:2)
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation: Guardians of the Galaxy, directed by James Gunn
One guy wants something for some poorly explained reason. His boss yells at him. Fight a lot, do stupid things to fight back. Power of friendship wins. The end.
Seriously, this was a Littlest Pony episode with bad in-jokes and worse acting. There wasn't a single other movie or TV show they could choose over this?
Remind me to not read the various winners.
Nancy Kress? (Score:2)
Stopped reading her when she gave her super-genius Sleepless the idiot ball. Doubt she's improved.
next years' award, advance copy (Score:1)
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2015 Best Novel: Seveneves, Neal Stephenson
2015 Longest Novel: Seveneves, Neal Stephenson.
Hopefully I'll have it finished by 2016 when they announce the result.