Lorem Ipsum

SFWA has announced the 2004 preliminary Nebula ballot.

I'm pleased at various items on it, but particularly pleased to see two that hadn't quite qualified as of the last Nebula Awards Report: "Arabian Wine," by Gregory Feeley, which was my favorite novella of the ones I read in 2004, and Ben Rosenbaum's short story "Embracing-the-New," which I also liked quite a lot. And, of course, I'm still delighted that Greg van Eekhout's SH story "In the Late December" made the ballot.

There are more than five nominees in each category except Script. The next step is that SFWA Active members will vote, and the Nebula jury will decide whether they want to add one item to the final ballot in each category, and sometime in February or March there'll be a final ballot. Then SFWA Active members will vote again, and the awards will be announced at the Nebula Awards Banquet at the end of April in Chicago.

A few comments on the ballot:

I can't talk about the novels; the only one I've read is Cory's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. I've heard an awful lot of good things about Sean Stewart's Perfect Circle, though. And it's nice to see a Small Beer Press book on the ballot, for the second year in a row. (Last year was Carol Emshwiller's The Mount, which went on to appear on the final ballot.)

I was a little surprised at how many stories from Analog are on the preliminary ballot, but I shouldn't have been; that turns out to happen regularly (though last year there were no Analog stories at all on the ballot. But last year there were fewer stories than usual on the preliminary ballot across the board, for some reason).

Heh—four of last year's Hugo-nominated novellas are on the preliminary Nebula ballot. (The fifth, "Empress of Mars," was on last year's Nebula ballot; Nebula eligibility rules mean that some pieces may show up on the Nebula ballot before they show up on the Hugo ballot, and some after.) None of last year's Hugo-nominated novelettes are on the preliminary Nebula ballot—but one of last year's Hugo-nominated short stories is on the preliminary Nebula ballot in the novelette category.

In the Script category, there are only three nominees; odd.

Anyway. I can't vote in the Nebulas, being only an Associate member of SFWA; but I urge those of you who are Active members to go forth and vote for the final ballot, whether or not you agree with my tastes. More votes means the results will be more representative of what the membership wants.

And another note for Active members: as of a couple weeks ago, the Nebula Awards Report has been turned into an online database that you can search and sort and so on, with a form you can fill in to submit recommendations. It's way cool; go take a look! Apologies to those who can't look at this—it's in the password-protected part of the SFWA site.