2019/2020 Nebula And Hugo Awards

Ever since I started this blog I’ve wanted to make an effort to read not just the major SFF award winners, but also those books and stories nominated for an award. This year I’m hoping to finally do that by starting a new challenge on my blog…The Award Nominee Challenge. What is this you ask? Well, I’m selecting a few major awards (Nebula and Hugo to start) and will attempt to read the nominees in the Best Novel, Best Novella, and Best Short Story categories. I’m also going to read the finalists for the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off (#SPFBO).

What you’ll find below are the nominees in each category for the Nebula and Hugo awards. As I review each story I’ll link to the review here as well and note my rating. Stories I’ve read but not yet reviewed will be noted with a * at the end of the entry. There’s no way I’ll read and review each story before the awards are announced, but that’s fine. I’m giving myself till the end of the year to do it. Some entries require prior reading in a series and may complicate my timing. We’ll see in the end if I agree with which stories won. But even if I don’t it should make for some good reading.

For now I’m keeping the Nebula and Hugo awards together on one page. I may split them out later. For those who don’t know, The Nebula Awards are chosen by members of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), and the Hugo Awards are chosen by members of the previous and current Worldcon and open to anyone who pays for a conference membership.

Nebula Awards

Best Novel

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  • Marque of Caine by Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
  • The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow (Redhook), 5 Stars
  • A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine (Tor)
  • Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey)
  • Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com)
  • A Song for a New Day, by Sarah Pinsker (Berkley)

Best Novella

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  • “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom” by Ted Chiang (Knopf)
  • The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. DjèlÍ Clark (Tor.com) 4 Stars
  • This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (Saga Press) 5 Stars
  • Her Silhouette, Drawn In Water by Vylar Kaftan (Tor.com)
  • The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes (Saga Press) 3.5 Stars
  • Catfish Lullaby by A C Wise (Broken Eye Books)

Note: The Novella “Anxiety Is The Dizziness of Freedom” is found in the collection of stories in the book Exhalation, and was apparently not published on its own.

Best Short Story

  • “Give The Family My Love” by A.T. Greenblatt (Clarkesworld)
  • “The Dead, In Their Uncontrollable Power” by Karen Osborne (Uncanny)
  • “And Now His Lordship Is Laughing” by Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons)
  • “Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island” by Nibedita Sen (Nightmare Magazine)
  • “A Catalog of Storms” by Fran Wilde (Uncanny) *
  • “How the Trick Is Done” by A C Wise (Uncanny)

Hugo Awards

Best Novel

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  • The City in the Middle of the Night, by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor)
  • Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com)
  • The Light Brigade, by Kameron Hurley (Saga) *
  • A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine (Tor)
  • Middlegame, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com)
  • The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow (Redhook), 5 Stars

Best Novella

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  • “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom”, by Ted Chiang (Knopf)
  • The Deep by Rivers, by Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes (Saga Press) 3.5 Stars
  • The Haunting of Tram Car 015, by P. DjèlÍ Clark (Tor.com) 4 Stars
  • In an Absent Dream, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com)
  • This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (Saga Press) 5 Stars
  • To Be Taught, If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager)

Note: The Novella “Anxiety Is The Dizziness of Freedom” is found in the collection of stories in the book Exhalation, and was apparently not published on its own.

Best Short Story

  • “And Now His Lordship Is Laughing”, by Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons)
  • “As the Last I May Know”, by S.L. Huang (Tor.com)
  • “Blood Is Another Word for Hunger”, by Rivers Solomon (Tor.com)
  • “A Catalog of Storms”, by Fran Wilde (Uncanny Magazine) *
  • “Do Not Look Back, My Lion”, By Alix E. Harrow (Beneath Ceaseless Skies) *
  • “Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island”, by Nibedita Sen (Nightmare Magazine)

Entries marked with an * indicate stories I’ve read but not yet reviewed.