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The Nebula Awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. The awards are organized and awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers.[1]
(Some might argue the Hugo Awards are the more prestigious awards in science fiction, as they are international awards. But, voting for a Hugo only requires membership in the World Science Fiction Society, which anyone can join. The 2017 Hugos will be presented at the 75th Worldcon, Worldcon 75, in Helsinki, Finland, on August 12, 2017.)
The SFWA just announced this year's Nebula awards, honoring works published in 2016. This year's winners are:
Best Novel: All the Birds in the Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders
Best Novella: Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire
Best Novelette: "The Long Fall Up", by William Ledbetter
Best Short Story: "Seasons of Glass and Iron", by Amal El-Mohtar
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation: Arrival, Directed by Denis Villeneuve, Screenplay by Eric Heisserer
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy: Arabella of Mars, by David D. Levine
The nominees for these awards are listed at the above SFWA link.
[1] Wikipedia.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 26 2017, @03:11PM (7 children)
Any recommendations for recent SF, preferrably hard SF?
Sure! Stick with stuff that's decades old. SF is dead now, along with every other form of entertainment: movies, music, etc. There's a few gems these days, but they're very rare. Game of Thrones is a good example here, but of course that too is fantasy. SF is pretty much gone now, so just collect older stuff and re-watch or re-read that. Same goes for most other media and genres.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @06:49PM
Science Fiction isn't dead. Just look at stories like "The Martian."
I'll agree that it's less common than in the past, though. It's just like how the "Mystery" genre has evolved away from having... you know... mysteries in them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by butthurt on Friday May 26 2017, @10:19PM (2 children)
Someone (I forget who) remarked that we tend to forget the dreck of the distant past, while noticing current dreck. Besides that, we probably tend to preserve the best works of the past and discard the dreck.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday May 27 2017, @01:25AM (1 child)
Yeah, that''s the ol' "95% of everything is crap" thing. The problem is, there is a such thing as a "heyday", or "golden era". So, for instance, let's look at "hair metal" or "glam metal", in case you like that sort of thing. It only really existed in the 1980s, with bands like Motley Crue, Poison, RATT, Bon Jovi, etc. It hadn't yet evolved before the early 80s (KISS was probably the forerunner, going back to the mid 70s), and it died out in the early 90s. There are no such bands any more, except maybe a few of those same bands trying to milk the nostalgia factor for a continued living. There's certainly no such new bands now.
For sci-fi books, maybe I'm out of touch but I don't think so based on these awards in the last decade or so: you just don't see stuff like Heinlein, Pohl, Clarke, Herbert, etc. any more. Sure, there was dreck back then too, I'm not disputing that, but there were some real shining stars too. Where's the shining stars today? They don't exist.
This isn't to say that everything is bad these days. Fantasy movies/TV are a lot better than the 80s and before, for instance. We have Game of Thrones now which is a huge hit, in the last decade we had LotR movies. What did we have like that decades ago? Probably the closest was Conan, and a few other rather silly movies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @03:24PM
> Where's the shining stars today? They don't exist.
China Miéville
Paolo Bacigalupi
Lois McMaster Bujold
Neal Stephenson
N. K. Jemisin
> So, for instance, let's look at "hair metal"
Its crazy funny that you would make an analogy to music. Literally the most stereotypical form of entertainment where old people bemoan the lack of quality in the new generation. If you don't watch yourself, pretty soon you'll be yelling at the kids to get off your lawn.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday May 28 2017, @05:17PM (2 children)
Ah, the "golden age". Kids today seem to be in love with fantasy and dystopia. As to old books, there are so many that have been written that it would be physically impossible to read all of them; there are over 50,000 at Gutenberg alone. Asimov wrote over 500 on his own, although a number of them are nonfiction.
Also, I remember reading some real clunkers back in the day (like "1984", although I enjoyed "Animal House").
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 30 2017, @02:49AM (1 child)
The kids are into dystopia, yes: you can see that with the movies that clearly cater to young people, like Hunger Games and Divergent.
However, if by "fantasy" you're referring to Game of Thrones, that's not something catering to kids at all, that's a phenomenon that cuts across age groups, and if anything seems to be clearly for adults (25+). Most of the people I know who I would talk to about such things love GoT, and they're all 30+ and even over 50. I can't even count all the women I saw on online dating sites listing GoT as one of their current interests, and these were all in their 30s-40s. GoT is definitely not for teenagers; its actors aren't that young (a few are, but not that many), and the themes and plot aren't simplistic enough for teens by a long shot.
I think the preoccupation with dystopia is apt, though: it shows what that generation sees in the future, and it isn't pretty. It's probably not that accurate though: those dystopian stories still show a functioning society of sorts, with technology. I think the future is going to look a lot more like "The Walking Dead" or "28 Days Later" or maybe that TV show "Jeremiah" or perhaps "Mad Max".
1984 wasn't a clunker. It might seem a bit clunky from a modern point-of-view because it clearly failed in predicting technologies, and it was overly pessimistic with its timeline (just like optimistic sci-fi like "2001" predicted good developments happening 50-100 years too early, "1984" predicted bad developments happening at least several decades too early). But 1984 made some good points, such as how controlling language can control people's thinking, and the whole bit about manufactured wars and a constant state of war.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday May 30 2017, @02:02PM
I never watched Game of Thrones, as I'm not into fantasy, but I did take a photo of my daughter sitting on the throne. It was the 1960s when I read 1984, and what turned me off was the dystopia itself.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org