Some recommendations for those trying to catch up with the Nebula nominee list
Amazon's Omnivoracious blog
http://www.omnivoracious.com/2011/02/the-2010-nebula-award-finalists-trending-personal-trending-next-gen.html
has a post about the 2010 Nebula nominees
http://www.sfwa.org/2011/02/2010-nebula-nominees/ .
which contains some lovely comments by some of the authors about their stories.
I personally am currently reading and enjoying _The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms_ by N.K. Jemisin, with whom I was on a Panel at Readercon last year. I've been mostly off fantasy in the past few years--all those pretty people with their pretty hair and pretty jewel-colored eyes and pretty clothes and magical consumer goods got to be pretty predictable--but this novel manages to shrug off a lot of the cliches. (Note that this book and the next book in the trilogy--which features a blind female artist--are both available on Bookshare.org).
The Omnivoracious blog post also has some lovely comments about
"The Green Book" by Amal El-Mothar
http://www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-online/2010/11/short-fiction-the-green-book-by-amal-el-mohtar/
which I mentioned earlier this week (yes, imaginary books are definitley one of my narrative fetishes).
the novella
"The Lifecycle of Software Objects" by Ted Chiang
http://www.subterraneanpress.com/index.php/magazine/fall-2010/fiction-the-lifecycle-of-software-objects-by-ted-chiang/
is a powerful story about how humans who become emotionally attached to their AI pets in an online environment nurture those AI over a span of years. What I found particularly intriguing in this story was it's repeated references to children with disabilities as a framework for how the humans thought of their AI "children."
While I usually plow through Scott Westerfeld's books, I've repeatedly failed to manage to get through the first book of his Liviathan series, and I'm embarraased to admit that I actually spent hours of my life which I will never get back on the doorstop duet by Connie Willis. The fact that this book, with its confused plot, glacially slow pacing, incredibly stupid and annoying characters, and thousand pages which begged for an editor, was nominated for an award doesn't so much surprise me as support my suspicion that some nominations are made more for nostalgia's sake than for quality.
What was missing: how about China Mieville's _Kraken_?
http://www.omnivoracious.com/2011/02/the-2010-nebula-award-finalists-trending-personal-trending-next-gen.html
has a post about the 2010 Nebula nominees
http://www.sfwa.org/2011/02/2010-nebula-nominees/ .
which contains some lovely comments by some of the authors about their stories.
I personally am currently reading and enjoying _The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms_ by N.K. Jemisin, with whom I was on a Panel at Readercon last year. I've been mostly off fantasy in the past few years--all those pretty people with their pretty hair and pretty jewel-colored eyes and pretty clothes and magical consumer goods got to be pretty predictable--but this novel manages to shrug off a lot of the cliches. (Note that this book and the next book in the trilogy--which features a blind female artist--are both available on Bookshare.org).
The Omnivoracious blog post also has some lovely comments about
"The Green Book" by Amal El-Mothar
http://www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-online/2010/11/short-fiction-the-green-book-by-amal-el-mohtar/
which I mentioned earlier this week (yes, imaginary books are definitley one of my narrative fetishes).
the novella
"The Lifecycle of Software Objects" by Ted Chiang
http://www.subterraneanpress.com/index.php/magazine/fall-2010/fiction-the-lifecycle-of-software-objects-by-ted-chiang/
is a powerful story about how humans who become emotionally attached to their AI pets in an online environment nurture those AI over a span of years. What I found particularly intriguing in this story was it's repeated references to children with disabilities as a framework for how the humans thought of their AI "children."
While I usually plow through Scott Westerfeld's books, I've repeatedly failed to manage to get through the first book of his Liviathan series, and I'm embarraased to admit that I actually spent hours of my life which I will never get back on the doorstop duet by Connie Willis. The fact that this book, with its confused plot, glacially slow pacing, incredibly stupid and annoying characters, and thousand pages which begged for an editor, was nominated for an award doesn't so much surprise me as support my suspicion that some nominations are made more for nostalgia's sake than for quality.
What was missing: how about China Mieville's _Kraken_?