The finalists for the 2012 Nebula Awards have been announced. SFSignal has been kind enough to post the nominees along with download links, where they're aware of them. (We'll put up a poll for our visitors to pick their choices.) Some notable things:
- It's a fantasy-heavy list, and it's fair to say that there's a "slant towards women and the non white male" (the latter I assume being references to Saladin Ahmed and the estimable Ken Liu), to borrow a phrase from one commenter -- and which ought to help fire up the old "feminization of SF" hullabaloo once again. (And people wonder why there's a "slant"...) Of course, such a slant would be a testable assertion, and I suppose I could actually compile the data in my CST....
- The extremely low-budget Beasts of the Southern Wild is up for film. I still haven't seen this, but from what I can tell it's an open question whether it's magical realism, dystopian post-climate-change SF, or just a little girl from an extremely poor community who has a very particular PoV. Reports I've heard have varied from 'brilliant' and 'moving' to 'dangerous sentimental claptrap' -- I'm a little biased toward the former sight-unseen not least because I love underdogs, & will check it out when i get the chance.
- Speaking of Ken Liu, he's on the list 3 times. This isn't the Oscars, so I don't think that reduces his chance of winning. What I've read of his, I liked.
- Are there always 12 nominess for the Norton? I suppose I could look that up...
- ... and speaking of the Norton, was Railsea actually marketed as YA? Does Miéville need to start sexing it up to get out of the YA ghetto? Would it help? And would we want him to? (Corrupt their minds while they're young, I always say...)
