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SFWA to publish modified Nebula Awards Report publicly monthly

By Ian Randal Strock

August 27, 2008

Using their new Nebula Awards web site (see this article for more details), the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America is now providing its members (and anyone else interested in looking) with a modified version of their monthly Nebula Awards Report (NAR), which lists works currently recommended for Nebula Awards. This modified NAR will list only the titles and authors' names. Currently available is the August list of novels, on this page. They plan to post such a list at the end of each month (and follow it up with the other categories in a few days). Following the lists, there will be a posting of all the works already qualified for the Preliminary Ballot (that is, those receiving at least 10 recommendations within one calendar year of their first publication).

Editorial comment: the current list of 99 titles, authors, and publishers, seems to be of little use, serving only as a reminder that these books have already elicited at least one member's recommendation each, but no indication of how many or when their eligibility expires. Time will tell if the members find it more useful, or demand its modification.

Comments (2)

Comments

On September 2, 2008, David de Beer said:

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Hi Ian,

yes, the postings to the Nebula site don't currently have any votes or identifying details (names of authors who recommended the work).
For SFWA members themselves, it's easier to access the private NAR from where they add recommendations as they have them. We felt doing it this way might be of interest to non-members who are curious about what the NAR looks like every given month.
So, yeah, this is more for the benefit of non-members than members actually.

We'll see how it goes, and I'm hesitant whether it's a good idea or not to add the votes in as well. Pointing out expiring works might be a good idea, and something I'm not decided on yet.

Thank you for mentioning it, though.

On September 2, 2008, Ian Randal Strock said:

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[Editorial comment:] Good point. I wasn't thinking, but of course the members will use the full report.

For the non-member readers, however, I still question the utility of any list longer than 5 or 10 titles. At the moment, it's just a list of 99 books, which is too many to read, and with no indication of relative or absolute popularity. Perhaps the shorter categories will mean something more.

Readers: what do you think? Is the listing useful?