Hold on to your galactic blasters and gather up your space dragons—the finalists for the 56th annual Nebula Awards have been announced and they are out of this world! The awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. They have been voted on, and presented by, full members of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. since 1966. An anthology including the winning pieces of short fiction and several runners-up is also published every year.
The announcements were streamed live with host SFWA President and SAG-AFTRA performer Mary Robinette Kowal, and featured live excerpt readings of many of the nominated works by several talented voice actors.
This year’s winners will be announced at the 56th Annual Nebula Awards ceremony during the 2021 Nebula Conference Online, which is June 4–6, 2021. It is open to Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America members and nonmembers and will be taking place entirely online for the second year in a row. (Because, you know, pandemic.) Past winners of the awards include N.K. Jemisin, Charlie Jane Anders, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Jeff VanderMeer.
And now here are all the amazing finalists for the 2020 Nebula Awards—congratulations to all the nominees!
Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction
Best Short Story
“Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse” by Rae Carson
“Advanced Word Problems in Portal Math” by Aimee Picchi
“A Guide for Working Breeds” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad
“The Eight-Thousanders” by Jason Sandford
“My Country is a Ghost” by Eugenia Triantafyllou
“Open House on Haunted Hill” by John Wiswell
Best Game Writing
Blaseball by Stephen Bell, Joel Clark, and Sam Rosenthal
Hades by Greg Kasavin
The Luminous Underground by Phoebe Barton
Kentucky Route Zero by Jake Elliott
Scents & Semiosis by Sam Kabo Ashwell, Cat Manning, Yoon Ha Lee, and Caleb Wilson
Spiritfarer by Nicolas Guérin, Maxime Monast, and Alex Tommi-Morin
Best Novella
Best Novelette
“Stepsister” by Leah Cypress
“The Pill” by Meg Elison
“Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super” by A. T. Greenblatt
“Two Truths and a Lie” by Sarah Pinsker
“Where You Linger” by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
“Shadow Prisons” by Caroline Yoachim
Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn by Christina Hodson, Warner Bros. Pictures
The Expanse: “Gaugamela” by Dan Nowak, Amazon Prime
The Good Place: “Whenever You’re Ready” by Michael Schur, NBC
Lovecraft Country, Season 1 by Misha Green, Shannon Houston, Kevin Lau, Wes Taylor, Ihuoma Ofordire, Jonathan I. Kidd, Sonya Winton-Odamtten, HBO Max
The Mandalorian: “The Tragedy” by Jon Favreau, Disney
The Old Guard by Greg Rucka, Netflix