Finalists for the 60th Nebula Awards

March 12, 2025 8:42 PM

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association has announced the finalists for the Nebula Awards.

All finalists for Novelette are available online:

• "The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video," Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld)
• "Katya Vasilievna and the Second Drowning of Baba Rechka," Christine Hanolsy (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
• "Another Girl Under the Iron Bell," Angela Liu (Uncanny)
• "What Any Dead Thing Wants," Aimee Ogden (Psychopomp)
• "Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being," A. W. Prihandita (Clarkesworld)
• "Joanna's Bodies," Eugenia Triantafyllou (Psychopomp)
• "Loneliness Universe," Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny)

Most finalists for Short Story are available online:

• "The Witch Trap," Jennifer Hudak (Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet)
• "Five Views of the Planet Tartarus," Rachael K. Jones (Lightspeed Magazine)
• "Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole," Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld) -- Previously on Metafilter
• "Evan: A Remainder," Jordan Kurella (Reactor)
• "The V*mpire," by PH Lee (Reactor)
• "We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read," Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed Magazine) -- Previously on Metafilter

Finalists for Novel:

• Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory, Yaroslav Barsukov (Caezik SF & Fantasy) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph
• Rakesfall, Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom and Solaris UK) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph
• Asunder, Kerstin Hall (Tordotcom) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph
• A Sorceress Comes to Call, T. Kingfisher (Tor and Titan UK) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph
• The Book of Love, Kelly Link (Random House, Ad Astra UK, and Arcadia UK) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph
• Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell (Quercus and DAW) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph

Finalists for Novella:

• "The Butcher and the Forest," Premee Mohamed (Tordotcom and Titan UK) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph
• "The Tusks of Extinction," Ray Nayler (Tordotcom) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph
• "Lost Ark Dreaming," Suyi Davies Okungbowa (Tordotcom) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph
• "Countess," Suzan Palumbo (ECW) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph
• "The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain," Sofia Samatar (Tordotcom) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph
• "The Dragonfly Gambit," A. D. Sui (Neon Hemlock) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph

Finalists for the Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction:

• Daydreamer, Rob Cameron (Labyrinth Road) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph
• Braided, Leah Cypess (Delacorte) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph
• Benny Ramírez and the Nearly Departed, José Pablo Iriarte (Knopf) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph
• Puzzleheart, Jenn Reese (Henry Holt) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph
• Moonstorm, Yoon Ha Lee (Delacorte and Solaris UK) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph
• The Young Necromancer's Guide to Ghosts, Vanessa Ricci-Thode (Self) -- Goodreads / StoryGraph

Some Finalists for Game Writing are available online:

• A Death in Hyperspace, Stewart C Baker, Phoebe Barton, James Beamon, Kate Heartfield, Isabel J. Kim, Sara S. Messenger, Naca Rat, Natalia Theodoridou, and Merc Fenn Wolfmoor (Infomancy.net)
• Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, Hidetaka Miyazaki
• The Ghost and the Golem, Benjamin Rosenbaum
• Pacific Drive, Karrie Shao and Alexander Dracott
• 1000xRESIST, Remy Siu, Pinki Li, and Conor Wylie
• Restore, Reflect, Retry, Natalia Theodoridou -- Previously on Metafilter
• Slay the Princess — The Pristine Cut, Tony Howard-Arias, Abby Howard (Black Tabby Games) -- Previously on Fanfare
• Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast, Jay Dragon, M Veselak, Mercedes Acosta, Lillie J. Harris (Possum Creek Games) -- Previously on Metafilter

Finalists for the Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

• Doctor Who: "Dot and Bubble," Russell T. Davies (BBC) -- Previously on Fanfare
• Dune: Part Two, Jon Spaihts and Denis Villeneuve (Warner Bros) -- Previously on Fanfare
• I Saw the TV Glow, Jane Schoenbrun (A24 Films LLC) -- Previously on Fanfare
• KAOS, Charlie Covell and Georgia Christou (Netflix) -- Previously on Fanfare
• Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5, Mike McMahan (Paramount+) -- Previously on Fanfare
• Wicked, Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox (Universal Pictures) -- Previously on Fanfare

In other SF/F award news, nominations for the Hugo Awards will be open through March 14 (membership required), polling for the Locus Awards will be open through April 15 (anyone can submit; subscribers count more), and the Otherwise Award will be taking recommendations through late 2025 (last year's submission list is online).

posted by Wobbuffet (12 comments total)

Typo alert: it's "The Butcher of the Forest" not and, which is a significant change in meaning.

ooh, i haven't read Countess. [ pops onto TPL.ca ] i will.

At this point I'd vote for Novel / Asunder and Novella / The Butcher of the Forest.

Preemee Mohamed is a Canadian treasure. (And if you're in Canada, and get her books from the library, she gets paid per check-out via the Public Lending Right program)
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:25 AM on March 13 [6 favorites]

I don't read enough new stuff to have kept up with all the short stories -- to say nothing of the longer books -- and I am so, so grateful every time someone gathers together links to the nominees. Bless you, Wobbuffet!

The Incomparable podcast's Book Club does a few episodes each year where they try to read the Hugo & Nebula nominees, but they often confess that they can't get to all of them, either -- so I am in good company.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:04 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]

The Nebulas are an award I find doesn't always align with my tastes but the nominee list is always interesting. I'm so proud of my buddy John Wiswell for his debut novel making the list! (It is an incredibly weird and also warmhearted and delightful ace sapphic monster romance with bonus fucked-up abusive family dynamics.)
posted by restless_nomad at 6:07 AM on March 13 [5 favorites]

These look exciting! I have hardly read any of them - it's been a bad year for me and contemporary SF - but I've started Rakesfall, which is really good. For the second year in a row, I will say that it is so fucking bizarre to see a writer I'd admired for many, many years rise from relative obscurity to real fame and significance over about eighteen months. No one I admire ever rises to fame. Anyway, if you like Chandrasekera, I highly, highly recommend the short stories linked from his website.

If for some reason there is some kind of lurking famous and connected SFnal person reading this thread, you know what the public longs for? A collection of all his short stories. We would enjoy that very much. We would purchase it in hardcover so that we had a permanent and durable copy.

~~~
I also read A Sorceress Comes To Call, which is extremely creepy but still pretty light so to speak. I wish there was a light SF category - it would get argued about all the time, but it would solve the problem (that I have) where sure, for instance, I like Kingfisher's books quite well, but I would never pick one as better than The Saint of Bright Doors or something more serious. They just don't have as much to say. And that's fine! They've gotten me through some tough times, I am agog to know how the Saint of Steel died, I do not need philosophical epiphanies with every page.

~~~
Seems like a lot of horror-inflected stuff in SFF in general lately. These are horrifying times, have to admit.
posted by Frowner at 6:26 AM on March 13 [7 favorites]

Weird, Severance is by far the best SF show in ages, and doesn't get nominated. Maybe there are arcane rules for this.
posted by dhruva at 7:44 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]

Severance season 2 would be eligible for the 2025 awards; episode one dropped in January.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:57 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]

So the Nebs are based on nominations from SFWA members - it's a small nominator pool and the results are always interesting to compare to the Hugos, which is still a comparatively small nominating pool but (I believe) quite a bit larger. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Severance showed up on the latter shortlist.
posted by restless_nomad at 8:02 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]

Rakesfall has been a bit of a slog for me, I put it on hold and switched to Exordia by Seth Dickinson
posted by dhruva at 8:17 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]

Heh, that will be so much zippier I'm sure.

(I really liked Exordia but wow is it A Lot.)
posted by restless_nomad at 8:55 AM on March 13 [2 favorites]

Something I missed last night that r/Fantasy got right: Jennifer Hudak has made "The Witch Trap" available too, so all short story finalists are online.

Thanks for the correction on "The Butcher of the Forest." That one came from SFWA, and they've fixed it plus a couple of more minor things overnight.
posted by Wobbuffet at 9:36 AM on March 13

Doing the “I haven’t read all of these and now I have a bunch of exciting holds at the library” dance, thanks!
posted by lepus at 11:15 AM on March 13 [5 favorites]

"Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole," by Isabel J. Kim is absolute fire.
posted by jokeefe at 3:12 PM on March 13 [4 favorites]