Nebula

The Nebula Prize is awarded annually for work published last year. To be eligible for review, the work must be published in English in the United States . However, works published in English in other countries of the world are also entitled to be published on a website or in an electronic publication. You do not have to be a U.S. citizen or an SFWA member to receive the award.

Also eligible for the award are works that have been translated into English ^[3] .

Since there are no written rules regarding what kind of work qualifies as science fiction or fantasy , the decision on eligibility in this regard is left to the discretion of the nominees and voters, not members of the SFWA ^[4] .

Award winner receives a trophy but does not receive a cash prize; The trophy is a transparent block with a built-in spiral nebula with sparkles and precious stones carved in the form of planets ^[4] . It was developed for the first J. A. Lawrence awards based on a sketch by Kate Wilhelm and has remained unchanged since then ^[5] .

Nominees and winners of the Nebula Prize are selected by SFWA members, and entries are determined each year from November 15 to February 15 by publication by authors who are members of the organization. Moreover, six works that will receive the largest number of nominations make up the final bulletin. Additional nominations are possible. Members then vote on the ballot throughout March, and the final results are presented at the May award ceremony. Authors are not allowed to nominate their own works, although they may reject the nominations of their works ^[3] .

The idea of ​​the award was proposed by SFWA Secretary-Treasurer Lloyd Biggle Jr. in 1965 ^[5] . The idea was based on the example of the Edgar Alan Poe Prize presented by the “ Mysterious Writers of America ” and served as the basis for the Edgar and Hugo Prize Awards ^[6] . The initial ceremony consisted of four literary awards for novels , short stories , short stories and short stories , which have since been awarded every year. Judy Blish developed the design of the award: a rectangular block of transparent plastic, inside of which there is a quartz crystal and a silver spiral nebula, from where, in fact, the name of the award went - “star nebula”. The first awards were received already in 1966 by works published in 1965.

The Script Award was also presented between 1974 and 1978 in the nominations for Best Drama Presentation and Best Dramatic Writing, and then from 2000 to 2009 as the Best Script, but after 2009 it was again removed and replaced by the Ray Bradbury Prize ^[7] . In 2018, a new category “Writing Games” was added for recording in video and board games ^[8] .

Until 2009, the Nebula Award used a succession system. Each work had the right to vote in one year after the publication date. Due to the re-granting of the right to participate in the competition, it became possible to nominate works in the calendar year after their publication, and then award them during the calendar year after that. Works were added to the preliminary list for a year if they had ten or more nominations, for which they then voted to create the final bulletin ^[9] . In 1970, voters were given the opportunity to choose “no reward” if they thought that none of the nominated works deserved to win; this happened in 1971 in the "Story" category and in 1977 in the "Script" category ^[6] .

Since 1980, the calendar year was chosen for the selection of candidates, and not December-November, as was originally planned, and the SFWA organization group was allowed to add additional work. The authors were also allowed to use the mass publication of their paperback books to start the nomination period, and not immediately in hardcover. Due to the combination of this rule and the succession right of 2007, although they were nominally received for works published in 2006, they were instead awarded to works originally published in 2005. Starting with the 2010 prizes, the paperback succession system and exemption from publication has been replaced by current regulations ^[5] .

• Romance : 40,000 words or more (awarded from 1966 to the present)
• Tale : from 17,500 to 40,000 words (awarded from 1966 to the present)
• Short story : from 7,500 to 17,500 words (awarded from 1966 to the present)
• Story : up to 7,500 words (awarded from 1966 to the present)
• Screenplay: for movie scripts or TV shows (awarded in the years 1974-1978 and 2000-2009).
• Games: writing a video or board game (awarded from 2018 to the present).

Together with Nebula, several other prizes and awards are presented at the award ceremony, although not necessarily every year. Two of these are annual literary awards awarded by SFWA members in the Nebula Newsletter ^[10] : the Andre Norton Prize for Outstanding Science Fiction or Fantasy for Adults, launched in 2006, and the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Drama Presentation, which replaced the award for the best script in 2010 ^{[5] [11]} . And also, since 1975, the “ Grand Master of Fiction named after Damon Knight, ” since 1975, “Honorary Author,” since 1995, “For Contribution in this Field,” the Kevin O'Donnell Jr. Award for service in the SFWA , as well as the award named after Kate Wilhelm since 2009 for a significant influence on speculative fiction ^[11] .

• Nebula Award for Best Novel - Eng. Nebula Award for Best Novel
• Nebula Award for Best Tale - Eng. Nebula Award for Best Novella )
• Nebula Award for Best Short Novelette
• Nebula Award for Best Short Story
• Nebula Award for Best Script

Unlike the Hugo Prize, the Nebula Prize is numbered by the year the work is released. Only SFWA members take part in the vote, not everyone who wants it, as is the case with the Hugo.

Works nominated by at least 10 members of the SFWA are included in the nomination lists. In addition, during the event, sometimes awarded: “ Grand Master Award ” - Grand Master Nebula (“for special lifetime achievements in the field of science fiction”), “ Bradbury Award ” - Ray Bradbury Award (special award for film scripts) and “ Author Emeritus "- a reward to authors who have already survived the peak of fame.

The Nebula Award is a registered trademark of the United States Science Fiction Writers Organization.

The Nebula Award was named one of the “most important American science fiction awards” and the “science fiction and fantastic equivalent” Emmy Award ^[2] . Along with the Hugo Prize, the Nebula Prize is also considered one of the major awards in science fiction. Laura Miller calls it “the most prestigious award for science fiction” and Justine Larbalstier, an Australian writer, in “The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction” (2002), refers to her as “the most famous and most prestigious award of science fiction” ^{[12] [13]} . Brian Aldiss, in his book A Trillion Summer Life: A History of Science Fiction, argued that the Nebula Prize provided a “more literary proposition,” while the Hugo Prize was a barometer of reader popularity rather than artistic merit, although he noted that the winners these awards often coincide ^[14] . David Langford and Peter Nicholls stated in the Science Fiction Encyclopedia (2012) that these two awards were often awarded to the same works, and noted that some critics felt that the choice of the winner reflected “political, not just literary abilities,” and it does not seem that literary talent and popularity are concentrated in the same way as expected ^[5] .

Several people in the publishing industry said that winning a Nebula nomination or being nominated for it affects the author’s career and the sale of this work. Spider Robinson in 1992, quoted in Science Fiction Culture (2000), stated that publishers “pay close attention” to who will receive the Nebula Award ^[15] . Literary agent Richard Curtis said in his 1996 Mastery of Writing that the cover of the term Nebula Award, even as a simple nominee, was a “powerful incentive” for science fiction fans to buy a novel, and Gahan Wilson - in the First World Fantasy Award (1977), he argued that the book that received the Nebula Award on the cover “definitely” increases the sales of this novel ^{[16] [17]} .

There were several anthologies collecting novels that won Nebula in a short series. This series of Nebula Winners, published annually by the SFWA and edited by SFWA members , was launched in 1966 as a collection of short stories for the winners and nominees for this year. Later, in 1999 it was renamed the series " Nebula Awards Showcase " ^[18] . The money from the sale of these collections was intended to pay for the awards themselves ^[5] .

The Best of Nebula Anthology (1989), edited by Ben Bova , brought together all the official Nebula Award winners from 1966 to 1986 who were selected by SFWA members ^[19] . The unofficial collection of novels, which received the Nebula Award (1994), edited by Martin Greenberg, contained ten stories that received the short story prize from 1970 to 1989.

• Official site
• Nebula Prize on the Fantasy Lab website