The 2026 Philip K. Dick Award judges announce a winner

On By janewisemanIn fantastic fantasyLeave a comment

Tonight, Seattle’s Norwescon announced the winner of this year’s Philip K. Dick Award. Judges of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society select the nominees and make the decision. Watch the announcement HERE, as well as readings from each of the nominated works and the acceptance speeches of the winning author and the winner of the Special Citation award.

The winner of the 2026 Philip K. Dick Award is:

Outlaw Planet, by M. R. Carey (Orbit)

cover of 2026 Philip K. Dick award winning novel Outlaw Planet, by M. R. Carey
Find out more HERE.

Congratulations to M. R. Carey for this stand-alone novel set in his Pandominion SF universe. Fans of the author are sure to appreciate it. Those of us come lately to Carey’s fiction might not recognize all the nuance–I didn’t, because I try not to read other reviews and reactions before I form my own opinion–but the novel is absorbing and beautifully put together. Readers will find it a wild and unusual ride.

Kudos to the judges, too, who fielded a rich menu of books (publication year: 2025) so varied in tone and effect that I don’t know how they were able to arrive a decision.

Carey’s truly ingenious double narrative is a worthy choice for the award. Part New Weird neo-Western (with animals), part military SF, Outlaw Planet miraculously unites its two very different halves into a tale reflecting the divisions within our own society. HERE is a review by a reader familiar with Carey’s world-building. HERE is another. They may give you more perspective than my own, which you can read HERE.

Congratulations, too, to Thomas Ha, who won the Special Citation award for his matchless collection of short fiction, Uncertain Sons and Other Stories (Undertow):

cover of short story collection by Thomas Ha, Uncertain Sons and Other Stories
Find out more HERE.

Ha’s hauntingly beautiful explorations of personal and family identity take place in a horrifying universe of invasive alien balloon-like blobs, towns looking for a scapegoat, nightmare carnivals. See my review and comments HERE and HERE.

Next up: My reviews of the nominees for this year’s Nebula Award–Best Novel

2026 Nebula Awards Nominees

On By janewisemanIn fantastic fantasy1 Comment

Today the Science Fiction And Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) announced the short-listed works in all their categories for this year’s Nebula Awards. To see the complete list, go HERE.

I usually review all the books nominated for Best Novel. Here they are:

When We Were Real, by Daryl Gregory (Saga)
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones (Saga; Titan UK)
Katabasis, by R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager US; Harper Voyager UK)
Death of the Author, by Nnedi Okorafor (Morrow; Gollancz)
The Incandescent, by Emily Tesh (Tor; Orbit UK)
Sour Cherry, by Natalia Theodoridou (Tin House; Wildfire)
Wearing the Lion, by John Wiswell (DAW; Arcadia)

Starting now, I’ll read them all before the awards ceremony on June 6, 2026, to take place at the SFWA 61st annual conference, held this year in Chicago. I’ll read them alphabetically by author to keep myself from just diving into the books by familiar names first.

What caught my eye in some of the other categories:

I’ll just mention these. I only wish I had time to read/watch each entry in each of these categories, and all the rest, too, but sadly, I don’t.

  • Annalee Newitz’s Automatic Noodle is nominated for Best Novella–her excellent novel The Terraformers was short-listed for Best Novel in the 2024 Nebula Awards competition, one of the most enjoyable and absorbing novels I’ve read recently. See my review HERE.
  • Thomas Ha’s superb Uncertain Sons is short-listed in the Best Novelette category. It is part of his book Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, nominated for this year’s Philip K. Dick Award. See my review HERE. Ha’s short story, “In My Country,” has also been nominated for the Nebula in the Best Short Story category. It was published in the January 2025 issue of Clarkesworld. I usually only read the books in the novels categories of these awards, but the Philip K. Dick Award nominees were a mixed bag, so I read and reviewed Ha’s book–and how glad I am that I did.
  • Entries for The Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation include an episode of Severance and the whole first season of Murderbot–I enjoyed both immensely. Pluribus and Sinners, also nominated, are both on my must-see list. Three of these nominees are Apple TV+ series. Apple TV+ is on a roll! I wish more people subscribed to it. Not to mention. . . the showrunner of Pluribus is the matchless Vince Gilligan, who gave us two of my all-time favorite series, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul (set in and filmed in Albuquerque, where I spend a lot of my time). Pluribus also stars Rhea Seehorn, one of the two main characters in Better Call Saul. I have to make time to see it! As for Sinners, everyone I know who has seen it says it is superb.

I’m going to get reading now. Are you? This looks like a great list. When I was a kid going to the movies, there was that magical moment when the lights go down, the lion roars, the stirring music swells, and the film begins to roll. I have that feeling right now, thinking about immersing myself in the fictional worlds of these books. As I finish each one, I’ll review it briefly in this blog.

The 2026 Philip K. Dick Award: My own take

On By janewisemanIn fantastic fantasy1 Comment

In less than a month, the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society judges’ decision about the winner of the 2026 Philip K. Dick Award will be announced at Norwescon‘s annual conference on April 3, 2026. I always enjoy reading the short-listed novels for these speculative fiction awards, so if you are doing that too and you’re reading through this list, you have only a few more weeks to finish up.

I also wonder why I have so much fun doing this. Partly it’s because these lists introduce me to great speculative fiction I may have otherwise missed. I’m not all that knowledgeable, just an avid reader encountering some amazing fiction. Yes, I did study literature in grad school, but not THIS literature. I’m enthralled. I want to know more. These lists are part of my self-directed course syllabus, I guess.

Partly, though, I’m always awestruck at the variety of speculative fiction out there, and the variety of ways readers approach it. Not all readers approach it the way I do, and so the judges may very well pick a book that I wouldn’t pick. YOU, dear reader, may very well pick a book I wouldn’t pick.

This list is especially challenging. It’s all apples and oranges. I don’t envy the judges. I just finished judging a statewide poetry contest posing a similar challenge, and I thought I’d lose my mind. But then I, in the privacy of my own head, one individual reader among many, had the luxury of making my own choice for this award. And I found I had no trouble at all.

Again, the Nominees:

I enjoyed six of these books in, I really do believe, six very different ways. One book stood out, though. That book is:

Uncertain Sons and Other Stories by Thomas Ha (Undertow Publications)

cover of Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, by Thomas Ha

You can read my review of it HERE, if you missed it in this series of posts. But really, get yourself a copy and read THAT. It is amazing. If the judges pick Ha’s collection of short fiction, I’ll feel gratified, but they could pick any of the others. You might pick any of the others. After all, it’s not a horse-race, even if these awards have that feel.

One reader of this blog complained I’m contributing to the horse-race atmosphere. I hope not. But he has a point, and also I have real concerns about the gate-keeping that allows one book to be considered for awards and shuts another book out, for reasons completely other than excellence. Anyway, fair point, and of course you can read any, all, or none of these books before, during, or after the judging. But if you read just one. . .

By the way, I am not in any affiliate program, do not benefit financially from this blog, and have no financial interest in any of these books or the outcome of this award. The only thing I do is sometimes–not often–flog my own books.

. . . I’m begging you . . . READ THIS BOOK.