Great choice for the Best Novel award, Nebula voters! See my review HERE. (I keep calling these awards the 2026 Nebula Awards, when they’re actually the 2025 awards, because they are given to works published or produced in 2025.)

The cover of this amazing novel tells you a lot. Look at the old-timey type used for most of the title. Except that second “Hunter”–written in a smear of blood. I hope there’s also an award for great book covers somewhere, and that this novel wins it.

This is the kind of book that stays with you. It’s the kind of book that is not just fun to read but it is actually IMPORTANT THAT YOU READ IT. I’m talking to you, Americans–but I’m sure it has great appeal to readers worldwide, as well. The problems of genocide cross all borders. And vampires can live forever or, um, stay undead, vengefully biding their time.

By the way, thinking of my recent posts about the animal-human bond, the animals in this novel are great. I am a member of the Weasel Plume fan club for sure. I need to order my Weasel Plume teeshirt.

I did read randomly around in the other Nebula categories. Wish I had had the time to read/watch all the nominated works. I was able to get to some of them, though. I was pleased to see that Thomas Ha won the Best Novelette award for his beautifully written, disturbingly eerie Uncertain Sons. So well-deserved. See my review HERE. Get his book, everyone–the prize-winning novelette is the culminating story in a collection of some of Ha’s other great shorter fiction.

And I chuckled to see that the first season of the Apple TV+ streaming series Murderbot, based on the beloved Martha Wells series, won the Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation. I chuckle whenever I think of Murderbot, and whenever I re-watch it–a guilty pleasure–I laugh out loud. Another great choice. I can’t wait for season two. (Quick promo, not paid for by Apple TV+: you must subscribe to its streaming service. It has all the great stuff, including the Nebula-nominated Severance and Pluribus.) A shout-out, too, to Ryan Coogler’s nominated–and astounding–film Sinners. Go watch that movie.

That said. . . so many other deserving books, shorter-form fiction, and video projects did not walk away with awards. So many of them could have won. I couldn’t read/watch them all, but of the ones I did, I found not a dud in the bunch. The field was that strong.