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.