Nebula Best Short Story Nominees 2008

April 2, 2009 8:29 AM

StarshipSofa has podcasted all of the Nebula Best Short Story Nominees for 2008, following on from podcasting all but one of the 2008 BSFA short story nominees. Previous StarshipSofa.
posted by Artw (12 comments total)

The missing BSFA story - 'Crystal Nights' by Greg Egan - is available as a podcast from Transmissions from Beyond.
posted by ninebelow at 8:39 AM on April 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

Actually, I should have mentioned that all the BSFA award stories are available as text downloads:

'Exhalation' by Ted Chiang (Eclipse 2)
'Crystal Nights' by Greg Egan (Interzone 215)
'Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment' by M. Rickert (F&SF, Oct/Nov 2008)
'Little Lost Robot' by Paul McAuley (Interzone 217)
posted by ninebelow at 8:43 AM on April 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

I subscribed to SS for a long time only for the host's hilariously awesome accent. If he's got both Ted Chiang AND Greg Egan now....damn, I have to get back on that.
posted by DU at 8:45 AM on April 2, 2009

Actually no, he didn't get Greg Egan. And he was quite snippy about it, the only thing that really mars the work he's done here, which is great.
posted by Artw at 8:46 AM on April 2, 2009

More stuff to drop into my to-listen folder.

Used to really liked SSS but when the other bloke left and in stead of overviews of various pulp sf writers and became more about the adventures of host's, frankly vicious sounding, dogs and tales of time he smashed his own face in when he collapsed at work I dropped it off my podcatcher; only downloading the odd thing of interest (like the award stuff linked)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:09 AM on April 2, 2009

Yeah, I see a lot of excuses for going for a walk in my future.
posted by Artw at 9:17 AM on April 2, 2009

If you're having trouble with the iTunes links or iTunes is not your bag go to the main site and scroll down, you should see direct links to the mp3s.
posted by Artw at 9:35 AM on April 2, 2009

Or, because I am kind:

Tomb Wife By Gwyneth Jones
Don’t Stop By James Patrick Kelly
Trophy Wives By Nina Kiriki Hoffman
The Dreaming Wind by Jeffrey Ford
The Button Bin by Mike Allen
Mars: A Traveler’s Guide By Ruth Nestvold
26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss By Kij Johnson
posted by Artw at 9:53 AM on April 2, 2009 [2 favorites]

Thanks, Artw.
posted by exhilaration at 10:24 AM on April 2, 2009

So Exhalation won the BSFA, which is unsuprising since it's Ted Chiang and Ted Chiang is fantatsic - like all his stories (more on MeFi here) it's a neat, almost parable like little philosophical gem, with a lightness of touch that prevents it from getting leaden even when it's pushing all the neat ideas across - in this case a story paralelling the early days of Science and Naturalism and a reatise on entropy.

I'm not sure the Nebula stories have one even half as strong, TBH. They're okay, very much leaning towards fantasy rather than SF (with the straight up SF ones being the weakest), but nothing really leaps out at me.

Anyway, we'll see which one wins out.

Oh, and catching up on my Starship Sofa listening the Gord Sellar story the week before the Nebula stories, Lester Young and the Jupiter’s Moons is actually pretty fantastic and well worth a listen. WOuldn;t be suprised to see it cropping up for a few awards next year.
posted by Artw at 5:22 PM on April 12, 2009

Oh, and apparently the SFWA website was recently hijacked by malware, so bad luck anyone who went to look at the results with an unpatched browser.
posted by Artw at 1:59 PM on April 13, 2009

Nebula Award Winners - though I didn't really have any favourites for the winner, I'm a little suprised by this.
posted by Artw at 2:14 PM on April 26, 2009