Award Eligibility 2018 — Arkady Martine

That rough beast, its time come round again, slouches toward the Nebulas to be born — er. Hi. It’s apparently award season in SFF-land, and I am in the business of misquoting Eliot for fun and profit. Self-promotion is the order of the day. (My own ‘best of’ will show up sometime in December.) Awards season is like election season: breathless, continuous, and longer than you think. The Nebula Awards have just opened for nomination, and will be open through February 15; the Hugos will be along shortly, I’m sure. Nebula nominations are reserved for members of SFWA (at any level) — there’s a nice explainer here on the SFWA site — and the Hugos are open to anyone who buys a supporting membership in this year’s Worldcon. Most of you know this, but every so often I feel like we should be a little more transparent for those of us who don’t, or who are new.

I have two short stories which are eligible this year, both of which I am amazingly proud of. If I have to pick one, however, it is “The Hydraulic Emperor”, in Uncanny #20: about obsession, film collectors in space, sacrifice auctions, and weird alien nihilism. Also there’s the worst Grail quest pun ever.

I also have a piece of long flash in Fireside this year, called “Object-Oriented”, which is being reprinted in the Hope in This Timeline micro-anthology Fireside is putting out. It’s one of the few near-future pieces I’ve written, and one of the first that came out of my new work as a city planner with a real interest in hazards and disasters.

(I’ve also been doing some more writing for Tor.com, most lately a piece on how post-disaster, humans are remarkably good at taking care of each other, contrary to popular belief: “What Really Happens After the Apocalypse”. You might want that as a chaser to “Object-Oriented”.)

I’m so very glad I got to have these two stories out in the world this year — next year, more, and also next year, a whole novel. But these two, I’m proud of.