Arkady Martine

Award season has come around again! This year is a simple year for award eligibility for me: one novel, two short stories. The novel being the one that, as you think about your beloved texts from this past year, I’d really love you to consider.

Novel: A Memory Called Empire. Science fiction, my debut novel (for awards where that matters).

Short Stories: “With Roses I Won The Right”, in Ask the Next Question: stories + images inspired by Theodore Sturgeon, and “Labbatu Takes Command of the Flagship Heaven Dwells Within”, in The Mythic Dream (Saga Press).

If you love these — nominate them, vote for them. In all cases, thought, awards season is about talking about and praising what we adored this past year — so vote for your beloved texts, as Five Selenite instructs. I’ll tell you all about mine in the next post.

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.

Award Eligibility Post - 2019

Award Eligibility 2018