The Nebula Awards are one of the two top prizes for science fiction and fantasy, voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Preliminary candidates for the 2006 awards were announced earlier this week, from which formal shortlists will be crafted before the May awards banquet. Among the ten books under consideration for Best Novel: David Marusek‘s Counting Heads, which achieved some degree of mainstream recognition as the book which prompted then-debuting NYTBR sci-fi columnist Dave Itzkoff to ask “Why does contemporary science fiction have to be so geeky?” Although it would be a great “that’ll show ’em who’s geeky” if it won, there’s a lot of other strong contenders, including Robert Charles Wilson‘s Spin, last year’s winner of sci-fi’s other major award, the Hugo, as well as great novels by Tobias Buckell, Ellen Kushner, and Paul Park (and those are just the ones I know are great, because I read ’em).
Also worth noting—the entire shortlist for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy is taken over by the husband and wife team of Scott Westerfield and Justine Larbalestier. And, let me tell you, having to choose between Peeps or Magic and Madness ain’t going to be easy…