2026 Nebula Awards short-listed novels: WHEN WE WERE REAL

On By janewisemanIn fantastic fantasyLeave a comment

Readers, we all have a bit over a month and a half until the Nebula Awards are announced–so if you, like me, want to devour all the nominated novels before the big announcement is made, get reading. I’ve nearly made it through the list, myself.

SPOILER: If I were a judge, I’d be completely stymied. The list is THAT GOOD.

So. . .HERE is the first post of a series reviewing all seven of the 2026 Nebula Awards short-listed works in the Best Novel category. (To see the complete list, go HERE.) I’m on a mission to read and review every entry in the novel category before the Science Fiction And Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) announces the winner at the Nebula awards ceremony on June 6, 2026. It will take place at the SFWA 61st annual conference, held this year in Chicago. I’m reading the novels alphabetically by author, and then, if I have time, I’ll read a few others nominated in other categories.

In the several years I’ve been reading and writing and posting these reviews, I’ve always read through the Nebula and Hugo nominees. Then I’ve chosen two other major lists to read, too. This is my way of finding new and wonderful books to read, all year long. I’ve already read and reviewed the short-listed books for this year’s Philip K. Dick Award, which has just been announced. Go HERE for the winner–and see my reviews of the other nominees for that award in my earlier blog posts (you can start HERE and work backwards).

After the Nebula-nominated novels, I’ll go on to the Hugo Awards nominees–that list is soon to be announced–and then the nominees for the World Fantasy Awards.

The short-listed novels for the 2026 Nebula Awards:

When We Were Real, by Daryl Gregory (Saga)–reviewed in this post

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)

When We Were Real, by Daryl Gregory (Saga)

book cover for When We Were Real, by Daryl Gregory
Find out more HERE.

I began this book thinking of it as an amiable shaggy-dog story set in a future America where humans have realized they are living in a simulation. This is an increasingly common trope for speculative fiction, but I could tell right away that Gregory’s meandering tale, taking an eccentric near-future cast of characters on a Canterbury Tales-style road trip, would be more fun than average.

As I read on, I began to realize how wrong I was. I mean, it IS amiable and engaging and fun. But it is so much more. Not only does it use that Forced Proximity trope of very different character types trapped together (on a journey to a holy shrine/in a stagecoach/in a hotel/in a haunted hotel/on a ship at sea/on an imperiled ship at sea/in a mental institution’s day room, etc.) but it’s a buddy comedy, too.

And more! It’s a comic book transposed onto a novel. It’s a woman in peril on the lam (but–I hasten to reassure you–a badass woman). It’s a sly critique of our social-media-obsessed culture. It’s an extended joke. Three Irish brothers walk into a bar. . . Two nuns and a rabbi walk into a bar. . . It’s a novel of family, and of found family. All of that.

So, great. I’m in. Take me on this journey. And the journey rapidly becomes a wild chase to save humanity. . .or something. Maybe.

You have to stay with this book. Not only is it very meta, always observing its own processes, but it contains the wildest collection of witty observations and profound insights you’ve ever encountered. It’s got Chaucer. It’s got the Epic of Gilgamesh. It’s got Sylvia Plath. It’s got Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s got Black Bolt. It’s got a persistent, crazy Impossible Sheep. I was really thinking it might have a touch of William Carlos Williams, but I’ve decided I’m imagining that.

By the end, in the final stage of its journey, When We Were Real is very moving.

Actually, by the end–Canterbury Tales, okay, but I was starting to think more Pilgrim’s Progress.

NEXT UP: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones (Saga; Titan UK)

The 2026 Philip K. Dick Award judges announce a winner

On By janewisemanIn fantastic fantasy1 Comment

Tonight, Seattle’s Norwescon announced the winner of this year’s Philip K. Dick Award. Judges of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society select the nominees and make the decision. Watch the announcement HERE, as well as readings from each of the nominated works and the acceptance speeches of the winning author and the winner of the Special Citation award.

The winner of the 2026 Philip K. Dick Award is:

Outlaw Planet, by M. R. Carey (Orbit)

cover of 2026 Philip K. Dick award winning novel Outlaw Planet, by M. R. Carey
Find out more HERE.

Congratulations to M. R. Carey for this stand-alone novel set in his Pandominion SF universe. Fans of the author are sure to appreciate it. Those of us come lately to Carey’s fiction might not recognize all the nuance–I didn’t, because I try not to read other reviews and reactions before I form my own opinion–but the novel is absorbing and beautifully put together. Readers will find it a wild and unusual ride.

Kudos to the judges, too, who fielded a rich menu of books (publication year: 2025) so varied in tone and effect that I don’t know how they were able to arrive a decision.

Carey’s truly ingenious double narrative is a worthy choice for the award. Part New Weird neo-Western (with animals), part military SF, Outlaw Planet miraculously unites its two very different halves into a tale reflecting the divisions within our own society. HERE is a review by a reader familiar with Carey’s world-building. HERE is another. They may give you more perspective than my own, which you can read HERE.

Congratulations, too, to Thomas Ha, who won the Special Citation award for his matchless collection of short fiction, Uncertain Sons and Other Stories (Undertow):

cover of short story collection by Thomas Ha, Uncertain Sons and Other Stories
Find out more HERE.

Ha’s hauntingly beautiful explorations of personal and family identity take place in a horrifying universe of invasive alien balloon-like blobs, towns looking for a scapegoat, nightmare carnivals. See my review and comments HERE and HERE.

Next up: My reviews of the nominees for this year’s Nebula Award–Best Novel

2026 Nebula Awards Nominees

On By janewisemanIn fantastic fantasy1 Comment

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.