Nebula Award – 2014

The 2014 Nebula Award winners have been announced. The books are voted on by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

This year’s winner in the Best Novel category is:

 Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

“Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization, and the government is involved in sending secret missions to explore Area X. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer. Annihilation opens with the twelfth expedition. The group is composed of four women, including our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all of their observations, scientific and otherwise; and, above all, to avoid succumbing to the unpredictable effects of Area X itself.” publisher

The other nominees include:

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu; translated by Ken Liu