Chapter 803 Nominations announced one after another
At the end of April, the nomination list for the Nebula Awards was finally announced. This year's nominations were announced earlier than last year, but definitely much later than in previous years.
As usual, nominations for the Nebula Awards are officially announced in January or February, and then the awards ceremony is held in May or June.
Last year, some people speculated that the delay in announcing nominations for the Nebula Awards and Hugo Awards was entirely because there was no way to properly arrange Zhang Zhong's works.
Because Zhang Zhong published quite a lot of science fiction novels the year before last, and every one of them is a classic, it seems inappropriate not to award the award to Zhang Zhong.
But this year the situation is different, because last year Zhang Chonglong did not publish a few science fiction novels.
Not surprisingly, "The Wind-Up Girl" was nominated for the best novel, while "The Yellow Card Man" and "The Calorie Man" were also nominated for the best short story.
Being shortlisted for three novels in one session may be a very impressive achievement for other writers, but for Zhang Zhong, this is his worst achievement ever, and two of these three novels are short stories.
However, there is nothing that can be done about it, because Zhang Zhong only published these three science fiction novels last year, and the Nebula Award Organizing Committee has no choice but to give him a few more shortlisted spots.
In fact, this year's Nebula Award organizing committee was relieved because they no longer had to worry about whether to include Zhang Zhong's book on the shortlist like the previous two years.
Anyway, there were only three science fiction novels last year, so let’s make these three science fiction novels shortlisted.
Another interesting thing about this year's Nebula Award is that in addition to Zhang Zhong, there is also a work by a Chinese author who has been shortlisted.
This shortlisted work for the Nebula Award is the novella "Behind the Center of the Earth" by Chinese science fiction writer Feng He. This novel has only more than 40,000 words in total and tells a science fiction story related to space.
In the distant future, the Starfish people accidentally discovered a space technology that can build a world similar to the surface of Starfish on the other side of the earth's surface.
However, with the development of science and technology and the limitations of technological development, the surface of starfish has been facing various pollutions, and it has become impossible for humans to survive on the surface.
Governments of various countries are using newly discovered space technology to build a new world on the other side of the earth's surface.
However, the new world cannot produce various resources out of thin air, so the government transfers the available resources on the surface to the new world, leaving only a dangerous environment on the surface.
In this case, of course it is impossible for all people to immigrate to the New World, so countries begin to select "excellent" talents to live in the New World.
As for who is outstanding, of course it is not the civilians who have the final say.
During the immigration process, civilians resisted, but they all ended in failure, because in addition to being large in number, civilians had no weapons or resources, and naturally had no right to speak.
The bloody suppression left other civilians with no hope and could only watch in despair those outstanding people immigrating to the new world through the space channel.
As for them, they can only stand under the dark sky, look at this hopeless old world, and struggle hard.
The performance of this novel is very good. It was the best-performing science fiction novel in the Chinese book market last year except "The Wind-up Girl".
The novel was quickly translated into various languages, and sold more than 10 million copies worldwide in less than a year.
It is conceivable that if "Backside of the Earth" can finally win the Nebula Award for Best Novella this time, its sales will go even higher.
It is undeniable that there are important factors in the success of "Backside of the Earth".
Because of Zhang Zhong, readers in other countries are paying more and more attention to China's science fiction works, and Feng He is also the author of Zhang Zhong's company, so he must be linked to Zhang Zhong in publicity.
But the fundamental reason is that "Backside of the Earth" itself is of excellent quality and is one of the top-ranked high-quality science fiction works in China in recent years.
The domestic science fiction market is gradually getting better, and science fiction writers like Feng He and others are becoming more passionate. The final result of this virtuous cycle is that more excellent science fiction novels will appear.
Although Zhang Zhong did not dominate the Nebula Awards this year like last year, there was an extra element of wind, which made domestic readers very happy.
The Chinese science fiction community finally no longer needs Zhang Zhong to support it alone. When they discuss science fiction works with foreign readers, they can also have more writers to show off to them.
When the Nebula Awards announced the nomination list, they also specifically mentioned that due to internal rectifications by the organizing committee in the past two years, the announcement of nominations last year and this year was delayed, but the situation will get better starting next year.
This seems a bit like there is no silver in this place. It seems that they are afraid that readers will think that last year’s award was postponed because of Zhang Zhong, so they deliberately postponed it a little this year, just to show that their postponement was not because of Zhang Zhong, but really because of the group.
Internal rectification of the committee.
At the same time, when the nominations were announced, the time of the awards ceremony was also announced.
The awards ceremony will be held on July 16th in Chicago, USA.
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Not long after the Nebula Awards were announced, the Hugo Awards also announced the shortlist.
Different from the Nebula Award, there are actually four important novels on the shortlist for the Hugo Award. In addition to "The Wind-up Girl", "The Yellow Card Man" and "The Calorie Man", the stand-alone "Harry Potter" was published last year.
"Potter 1" was also shortlisted for the Best Novel Award.
This makes many book fans feel very strange. Can a book like "Harry Potter" be shortlisted for the Hugo Award?
But if you think about it carefully, it seems that "Harry Potter" is also within the rules. After all, its release time should be last year, and fantasy novels also meet the Hugo Award's evaluation scope.
This is a little surprise.
However, what disappoints Chinese readers at the same time is that Feng He's "Backside of the Center of the Earth" was not shortlisted for the Hugo Award.
Although everyone is disappointed, it is understandable, after all, the finalists and winning entries for the Nebula Awards and Hugo Awards are not always the same every year.
The Hugo Award Ceremony, also known as the World Science Fiction Convention, is scheduled for five days from August 8 to August 13.
The location was announced last year, and it’s in Jiangyang.
Therefore, for the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award, Chinese audiences are more looking forward to the latter. After all, this will be the first time that China has held a World Science Fiction Convention.
In the minds of science fiction readers, China’s hosting of the World Science Fiction Convention is on the same level as hosting the Olympic Games.
Moreover, the venue for this science fiction conference is Zhang Chongkai’s Zhiwang Science and Technology Exhibition Hall. The exhibition hall will be fully open by then, and you can save money on tickets in the past.