Major Overhaul to Nebula Rules

I'm not sure how they managed to swing this -- particularly since it seems to have all been done very quietly -- but the current SFWA Administration is to be commended on a number of very smart changes to the Nebula rules:

1) Eligibility is by calendar year; eliminating the bizarre and counter-intuitive "rolling eligibility" that made the Nebs usually a year behind every other award.

2) There will be no preliminary ballot; the six works with the most nominations get on the one and only ballot.

3) Juries are gone, except for the Norton. (And that last makes sense, since nothing qualified for the Norton based on SFWA nominations this year. Of course, that raises the question of why SFWA gives out an award that its members can't be bothered to nominate for, but we'll leave that aside for now.)

4) My least-favorite category, "Best Script," is gone, to be replaced by what looks like its predecessor, the Ray Bradbury Award.

5) The Norton and Bradbury awards are firmly Not Nebulas, in the same way the Campbell is Not A Hugo.

6) To me, this is the most important one: nominations will be secret, killing -- or at least seriously maiming -- the perception that Nebula nominations were a huge round of team log-rolling.

I'm sure someone will be complaining about this online very quickly, in the name of that poor class of ink-stained wretches whose books are always published on December 31st, but these look to me like great changes which will go a long way towards restoring the respect and importance of the Nebula. Good job, SFWA.

[via Torque Control]