Here are the finalists for the 2026 Nebula Awards

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association has announced the finalists for this year's Nebula Awards, the annual prize for excellence in the science fiction and fantasy genres published in the last year.

The Nebula is one of the biggest awards in the science fiction and fantasy world. It's been handed out annually since 1966, honoring the works in the bigger categories like novels and short stories, and it's been expanded in recent years. This year marks two new categories: Best Poem and Best Comic.

Here are the winners from 2025, 2024, 2023, and 2022.

If you're a SFWA member, voting is now underway and will run through 11:59pm PDT on April 15th. The winners will be announced at this year's Nebula Conference in Chicago on Saturday, June 6th.

Here are the finalists (I've added links for the stories that are available online):

Best Novel

• When We Were Real by Daryl Gregory
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
• Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
• Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
• The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
• Sour Cherry by Natalia Theodoridou
• Wearing the Lion by John Wiswell

Best Novella

• Disgraced Return of the Kap's Needle by Renan Bernardo
• The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
• The Death of Mountains by Jordan Kurella
• Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
• But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo
• “Descent” by Wole Talabi (Clarkesworld Magazine 5/25)

Best Novelette

• “Our Echoes Drifting Through the Marsh” by Marie Croke (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 1/9/25)
• “Uncertain Sons” by Thomas Ha (Uncertain Sons)
• “We Begin Where Infinity Ends” by Somto Ihezue (Clarkesworld Magazine 2/25)
• The Name Ziya by Wen-Yi Lee (Tor)
• “Never Eaten Vegetables” by H.H. Pak (Clarkesworld Magazine 1/25)
• “The Life and Times of Alavira the Great as Written by Titos Pavlou and Reviewed by Two Lifelong Friends” by Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny Magazine 3-4/25)

Best Short Story

• “Through the Machine” by P.A. Cornell (Lightspeed Magazine, 5/25)
• “Six People to Revise You” by J.R. Dawson (Uncanny Magazine, 1-2/25)
• “In My Country” by Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld Magazine 4/25)
• “The Tawlish Island Songbook of the Dead” by E.M. Linden (PodCastle 2/18/25)
• “Because I Held His Name Like a Key” by Aimee Ogden (Strange Horizons 6/16/25)
• “Laser Eyes Ain't Everything” by Effie Seiberg (Diabolical Plots 5/25)

Andre Norton Award for Best Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction

• The Tower by David Anaxagoras
• Gemini Rising by Jonathan Brazee
• Wishing Well, Wishing Well by Jubilee Cho
• Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
• Into the Wild Magic by Michelle Knudsen
• Goblin Girl by K.A. Mielke

Best Game Writing

• Spire, Surge, and Sea, Stewart C. Baker (Choice of Games)
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Guillaume Broche & Jennifer Svedberg-Yen (Kepler Interactive), Developer: Sandfall Interactive, Sandfall S.A.S.
• Hollow Knight: Silksong, Ari Gibson & William Pelen (Team Cherry)*
• Dispatch, Ashley Jeffalone, Suzee Matson, Chris Rebbert, Chad Rhiness, & Pierre Shorette (AdHoc Studios)
• Hades II, Greg Kasavin (Supergiant Games)
• Blue Prince, Tonda Ros (Raw Fury, Developer: Dogubomb)

*Provisional nomination; awaiting acceptance and response on LLM-use.

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

• KPop Demon Hunters, Danya Jimenez, Maggie Kang, & Hannah McMechan (Netflix)*
• Sinners, Ryan Coogler (Warner Bros Pictures)*
• Severance, "Chikhai Bardo", by Dan Erickson & Mark Friedman (Apple TV+)*
• Pluribus: Season One, Vince Gilligan (Apple TV+)*
• Superman, James Gunn (Warner Bros Pictures)*
• Murderbot: Season One, Chris Weitz (Apple TV+)*

*Provisional nomination; awaiting acceptance and response on LLM-use.

Best Comic

• Second Shift by Kit Anderson
• Carmilla Volume 3: The Eternal by Amy Chu
• Helen of Wyndhorn by Tom King
• Fishflies by Jeff Lemire
• Mary Shelley's School for Monsters: The Killing Stone by Jessica Maison
• Strange Bedfellows by Ariel Slamet Ries
• The Flip Side by Jason Walz
• The Stoneshore Register by G. Willow Wilson

Best Poem

• “Though You Always Are” by Linda D. Addison & Jamal Hodge (Everything Endless)
• “They Said Robots Are” by Casey Aimer (Penumbric 6/25)
• “The World To Come” by Jennifer Hudak (Strange Horizons 12/22/25)
• “The Mourning Robot” by Angela Liu (Uncanny Magazine 9-10/25)
• “Care for Lightning” by Mari Ness (Uncanny Magazine 1-2/25)
• “To Be the Change” by Nico Martinez Nocito (Strange Horizons 3/10/25)

2025 felt like a really strong year for books, and I was happy to see a bunch of books that I really liked – Automatic Noodle, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Death of the Author, and Katabasis – made the final cut. After last night's best picture loss, I'm happy to see that Sinners is on there, but I also really enjoyed KPop Demon Hunters, Murderbot, Pluribus, and Superman.

What are your thoughts on the ballot this year? Let me know in the comments.