You win some, you lose some, some get rained out.

That’s how it goes in baseball, and in the awards game as well.

VOYAGING, Raya Golden’s lovely graphic novel adaptation of “The Plague Star,” the opening novella in my Haviland Tuf series, was a finalist for this year’s Locus Award in the category of Illustrated or Art Books.  The awards were presented on June 22, and, alas, we lost.   (Or you might say we were “differently victorious,” as the toastmaster did at the 1998 Nebula Awards).

The winner was The CULTURE: The Drawings, by Iain M. Banks, published by Orbit in both the U.S. and U.K.

It was an honor just to be nominated.   Congratulations to the winner (Iain M. Banks is terrific, by the way).

In other awards news, back in May of 2023, SFWA presented its Nebula Award for Game Writing to ELDEN RING, from Bandai Entertainment and From Software.   I did the worldbuilding for that project; Hidetaka Miyazaka and his team did all the rest.   We were both honored with trophies.   I was not at the awards banquet, however, and in any case only one trophy was on hand for the event.   That one went home to Japan, where it truly belongs.

The other Nebula was completed a few months ago, and made its way to Santa Fe just in time for our solstice party.   It was presented to me on June 22… so as fate would have it, I was winning a Nebula and losing a Locus the same night, almost simultaneously.

My thanks go to SFWA, to all the members who voted for me, to all the members who did not, and to Hidetaka Miyazake and his incredible team at From Software, who made ELDEN RING the best-selling (and best) game in the world for 2022.

 

Oh, and about those rumors you may have heard about a feature film or television series based on ELDEN RING… I have nothing to say.   Not a word, nope, not a thing, I know nothing, you never heard a peep from me, mum mum mum.   What rumor?

This is my third Nebula, for what it’s worth… and the first in thirty-nine years,  since “Portraits of His Children” in 1985.

I did lose quite a few in the intervening years, including the Best Novel awards for A GAME OF THRONES and A CLASH OF KINGS.  (I think.  Might be getting that wrong).

It’s an honor just to be nominated, though.   Gardner Dozois said that, laughing, when he welcomed me into the Nebula Loser wing of the Hugo Loser Club, along about 1974.

You win some, you lose some, and some get rained out.

Current Mood: cheerful