The Nebula Awards for 2023 were announced this past weekend. Here are the winners (paid links)!

Best Novel

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom)

Best Novella

Linghun by Ai Jiang (Dark Matter Ink)

Best Novelette

The Year Without Sunshine by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny 11-12/23)

Best Short Story

Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200 by R.S.A. Garcia (Uncanny 7-8/23)

Best Game Writing

Baldur’s Gate 3 – Adam Smith, Adrienne Law, Baudelaire Welch, Chrystal Ding, Ella McConnell, Ine Van Hamme, Jan Van Dosselaer, John Corcoran, Kevin VanOrd, Lawrence Schick, Martin Docherty, Rachel Quirke, Ruairí Moore, Sarah Baylus, Stephen Rooney, Swen Vincke (Larian Studios)

The Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

Barbie – Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach (Warner Bros., Heyday Films, LuckyChap Entertainment)

The Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction

To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose (Del Rey)

Some additional awards and honors were also presented:

The SFWA Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award – Susan Mary Cooper

The SFWA Infinity Award – Tanith Lee

The Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award – Jennell Jaquays

The Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. Service to SFWA Award – James Hosek

For more information on the Nebulas and other awards in fantasy and science fiction, you can read my recent post here.

Have you read any of the books and stories that won? I’m still working through Baldur’s Gate 3 and loved the Barbie movie. Share your thoughts in the comments (above).

I have been a fan of ESPN The Body Issue since I first noticed it a few years ago. I admire the athletic human form, and perhaps some of my professional study of anatomy is also likely to blame. This year, ESPN and Marvel have brought something a little different to the issue by including a superhero insert.

This special feature will include Davedevil, Captain Marvel, Medusa, Luke Cage, She-Hulk, Iron Fist, Iron Man, the Hulk, and Ant-Man. You can see a preview in a digital sketch book at ESPN now.

Here are some insights from the creators:

“For a comic book artist drawing the human anatomy is an everyday job,” says Marvel Comics artist Sara Pichelli. “But here it was matter of celebrating the maximum expression of human muscles and shapes. Creating believable, powerful, and at the same time harmonic bodies is always a challenge, that’s why I wanted to be part of this.”

“While The Body Issue itself celebrates the unique characteristics of each athlete’s physique, we thought it made perfect sense to extend this theme to these Marvel characters,” says ESPN The Magazine Deputy Editor Otto Strong.

“When comic book artists imagine the physical ideal, they have to start somewhere,” says Editor In Chief Axel Alonso. “And let’s face it, professional athletes, whose bodies are fine-tuned instruments, are the closest thing to real-life Super Heroes. Marvel’s Body Issue insert is a celebration of the most iconic Super Heroes in the world and the athletes that inspired them.”

The ESPN: Body Issue hits newstands today, July 10th.

Thank you to everyone who visited, read, and commented this year! I’ve been a bit lax in my posts for the past few months. But – don’t worry, regular posts will resume soon in the new year.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner can carry about 250 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,400 times in 2012. If it were a Dreamliner, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.