2009 Nebula Awards

The winners of the Nebula Awards, sponsored and voted on by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, are:
Best Novel: Powers by Ursula K. Le Guin
Best Novella: The Spacetime Pool by Catherine Asaro
Best Novelette: Pride and Prometheus by John Kessel
Best Short Story: Trophy Wives by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (
Script: WALL-E screenplay by Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon; original story by Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter

Other awards and their winners:
Andre Norton Award: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) by Ysabeau S. Wilce
SFWA Service Award: Victoria Strauss
Bradbury Award for excellence in screenwriting: Joss Whedon
Grand Master Award: Harry Harrison
Author Emerita: M.J. Engh
A new honor, the Solstice Award, given to speculative fiction writers making a positive impact in the genres of science fiction or fantasy, was awarded to Kate Wilhelm, Martin H. Greenberg and the late Algis Budrys.

2009 Pultizer Prizes

The winners in Letters, Drama, and Music are:
Fiction: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Drama: Ruined by Lynn Nottage
History: The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed
Biography: American Lion by Jon Meacham
Poetry: The Shadow of Sirius by W. S. Merwin
General Nonfiction: Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon
Music: Double Sextet by Steve Reich

Author J.G. Ballard Dies

J. G. Ballard, best known for his autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun, has died. His other works include Crash, High-Rise, and The Crystal World. His writing helped set the adventurous tone for the British science fiction magazine New Worlds. In the 1960s,Ballard and Michael Moorcock, among others, were described as part of a New Wave in science fiction writing. Ballard recently published an autobiography, Miracles of Life.

HarperCollins Plans on Publishing New Works of the Late Michael Crichton

HarperCollins has announced that the late Michael Crichton, best selling author of Jurassic Park and other thrillers, left behind at least one finished novel and about one-third of a second.HarperCollins will release Pirate Latitudes, an adventure story set in Jamaica in the 17th century, on Nov. 24. The company also plans to publish a technological thriller in the fall of 2010, a novel that Mr. Crichton was writing when he died. Crichton's assistant discovered Pirate Latitudes in Crichton's computer files after his death. The novel features a pirate named Hunter and the governor of Jamaica, and their plan to raid a Spanish treasure galleon. HarperCollins does not plan to take Crichton’s name and create a franchise in the way that ghostwriters have continued to publish books under Robert Ludlum’s name long after his death

2009 Bancroft Prize

The winners of the 2009 Bancroft Prize, awarded by Columbia University to the authors of books of "exceptional merit in the fields of American history, biography and diplomacy," are: Thomas G. Andrews for Killing for Coal: America's Deadliest Labor War , Drew Gilpin Faust for This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War ,and Pekka Hämäläinen for The Comanche Empire .