Congratulations to all of the winners! But I must be allowed a little partiality when I say:

Woohoo! Yay Jo! Well done!

OK, I'll sit down now.

Congratulations to all the winners. :)

Those are great photos.

Congratulations, all.

Congrats to Jo and Bud for being so nebulous!

Felicitations to all!
Remember to vote for the Hugos, folks!
It matters to the writers.
(I've seen some crying, behind the curtains.)

Jo said it was unexpected on her LJ so I agreed to be polite, but I have never been more certain of a winner. It was beautifully written, it had a passionate love of books, and the voters were all professional writers. If I'd had a penny to my name I'd have gone looking for a place to bet.

Bruce @6: Yes indeed: it spoke strongly to the readers'hearts within the writers, those hearts being part of why they became writers. In that sense, it reminded me a little of when Dar Williams' song "Are You Out There?" hit the charts; the DJs who played it could remember being that kid out there in the dark, listening. Like the song said, "And though the static walls surround me / You were out there and you found me / I was out here listening all the time." Dar was surprised when she cracked the charts too. I was doing a phone interview with her on the morning it happened, and asked her how it felt to have cracked the charts, and she said, "Oh! THAT'S why my agent is trying to call me!" and we laughed.

"I was out here listening all the time
And I will write this down
And then I will not be alone again."

Yeah.

Well done, Jo.

Well done, all!

Oh, wow!

Congratulations to all.

Peripherally, I find the "blurry figure of Liza Trombi in the background" vividly evocative. Some things, like the ways we hold our hands when we're herding cats, just never do change.

Oh, excellent! Congratulations, all!

This year it was particularly hard to keep my mouth shut about the winners, because I was so delighted--particularly about Jo, but also about Kij and Geoff. Yay yay yay!

Congratulations to all the winners, but especially to Jo.

Oh, and Delia! The Freedom Maze is a great book!

What Abi said.

I am very pleased at this outcome.

"The Man Who Bridged The Mist" is a splendid story. It's a story about craftsmanship, and devotion, and foreignness, and love. I'm delighted about Among Others, but many more people than me have sung its praises. "The Man Who Bridged The Mist" is a delight and a surprise.

I haven't read "The Man Who Bridged the Mist", but will shortly, as I just go the Hugo voter reading package. I have read "Among Others" and loved it fiercely, so I'm delighted and not at all surprised that it won. I'd love to see a video or transcript of Jo Walton's acceptance speech.

Congrats to the winners!

Especially Jo, who I remember from rec.arts.sf.somethingorother, which I now understand some people were pronouncing with the dots spoken thus: "dot", which I did not know in the 90s; I just assumed the dots were punctuation and not pronounced, as apposed to telegram speak.

Meanwhile, a nice new edition of "The Star Beast" just arrived in the post for my son, and I feel old. Happy, but old.

The audience erupted when Jo won the Nebula. It was beautiful.

If you won a nebula, it would be hard to store in your house. Some nebulae are light-years across in size.

Congratulations to all!

Erik Nelson #20: The outlook for that pronouncement is rather cloudy.

Mention of the Hugo voting package caused me to look for it. This, in turn, caused me to realize that I do not have a Chicon 7 membership, not having gone to Montreal and having no intent of attending. A supporting membership right now is $50. I am debating whether it's worth $50 to me to get the nominees I want to read (pluses: Among Others, Digger, and several others; minuses: friggin' zombie books) in e-book format on my brand-new iPad. I'm leaning yes, but will sleep on it before committing.

Lee @ 23: In making up your mind, you should know that the ebooks provided in the Hugo reading packet are not all of the best quality. Some publishers only provided PDFs. I've just read two novellas so far, both from Asimov's and both epubs, and one was formatted perfectly, and the other had the header and footer text (Asimovs, story title, page number) interleaved into the text.

BTW, the "frigging zombie book" Deadline is quite good. It is a sequel, though, and you're unlikely to want to go out and buy the first one -- though now that you have an iPad you can revel in downloading free samples. I love being able to do that!

Gosh, you do suppose "frigging zombies" is a Word of Power? I guess I'm about to find out!

["Frigging zombies" is not a Word of Power. "Free Samples," on the other hand.... -- Junius Melichoin, Duty Gnome]

Congratulations to all!

I've been waiting for quite some time for a copy of Among Others to become available at the library. I feel dismayed when there are fifteen holds on a book . . . what if it becomes available when I'm on vacation?

Might just have to spring for a copy!

Jo's acceptance speech must be somewhere. She started it "To quote Neil Gaiman, 'Fuck!'" (pause for much audience laughter) "I won a Nebula!" and went on in like high fashion.

hot damn!
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people.

Congratulations to all.

Stefan Jones @ 26:

If that's the Multnomah County Library you can freeze a hold request while you're on vacation or otherwise unavailable, and then start it up again when you get back without having to go to the end of the queue.

Actual best line from Jo's Nebula acceptance: "I would like to thank my mother for being such an evil person, because it was such a useful experience for writing fantasy."

You know how they used to caption photos "sharing a joke"? That's so totally a photo of me saying something funny to Delia and Geoff.

Thank you everybody. I am very excited to have won, and the Nebula is so pretty. The light years across issue isn't a problem, by the way, that version of it stays up in the sky where it fits and they give you a little replica to take home.

Patrick @ 30... It was that autobiographical, eh? :-)

Congratulations to all the winners! (Obviously.) I'm a lot happier with this year's shortlist and outcome than I was with some of the previous Nebula shortlists; "Among Others" in particular is a masterpiece that totally deserved it.

(My one cause for concern is that a certain Mr Petit is waxing curmudgeonly about the Nebula process, and his concerns include a point that I agree with: that Nebula nominations close way too early, at the end of the February after the year in question; the whole process could do with a couple of extra months for nominations, and more time for voters to read the nominated shortlist as well. Yes, I know nominations are open for a whole year; but the system used to be -- and to some extent still is -- biased against books published in November/December. Would Jo have received enough nominations to make the shortlist if "Among Others" had been published in December rather than January?)

Stefan (26)/Bruce (29): A lot of library systems will let you freeze holds while you're away. Talk to your local librarians.

Reading Jo Walton's book brought back fond memories of my own school-library trips. If I went back to that school, I'd probably realize how small its library was, but it was big for me then, with SF titles not segregated into their own little corner, but shelved like any book. I remember that the librarians there loved me because I was one of their most frequent voluntary visitors and at least once they aimed me in the direction of something SF I might have missed.

Congratulations to Jo Walton and all of the other awardees!

...and this should encourage me to get off my rear and get a copy of Among Others. But it might wait until my girlfriend and I are done unpacking.

Dear Jo,
Thank you again for making me blissfully happy, and a thank you to all of the other writers who properly rewarded you for it. (I treasure the memory of seeing that novel's genesis on your Livejournal, when someone pleaded "You need to write that story!" and you answered "But there's no story there.")

In #37 Clifton, addressing Jo Walton, writes about Among Others:
(I treasure the memory of seeing that novel's genesis on your Livejournal, when someone pleaded "You need to write that story!" and you answered "But there's no story there.")

For the curious:

28 February 2008: The industrial ruins of elfland.

Michelle Sagara, in comments: "There's a book there, Jo, and I selfishly want you to write it."

Jo, pleadingly: "What about?"

29 February 2008: P.S. To last post.

29 February 2008: Thud: Industrial landscape of Elfland. Jo logs writing the first 2011 words.

"From a discussion with Z over dinner about how it would be impossible to write a fictionalised version of my childhood, a way of doing it. [...] This is a lot closer to me than normal. But I think it has enough distance, and enough difference. Eh well. We'll see."

Subsequent entries chronicle the growth of the novel from that seed.

Bill Higgins @ 38... So, we have Michelle to thank for "Among Others"?

I may not be as out of touch with current science fiction as I thought... I've read one of the award winners before the winners were announced. It was the one promoted here on ML, of course.

Congratulations to all the Nebula winners and YAY JO!!

(Why yes, I was internet-deprived all day yesterday; why do you ask?)

I've done my fannish duty and just turned in my Hugo ballot. I'm already preparing my list for next year though.
I wonder if the Short Media category would accept my nomination of "Avengers 1978".