Nebula Awards 2018: Complete list of winners

The 2018 Nebula Awards, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association’s most prestigious honors, delivered a celebration of speculative fiction that refused to play it safe. Mary Robinette Kowal’s sweeping alternate history The Calculating Stars—which reimagines the space race with women at its center—claimed the Best Novel award, while Brooke Bolander’s haunting The Only Harmless Great Thing took the Novelette category with a story that channels both science fiction and profound emotional depth. These selections signal a year when the Nebula winners favored ambitious narrative experiments alongside genre convention.

The 2018 Nebula Awards continued to showcase the breadth of speculative storytelling across all lengths. Aliette de Bodard’s The Tea Master and the Detective earned Best Novella honors with its intricate blend of mystery and science fiction, while P. Djèlí Clark’s The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington claimed Short Story with a sharp, inventive tale that marries history and the fantastical. Perhaps most notably, Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone won Best Young Adult, affirming the award’s recognition that young adult science fiction and fantasy deserves a place among the year’s most significant works.

Below, you’ll find the complete list of 2018 Nebula Award winners across all major categories:

Best Novel

• The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

Best Novelette

• The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander

Best Novella

• The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard

Best Short Story

• The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington by P. Djèlí Clark

Best Young Adult

• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi