Living Canon

Nebula Awards 2020: Complete list of winners

The 2020 Nebula Awards showcased science fiction and fantasy’s remarkable range, honoring everything from AI-driven mysteries to delightful magical baking. Martha Wells’ Network Effect, the latest installment in her beloved Murderbot series, claimed Best Novel, continuing the android’s rise as one of speculative fiction’s most compelling protagonists. The evening’s victories spread across categories with impressive breadth: Sarah Pinsker’s “Two Truths and a Lie” took Best Novelette, P. Djèlí Clark’s atmospheric Ring Shout won Best Novella, and John Wiswell’s cleverly twisted “Open House on Haunted Hill” earned Best Short Story honors.

What made this year particularly striking was the winning selections’ tonal variety. While Wells delivered intricate plotting with emotional depth, the shorter-form winners proved genre fiction’s ability to capture everything from historical horror to contemporary genre-bending. T. Kingfisher’s A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking claimed the Young Adult category with its whimsical yet substantive approach to the wizarding tale, reminding readers that YA speculative fiction need not choose between humor and heart. These Nebula Award winners represent the breadth of imagination currently dominating science fiction and fantasy publishing.

Here’s the complete breakdown of the 2020 Nebula Awards winners:

Best Novel

Best Novelette

Best Novella

Best Short Story

  • Open House on Haunted Hill by John Wiswell

Best Young Adult