The 36 Best Nebula Award-Winning Novels

Six decades of the science fiction writers' own top prize sit side by side here, pairing pulp-era space epics with quiet literary fantasy and recent horror. Some winners became household names, while others are overdue for a second look.

1. 1
   Dune

   Frank Herbert's 1965 novel set on the desert planet Arrakis, the first winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel.
   1000pts
2. 2
   The Left Hand of Darkness

   Ursula K. Le Guin's 1969 novel about an envoy on the planet Gethen, whose people have no fixed sex; it won both the Nebula and the Hugo.
   970pts
3. 3
   Flowers for Algernon

   Daniel Keyes's 1966 novel about Charlie Gordon, whose intelligence is raised by surgery; it shared the Nebula with Babel-17.
   936pts
4. 4
   Annihilation

   Jeff VanderMeer's 2014 novel about four women surveying the mysterious Area X, the first book of the Southern Reach trilogy.
   770pts
5. 5
   Gateway

   Frederik Pohl's 1977 novel about prospectors flying abandoned alien ships to unknown destinations, the first of his Heechee books.
   770pts
6. 6
   Speaker for the Dead

   Orson Scott Card's 1986 sequel to Ender's Game, which made him the first writer to win the Nebula and Hugo for best novel in consecutive years.
   592pts
7. 7
   The Windup Girl

   Paolo Bacigalupi's 2009 debut novel set in a future Bangkok ravaged by engineered plagues, which shared the Hugo and won the Nebula.
   592pts
8. 8
   The Forever War

   Joe Haldeman's 1974 novel about a soldier whose interstellar tours age him centuries relative to Earth, drawing on his Vietnam service.
   592pts
9. 9
   Babel

   R. F. Kuang's 2022 novel about a Chinese-born student at an Oxford translation institute that powers the British Empire with silver magic.
   592pts
10. 10
    The Fountains of Paradise

    Arthur C. Clarke's 1979 novel about an engineer building a space elevator from a mountain on an equatorial island.
    592pts
11. 11
    Parable of the Talents

    Octavia E. Butler's 1998 sequel to Parable of the Sower, about Lauren Olamina's Earthseed community under a theocratic regime.
    513pts
12. 12
    Network Effect

    Martha Wells's 2020 Murderbot novel, the first full-length book in the series, winner of the Nebula and the Hugo.
    513pts
13. 13
    The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

    Stephen Graham Jones's 2025 horror novel built around a Blackfeet vampire's confession recorded by a Montana pastor in 1912.
    513pts
14. 14
    Ringworld

    Larry Niven's 1970 novel about explorers on a vast ring-shaped artificial world circling a star, winner of the Nebula and the Hugo.
    513pts
15. 15
    Ender's Game

    Orson Scott Card's 1985 novel about child prodigy Ender Wiggin trained in battle-school war games, winner of the Nebula and the Hugo.
    513pts
16. 16
    The Gods Themselves

    Isaac Asimov's 1972 novel about an energy exchange with a parallel universe, which won him the Nebula and the Hugo.
    513pts
17. 17
    Rendezvous with Rama

    Arthur C. Clarke's 1973 novel about humans exploring a giant cylindrical alien spacecraft passing through the Solar System.
    513pts
18. 18
    Neuromancer

    William Gibson's 1984 debut novel about hacker Case, which popularised the word cyberspace and won the Nebula, Hugo and Philip K. Dick awards.
    513pts
19. 19
    All the Birds in the Sky

    Charlie Jane Anders's 2016 novel about a witch and a tech prodigy whose friendship shapes the fate of a collapsing world.
    513pts
20. 20
    Paladin of Souls

    Lois McMaster Bujold's 2003 fantasy following the widowed Dowager Royina Ista on a pilgrimage, winner of the Nebula and the Hugo.
    420pts
21. 21
    The Yiddish Policemen's Union

    Michael Chabon's 2007 alternate-history detective novel set in a Jewish settlement in Sitka, Alaska, winner of the Nebula and the Hugo.
    420pts
22. 22
    The Claw of the Conciliator

    Gene Wolfe's 1981 novel, the second volume of The Book of the New Sun, following the exiled torturer Severian.
    420pts
23. 23
    The Calculating Stars

    Mary Robinette Kowal's 2018 alternate history in which a 1952 meteorite strike pushes a woman mathematician toward becoming an astronaut.
    420pts
24. 24
    Doomsday Book

    Connie Willis's 1992 novel about an Oxford historian whose time-travel trip lands her in England during the Black Death, winner of the Nebula and the Hugo.
    308pts
25. 25
    Ancillary Justice

    Ann Leckie's 2013 debut about Breq, the last fragment of a warship's AI, which won the Nebula, Hugo, Arthur C. Clarke and Locus awards.
    308pts
26. 26
    The Stone Sky

    N. K. Jemisin's 2017 finale of the Broken Earth trilogy; its Hugo win made her the first author to take the Best Novel Hugo three years running.
    308pts
27. 27
    Babel-17

    Samuel R. Delany's 1966 space opera about a poet decoding a language used as a weapon, joint Nebula winner with Flowers for Algernon.
    308pts
28. 28
    American Gods

    Neil Gaiman's 2001 novel about ex-convict Shadow Moon caught in a war between old gods and new ones across America; it also won the Hugo.
    308pts
29. 29
    The Speed of Dark

    Elizabeth Moon's 2002 novel about Lou Arrendale, an autistic man offered an experimental treatment to reverse his autism.
    308pts
30. 30
    Tehanu

    Ursula K. Le Guin's 1990 Earthsea novel about Tenar and a scarred child, her third Nebula for Best Novel after The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed.
    0pts
31. 31
    A Master of Djinn

    P. Djèlí Clark's 2021 debut novel, set in an alternate 1912 Cairo where agent Fatma el-Sha'arawi investigates a magical murder.
    0pts
32. 32
    The Dispossessed

    Ursula K. Le Guin's 1974 novel about physicist Shevek moving between an anarchist moon and its capitalist twin planet.
    0pts
33. 33
    Startide Rising

    David Brin's 1983 Uplift novel about the dolphin-crewed starship Streaker hiding on a water world; it also won the Hugo.
    0pts
34. 34
    Red Mars

    Kim Stanley Robinson's 1992 novel about the first hundred colonists of Mars, opening his Mars trilogy.
    0pts
35. 35
    Among Others

    Jo Walton's 2011 novel about a Welsh teenager who sees fairies and finds refuge in science fiction at an English boarding school.
    0pts
36. 36
    Uprooted

    Naomi Novik's 2015 fantasy, inspired by Polish folklore, about a village girl chosen by a wizard called the Dragon.
    0pts

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