Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

Nominations have been announced for the Nebula Awards, given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, which includes the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation. (Strictly speaking, the Bradbury Award isn't a Nebula - the winner receives a different type of trophy - but it is balloted for, and given, along with the Nebulas. Shown here is Neil Gaiman's Bradbury Award for a 2011 Dr Who episode.)

Here are the nominees:

Doctor Who: ‘‘The Day of the Doctor’’ (Nick Hurran, director; Steven Moffat, writer) (BBC Wales)
Europa Report (Sebastián Cordero, director; Philip Gelatt, writer) (Start Motion Pictures)
Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, director; Alfonso Cuarón & Jonás Cuarón, writers) (Warner Bros.)
Her (Spike Jonze, director; Spike Jonze, writer) (Warner Bros.)
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (Francis Lawrence, director; Simon Beaufoy & Michael deBruyn, writers) (Lionsgate)
Pacific Rim (Guillermo del Toro, director; Travis Beacham & Guillermo del Toro, writers) (Warner Bros.)

It will be interesting to see what the SFWA membership makes of this. Gravity would seem to be the natural winner, but my impression is that it has had quite a critical reception among SF types. While the general filmgoing audience might have found it novel, seasoned SF old-timers see Gravity as 1930s or 1940s SF, the kind of story that Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke (or Bradbury) could have bashed out in an afternoon.


Winners will be announced later in the year. Details of all the Nebula nominees can be found on the SFWA website. Previous winners are listed on Wikipedia, here.

Bradburyesque...

I recently saw the trailer for the forthcoming movie Gravity, directed and co-written by Alfonso Cuarón. All I know about the film is what I saw in the trailer and what I have read online. Two thoughts sprang immediately to mind as I watched the trailer:

1. "That's a Space Shuttle - so this film must be set in the past!"
2. Ray Bradbury's "Kaleidoscope"

The trailer (below) shows a calamity in Earth orbit, resulting in space-suited astronauts being flung into empty space. The synopsis on Wikipedia specifically mentions the astronauts being "stranded, alone in suits".

So I say again: Ray Bradbury's "Kaleidoscope"! This classic short story (and one-act play) features a crew of astronauts surviving the destruction of their spaceship, but being thrown in all different directions, so that each of them faces a slow, lonely and protracted death. Some look set to drift forever, while others find themselves being pulled by gravity towards a planet or the Sun.

I'm not saying that Gravity is based on the story, nor that it plagiarises the story - but it certainly seems Bradburyesque, for want of a better word. And nor would it be the first time that "Kaleidoscope" was echoed on screen: the low-budget space comedy Dark Star went there in 1974.