Recently, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) announced the nominees for the 2009 Nebula Awards. While the vast majority of the short fiction nominees may be read for free (SF Signal put together a list full of awesome that includes links to digital text and to audio versions, when applicable), I decided to root around for novel nominees.

That brings us to today’s Friday Five (Plus One): 2009 Nebula Novel Nominees (Say It Fast Three Times. Or not.) Here we go.

1. Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl: Available at Baen’s Webscription site for $6.00. With the price and lack of DRM, I’m not going to uncover a better deal for The Windup Girl. If you’re unfamiliar with Bacigalupi and The Windup Girl universe, Webscription offers sample chapters and publisher Nightshade Books features two short stories previously published and set in the same universe (“Yellow Card Man” and “The Calorie Man”).

Synopsis:

Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen’s Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok’s street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history’s lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko…

Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.

2. Christopher Barzak’s The Love We Share Without Knowing: Available for $12.00 directly from Random House or through an independent book seller (via IndieBound) or for $9.60 from Barnes and Noble.

Synopsis:

On a train filled with quietly sleeping passengers, a young man’s life is forever altered when he is miraculously seen by a blind man. In a quiet town an American teacher who has lost her Japanese lover to death begins to lose her own self. On a remote road amid fallow rice fields, four young friends carefully take their own lives—and in that moment they become almost as one. In a small village a disaffected American teenager stranded in a strange land discovers compassion after an encounter with an enigmatic red fox, and in Tokyo a girl named Love learns the deepest lessons about its true meaning from a coma patient lost in dreams of an affair gone wrong.

From the neon colors of Tokyo, with its game centers and karaoke bars, to the bamboo groves and hidden shrines of the countryside, these souls and others mingle, revealing a profound tale of connection—uncovering the love we share without knowing.

3. Laura Anne Gilman’s Flesh and Fire: Book One of the Vineart War: Tied as the most expensive of the Nebula novel nominees, the cheapest nook-compatible eBook I could find was $14.30 at Barnes and Noble. Kobo lists it at $15.59, but with a discount code, you could drop the price below BN’s. This is one of those pricing schemes that makes little sense: compare to publisher Simon and Schuster’s insane $26.00 list price and note that Dead Treers can read the paperback for $9.99 new.

Synopsis:

Once, all power in the Vin Lands was held by the prince-mages, who alone could craft spellwines, and selfishly used them to increase their own wealth and influence. But their abuse of power caused a demigod to break the Vine, shattering the power of the mages. Now, fourteen centuries later, it is the humble Vinearts who hold the secret of crafting spells from wines, the source of magic, and they are prohibited from holding power.

But now rumors come of a new darkness rising in the vineyards. Strange, terrifying creatures, sudden plagues, and mysterious disappearances threaten the land. Only one Vineart senses the danger, and he has only one weapon to use against it: a young slave. His name is Jerzy, and his origins are unknown, even to him. Yet his uncanny sense of the Vinearts’ craft offers a hint of greater magics within — magics that his Master, the Vineart Malech, must cultivate and grow. But time is running out. If Malech cannot teach his new apprentice the secrets of the spellwines, and if Jerzy cannot master his own untapped powers, the Vin Lands shall surely be destroyed.

4. China Miéville’s The City and the City: Tied with Gilman’s book for the most expensive digital version, publisher Random House charges $26.00 for The City and the City. The best deal again appears to be at Barnes and Noble, who lists the novel at $14.30. Kobo charges $15.59, but again, with a code, you could reduce the price. Note that The City and the City is currently only available in hardcover, which makes the pricing easier to accept. (At least for me.)

Synopsis:

When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined.

Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own. This is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a shift in perception, a seeing of the unseen. His destination is Beszel’s equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the rich and vibrant city of Ul Qoma. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, and struggling with his own transition, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of rabid nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman’s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them and those they care about more than their lives.

What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities.

5. Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker: Once again, points go to Barnes and Noble, who list Boneshaker at $9.99. McMillan (via Tor) sell the eBook at the same price as the trade paperback ($15.99). Priced just above BN, Diesel eBooks offer PDF and EPUB versions of Boneshaker for $10.30.

5 +1: Jeff Vandermeer’s Finch: You’ll want to head to Books On Board to grab Finch at $9.98. This compares favorably to the price of the trade paperback ($10.76 at Barnes and Noble).

Synopsis:

Tasked with solving an impossible double murder, detective John Finch searches for the truth among the rubble of the once-mighty city of Ambergris. Under the rule of the mysterious gray caps, Ambergris is falling into anarchy. The remnants of a rebel force are demoralized and dispersed, their leader, the Lady in Blue, not seen for months. Partials—human traitors transformed by the gray caps—walk the streets brutalizing the city’s inhabitants. Finch’s partner Wyte, stricken with a fungal disease, is literally disintegrating. And strange forces are marshaling themselves against detective Finch even as he pursues his one clue: the elusive spymaster Ethan Bliss. How much time does Finch have before time itself runs out?

As always, if you have thoughts about this or future Friday Fives, please drop a line here or in the forum. Happy eReading!