I'm serving on the Nebula Novel jury this year. The Nebulas are the awards given annually by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America and one interesting wrinkle (among the many, many devastatingly uninteresting wrinkles) in how the awards process works is the existence of "jury adds."
To wind up on the final Nebula ballot, a work must either have survived a round of recommendation and preliminary voting that makes up in Kafka what it lacks in elegance, or it must have been "added" by one of several juries, each of which look at different kinds of work (short fiction, produced screenplays, novels) and each of which operates under its own set of rules and protocols.
Still with me?
A jury consisting of myself and several of my peers may or may not elect to add one novel length work of fiction published in the USA in 2006 to the final ballot of next year's Nebulas (for our purposes a novel is a work of fiction 40,000+ words long).
Our job is to keep an eye out for the rum and the fey, for excellent works that might have escaped the notice of the SFWA membership at large owing to details of the work's publishing history. Perhaps they're books that were under-publicized or which were published by small houses. Perhaps they were published "out-genre," that is, presented as a mystery or a romance or even "straight" fiction while still fitting a generously broad definition of "science fiction" or "fantasy." Perhaps they were tightly targeted at particularly gendered readers, or readers of a particular race or ethnicity, but have things to say to everybody.
If we find one (and there can be, as the man with the sword said, only one), we'll add it to the final ballot. If we don't, we won't.
So your job, reader, is three-fold. First, if you happen to be a writer, publisher or publicist involved with putting out a book in calendar year 2006 that you feel might fit the bill(s), please send it to me:
Christopher Rowe
PO Box 1304
Lexington, KY 40588-1304
Second, if you're not a writer, publisher or publicist etc etc, but you happen to read such a book that you're enthusiastic about, please let me know about it via e-mail and I'll try to track down a copy (if you have info on obtaining a review copy, please send that along as well).
Third, if you have an electroblog yourself, and you think some folks read it who might fit category the first (keywords: writer, publisher or publicist 2006 sf/fantasy might be overlooked etc), will you please let them know that I'm over here, looking for books? Thanks!
UPDATE: It's been suggested that I emphasize that the jury is empaneled for all of 2006--the awards will be given in Spring of '07--so we'll be looking for work all year long. Keep those cards and letters coming, folks!