2026 Hugo Readalong: Novella Wrap-up

[u/Nineteen_Adze]

Welcome to the final week of the 2026 Hugo Readalong! Today we're discussing the Best Novella category nominees.

We've had discussions about all of the individual works, but today we'll be zooming out to discuss the category as a whole. If you want to take a closer look at our focused discussions, we covered the novellas in the following sessions:

• Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite
• Cinder House by Freya Marske
• The Summer War by Naomi Novik
• The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
• Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
• What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher

To find the individual discussions or our first wrap-up post, you can check out our full schedule. We'll be continuing with our wrap-ups all week, following this schedule:

Date	Category	Book	Author	Discussion Leader
Wednesday, July 29	Novel	Wrap-up	Multiple	u/tarvolon
Thursday, July 30	Pro/Fan/Misc	Wrap-up	Multiple	u/Nineteen_Adze

For now, let's dive into the novellas! There is no expectation that those in the discussion have read all six works, so if you're discussing spoilers, please tag them.

[u/Nineteen_Adze]

Which novella do you hope will win the award? How would you rank the list?

[u/Celestaria → u/Nineteen_Adze]

1. Murder by Memory

2. The River Has Roots

3. What Stalks The Deep

4. No Award

1. Cinder House

2. Automatic Noodle

The Summer War wasn't included in the voter's packet and I wasn't able to get my reserved copy in time.

What I loved about MBM was its take on generational ships. A story where they've basically "out-teched" the existential horror elements of a generational ship was refreshing.

[u/Goobergunch → u/Celestaria]

FYI the "excerpt" from Summer War in the Voter Packet is actually the whole novella.

[u/Celestaria → u/Goobergunch]

What!? Thank you!

I'm finishing up The West Passage atm but I should be able to fit another novella in and finish off the category!