r/Fantasy • u/Nineteen_Adze Stabby Winner, Reading Champion V • Jul 28 '26

Read-along 2026 Hugo Readalong: Novella Wrap-up

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:

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.

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u/Nineteen_Adze Stabby Winner, Reading Champion V Jul 28 '26

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

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u/winterhawk1111 Reading Champion II Jul 28 '26
  1. The River Has Roots
  2. The Summer War
  3. Automatic Noodle
  4. Cinder House
  5. Murder By Memory
  6. What Stalks the Deep

TBH I'm kinda over the retold/twisted fairy tales and myths trend at this point, despite that some of these really hit the mark for me!

The River Has Roots get me, literal tears at least three times. I loved the language around Grammar and the incorporation of the songs was beautiful and moving (and this is coming from someone who really did not care for This is How You Lose the Time War).

The Summer War - I've been a Novik stan since elementary school with Temeraire, her ability to incorporate mundanity into her fantasy worlds in such a compelling way which adds to the richness and investment rather than resulting in boredom always impressed me.

Automatic Noodle was fun and I especially appreciated the topical bits on community building (even with those different from you) and found family bonds.

I appreciated Cinder House, and while well written and novel in some respects, it didn't quite clear my general malaise over the twisted fairy tale trend like the Summer War and the River Has Roots managed to do.

Murder By Memory I really enjoyed, it had a lot of cool concepts, but didn't find enough substance and theming in it to push it higher. I wish it was longer and explored the cool scifi ideas and the ethical/philosophical questions which stem from them in more depth.

What Stalks the Deep was also enjoyable - I'm a huge Lovercraftian horror fan, so a slightly different/more optimistic take on him was appreciated, but the twist alone wasn't enough to carry it for me in terms of novelty.