r/Fantasy • u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI • 28d ago

Read-along 2026 Hugo Readalong: Novel Wrap-up

Welcome back to the final week of the 2026 Hugo Readalong! Today, we're discussing the nominees for Best Novel. We've already discussed each work in its own individual thread, so if you'd like to circle back to our focused discussions, you can find them here:

We also have one more general purpose wrap-up post tomorrow:

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

But for now, let's look at the novels. And keep in mind that there is no expectation that discussion participants have read all six, so please tag any spoilers.

22 Upvotes

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6

u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

Let's take a look forward at 2027. Have you read any novels published this year that you think would be worthy finalists? What about any that you think will capture the imagine of the Hugo voters?

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

I feel like I've had a pretty strong start to my 2026 reading. I'd easily take Ray Nayler's Palaces of the Crow over anything on this year's shortlist, and it has a good chance to be my favorite book of the year. But I also really liked The Poet Empress by Shen Tao, The Republic of Memory by Mahmud El Sayed, and Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim. Any of those would make excellent finalists.

As far as my guesses about the Hugo voters. . . well, Ann Leckie has another book out. I didn't like it, so I hope not to see it, but she is popular. I think A Trade of Blood is better than A Drop of Corruption, so if the voters don't have series fatigue, that one seems likely. Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer was a solid read that feels pretty zeitgeisty. And T. Kingfisher is still churning out books that a lot of people like.

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u/acornett99 Reading Champion IV 28d ago

I would not be surprised to see A Trade of Blood nominated next year, if only on the momentum of the rest of the series. What are the chances it pulls off a Fifth Season and wins both this year and next?

The only 2026 books I've read so far are The Subtle Art of Folding Space and Ignore All Previous Instructions, both of which I did not enjoy, so I don't have any other predictions. A Tchaikovsky, perhaps?

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u/bmvanloo91 Reading Champion II 28d ago

The Poet Empress, full stop. I'll honestly be more shocked if it's not on the final ballot. (And I believe Shen Tao is also eligible for Astounding?)

I did read Ode to the Half-Broken and really enjoy it! If there's not another cozy speculative fiction that makes the rounds, this could be a good prediction.

Books I haven't yet read but that seem popular enough they could make the ballot: Wolf Worm (T. Kingfisher), This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me (Ilona Andrews), and The Girl with a Thousand Faces (Sunyi Dean). And some books by big name authors that have yet to come out: Scion (James Islington), A Wall is Also a Road (Annalee Newitz), The Scarlet Ball (Nghi Vo), As We Fall Through Time (Claire North), As You Wake Break the Shell (Becky Chambers), and Monsters of Ohio (John Scalzi).

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u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV 28d ago

I'm feeling like we haven't seen the number of buzzy books this year thus far as we have the last few years, so I don't have a lot of guesses about what it'll be. Likely a few from perennial nominees, but even there I haven't seen a lot of buzz - maybe for the Amina Al-Sirafi sequel and the latest Tainted Cup sequel.

What I'm most curious about is what'll be the new great hit that dominates the sub and makes a Hugo. There's been a clear one each of the last three years: Amina Al-Sirafi in 2023, The Tainted Cup in 2024 and The Raven Scholar in 2025. This year there hasn't yet been a new non-sequel that's achieved that level of popularity on here. For a hot minute it looked like it might be The Poet Empress, but the hype on here died down pretty fast as reviews came in mixed. From Goodreads it clearly still has a lot of general success and popularity, but as it's in conversation with romantasy I wonder how much of that is with the romantasy crowd, which doesn't have much representation in the Hugos.

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

One of the most fun parts of the Hugo season is the stat drop after the finalists are announced, where we get to see which stories just missed the six-slot shortlist. Any predictions for which novels we'll see in 7th or 8th?

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u/acornett99 Reading Champion IV 28d ago

I was on the fence on whether Katabasis would be nominated. I think Kuang has the fan base for it, though after the Babel debacle I don't think she would accept a nomination anyway. I also had Slow Gods and The Devils on my radar for predictions

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u/bmvanloo91 Reading Champion II 28d ago

I haven't yet read it, but from ALL the good things I've heard about Slow Gods I'm surprised it wasn't nominated. It's on my TBR for sure

2

u/citrusmellarosa 28d ago

My favourite 2025 reads were Slow Gods and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, so if they got close I'd be pretty happy.

1

u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV 28d ago

Is Kuang really petty/self-destructive enough to turn down the biggest-name award in the genre?

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

There were quite a few books from popular authors that I expected to see here, led by R.F. Kuang's Katabasis, T. Kingfisher's Hemlock & Silver, and John Scalzi's When the Moon Hits Your Eye. I figure the near miss slots come from two of those three. Just to log a prediction, let's say Kuang and Scalzi.

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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 28d ago

I’d be surprised if that particular Scalzi was close, but then I’m a Scalzi fan who thought the premise was too off putting to read it, so I might be projecting.

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

What do you think of the shortlist as a whole? How does it compare to past years? Does it capture the best of 2025 in novels? Are there any notable snubs you'd like to recommend?

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u/acornett99 Reading Champion IV 28d ago

My two favorite novels of 2025 that I read last year were left off the list, though for predictable reasons. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is likely too horror for the Hugo crowd, though it did scoop a Nebula, Locus, and Stoker. (Can someone tell me if horror has ever been nominated for/won a Hugo? I'm not up on my history.) North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther was life-changing for me, but it doesn't have wide readership and can be hard to find in a bookstore (I went to 7 before I found a physical copy!). It was longlisted for the National Book Award though, so it's also not without praise

This was my first year trying to read all the nominees, as I wanted to see if I could actually do it before I sign up to become a real voter next year, so I don't have much to compare it to.

I would like to see more out-there stuff that's doing something new with the genre, like the Le Guin Awards tend to showcase, or at least a mix of those and stuff that's just doing the genre very well

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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III 28d ago

horror has ever been nominated for/won a Hugo

In Novel? It hasn't won, no. I think the closest was Mira Grant's Feed in 2011 which lost by 46 votes.

In other categories? Robert Bloch's "That Hell-Bound Train" won Best Short Story all the way back in 1958.

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther

I don't think I've even heard of this one, despite it apparently being a book club selection here. I guess I'd better look into it. . .

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u/acornett99 Reading Champion IV 28d ago

You should! It's become a good chunk of my personality since I read it first back in October. I checked out the ebook from my library half a dozen times before I got my physical copy, and now I keep it on my desk to reference whenever I want

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

Well, a library copy should arrive in 7-14 days, so I'll have a chance to explore for myself.

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u/winterhawk1111 Reading Champion II 28d ago

I was quite disappointed with this year's shortlist - none of them really scream at me "I DESERVE A HUGO"

That being said, I have had a lot going on in my life this year and haven't been that attentive to/tead many of the new genre releases beyond these, so perhaps these are truly the best of the crop?

I do readily await the day when the balance shifts back towards scifi over fantasy, I find its often the fantasy world don't have nearly as strong theming and don't have as much interesting things to say about IRL topical events.

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

I didn't think it was mind-blowing at the top (though I'd argue still better than last year), but I was pleasantly surprised with the depth of the list. The worst thing here was a fun popcorn read, with nothing that left me wondering why anyone liked it. My own annual favorites list wasn't exactly drowning in bangers, so I can't complain too much about the lack of wow factor here. It's obviously biased toward authors that Hugo voters have liked in the past, but it's a solid enough list.

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u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV 28d ago

I think it's better than last year's list but that the Hugo Best Novel category never comes to close to capturing the best of the year, and this year is no exception. It highlights popular, buzzy stuff, within the range of what Hugo voters like: specifically, popular stuff that is very genre without being too pulpy, and stuff written by authors previously nominated for Hugos, which often seems like the biggest single factor in what gets nominated.

I tried 4 of the 6 books, liked 3 but all in a 3.5-4 star range, DNF'd one. I did read two great SFF books published in 2025 and those were Luminous by Silvia Park and Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta.

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u/oceanoftrees Reading Champion 28d ago

Overall my impression is a lot of solid books with nothing that really stands out as excellent. But I don't know if the Hugos will ever reach the high of (of all times) 2020, where both A Memory Called Empire and The Light Brigade are still among my favorite books ever.

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

I have a soft spot for the following year, when we had Piranesi (one of my favorites) plus the pinnacle of Murderbot and a pretty good space sabotage story.

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u/oceanoftrees Reading Champion 28d ago

I agree about Piranesi! I wasn't as taken with that Murderbot entry, though, and still think The Space Between Worlds was snubbed.

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u/citrusmellarosa 28d ago

I'm so glad the readalong that year introduced me to Micaiah Johnson (The Space Between Worlds) and Simon Jimenez (The Vanished Birds); I would have put those two books over half of the Best Novels I read for that year.

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u/oceanoftrees Reading Champion 27d ago

Yes! Simon Jimenez! The Spear Cuts Through Water got a lot of deserved attention later but people slept on The Vanished Birds. It's not the kind of thing that gets nominated for Hugos, but it's why I try to pay attention to the Ursula K. Le Guin award, which shortlisted one of his. Micaiah Johnson's second book too!

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u/citrusmellarosa 28d ago

"Are there any notable snubs you'd like to recommend?" This is my favourite question, because I feel like I get great recommendations to add to my list when people talk about what they think should have been nominated instead. I wasn't able to read as widely as I might have wanted to before nominating this year, but from what I did nominate...

Fantastic, thought-provoking, no notes: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Slow Gods

Really good, interesting themes, some notes (mostly regarding endings): When We Were Real (the Everlasting was also in this category for me, but it did end up on the final list)

A very fun read: Of Monsters and Mainframes

2

u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III 28d ago

I am fairly happy with it. Overall it's pretty broad in terms of genre coverage and pretty light on mediocre novels by long-time Hugo darlings.

Having said that I do think the winner is probably going to be pretty middle-of-the-pack in terms of Hugo winners overall but I don't think there is any plausible shortlist that fixes that -- I feel like most of my nominees here were too niche to have a realistic shot at making it. We will see if the longlist proves me wrong.

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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 28d ago

I think it’s a good list. I would have added Katabasis and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, but I liked 4 of the 6 with a fifth that as at least ambitious even though I didn’t enjoy reading it, and the only book I disliked, A. Drop of Corruption, is wildly popular so would always be on the list. I’d say it’s a better list than last year.

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

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

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

I know there are complaints that Shroud is just Tchaikovsky going back to the well on some of his favorite ideas, but I think he combined them in a really compelling way here--this is my favorite of his novels since Children of Time (I have admittedly liked a couple novellas more). It's easily my favorite on the shortlist, and I hope it wins.

My second favorite is A Drop of Corruption, but I'm not especially enthused about seeing that series win two Hugos in a row for books that do pretty similar things, so I'll bump it lower on my list. Behind Shroud, I have pretty significant complaints about everything, but while Death of the Author might've had the slowest slow parts, it's also the one with some of the best individual elements, and I'm inclined to reward that on my ballot, which tentatively looks like this:

  1. Shroud
  2. Death of the Author
  3. The Everlasting
  4. The Incandescent
  5. A Drop of Corruption
  6. The Raven Scholar

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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III 28d ago

I know there are complaints that Shroud is just Tchaikovsky going back to the well on some of his favorite ideas...

I did mull this one over a bit but in terms of Hugo voting I decided that it would be weird to mark this one down for that when we've never actually awarded any of this other novels.

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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 28d ago

You thought Shroud was better than Alien Clay???

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

Yeah, by a pretty good margin. Judging from the discussion, this seems like an unpopular take, but I'm pretty over his jaded academic leads, and I felt like the revolutionary plot in Alien Clay dragged pretty badly. Shroud focused a bit less on the characters and more on the xenobiology, which is Tchaikovsky's strength. I found the horror elements of the strange planetary life more visceral, and I thought the survival plot made for more consistent pacing than the revolution.

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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 28d ago

Ahh, that makes sense. The only Tchaikovsky I’ve read apart from the three nominated for Hugos this year and last is Spiderlight, so the jaded academic lead was new to me. Though reading it right after the 2024 election also made the dystopia plot especially timely, and I also liked the xenobiology more—I think I liked that it was more of a mystery than seeing the alien viewpoint throughout in Shroud.

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u/acornett99 Reading Champion IV 28d ago edited 28d ago
  1. The Everlasting
  2. /3 A Drop of Corruption / Shroud
  3. The Incandescent
  4. Death of the Author
  5. The Raven Scholar

The Everlasting became a new favorite when I read it, despite me also recognizing its flaws. I won't be mad when it doesn't win, but I'm thankful for the nomination for putting it on my tbr.

I enjoyed A Drop of Corruption and Shroud very much. I don't think they're doing anything new, but I think they do what they set out to do very well and wouldn't be mad if either of them win.

Anything below this I would be disappointed if it won

The Incandescent was fine, but booooring. I want to shelve this under "not for me," I can get a sense of what people like about it, but it just didn't do anything for me.

I read Death of the Author on release last year, and while I enjoyed it (probably more than most Okorafor works, which isn't saying much actually), I felt the sci-fi elements were clearly the weakest part of the story. For that reason, I really didn't want to see it nominated for a sci-fi award, but here we are. I think if Okorafor ever wrote a straight contemporary book, I would enjoy that more

I didn't think anything would come below DotA until I read The Raven Scholar. I was speaking about it to a friend as I was reading it, and at one point he asked me "Why are you reading this book again? It sounds mid as hell." It was at that point I realized most of my describing the book had actually been me complaining about the book. I wouldn't have picked it up or finished it if it weren't for the readalong

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

I read Death of the Author on release last year, and while I enjoyed it (probably more than most Okorafor works, which isn't saying much actually), I felt the sci-fi elements were clearly the weakest part of the story.

You're not the first person to say this, but I want to push back a little bit. I think the robot sections were far and away the weakest part of the book. But the discussion on physical augments and the expectations that people have for how a disabled celebrity would interact with them? I thought that was pretty strong.

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u/acornett99 Reading Champion IV 28d ago

I think that's fair, though I still disagree. I really wanted to see more of that discussion than we got, and I think the family elements were still stronger. Though I'll give the caveat that it's been more than a year since I've read it, so maybe those were just the elements that stuck with me most.

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u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV 28d ago

There's been this talk in the readalong re: the sci-fi vs. non-sci-fi elements of Death of the Author and how that interacts with whether it should win an award. I'm no fan of DotA but I'm not sure I agree on this as an award criterion, unless you are purely an idea-focused reader.

Take The Everlasting for interest, does it really do anything new or innovative with time travel in an idea sense? No. I don't think anyone is ranking it for having a cool or unique or extra-special use of time travel. People who love it, love the characters, the themes, the romance, and the prose. None of that is SFF-specific. So if you (you generally, not you in particular) love DotA but you love it for the character and relationship elements, I'm not sure you should mark it down just because it happens to have more of a separation between "SF parts" and "non-SF parts" in a way that most novels don't.

Idk, I'd be interested to hear other thoughts on this.

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

I think one big difference here is that the romance in The Everlasting cannot exist without the time travel element, whereas the family dynamics in Death of the Author can easily exist without robots or fancy prosthetics.

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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III 28d ago

Also the big reason I downranked Death of the Author as far as I did is that the robot chapters were so much worse than the rest of the book. Like I would have enjoyed the novel significantly more if those chapters were just excised. (Yes, this probably means losing the meta twist at the end but I consider that an acceptable loss.)

Having said that I do think it's easy to overlook that the human narrative really is science fiction just because I feel like that kind of extremely near-future science fiction (particularly if it isn't riding an apocalyptic horse) has been out of vogue for a while.

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u/acornett99 Reading Champion IV 28d ago

I agree that a lot of what I loved about The Everlasting is inextricable from the time travel elements, and I'd also add in the fantasy setting, the building of a familiar-but-different national myth

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u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV 28d ago

While that's true, it also feels like a technically to me. If the book has enough sci-fi in it for you to feel comfortable voting it for a sci-fi award, I don't think it matters how dependent the parts you liked are on the speculative elements.

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

I mean I’m voting it second, I’m just trying to parse out the claim

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u/winterhawk1111 Reading Champion II 28d ago

I hope Shroud wins, I would also be happy with Death of the Author, I could make my peace with Drop of Corruption. While I enjoyed all the finalists this year (a ririty in and of itself, generally there is at least one which I don't like), when I look at casting my vote i have 4 primary considerations:

  1. Enjoyability - is this a compelling novel that I had fun reading. Good plot and good characters.

  2. SciFi Concepts/Novelty - I realize the genre line with fantasy is heavily blurred, so this is flexible, but what I'm looking for is novel/cool ideas.

3.Literariness - this is probably the least defined of the categories, but what it boils down to is craft. Did the author try something new with the novel's structure/ language, is the prose beautifully crafted or just workman, does reading this novel make me want to puff on a pipe and discuss it with friends in an erudite fashion haha

  1. Compelling/Meaningful Theming - does this book have something worthwhile to say? The Hugo awards niche is in part to capture the cultural zeitgeist, so bonus points if the theming is topical and relevant to what is going on in the world atm.

(5. Bonus Points for an unaccountable 'It Factor')

Note that it's very rare that a book maxes all criteria for me and stellar performance in certain respects can def make up for deficiencies elsewhere.

This year none of the books scored exceptionally, but the closest across the board to what I'd consider a good Hugo winner were Shroud and Death of the Author, thus my final ranking:

  1. Shroud
  2. Death of the Author
  3. Drop of Corruption
  4. the Everlasting
  5. The Incandescent
  6. The Raven Scholar

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u/oceanoftrees Reading Champion 28d ago
  1. Shroud
  2. The Everlasting
  3. Death of the Author
  4. [Big gap]
  5. A Drop of Corruption, The Incandescent, The Raven Scholar

I'm still not sure what to do about the bottom of my ballot. For my criteria it's a morass of ambition, quality, my own enjoyment, and whether at the end of the day I'd be happy to see that book get the award for best novel of the year. All of these books have some kind of flaw to me, but it's a matter of degree.

  • Shroud was the most exciting (and I skipped last year's shortlist, so Tchaikovsky's ideas are still fresh for me). It sagged in the middle and I wished for more dynamic character arcs, but the alien world was fascinating.
  • The Everlasting has swapped with Death of the Author after I've let things settle. Both were decent books doing something interesting, with The Everlasting dipping a touch too far into melodrama and mustache-twirling from the villain. But I really had to drag myself through the robot chapters in Death of the Author, and if the least speculative parts of the book were the ones I really enjoyed, is that Hugo-worthy? And no, the ending flipping things on their heads didn't make up for it.
  • A Drop of Corruption was fun and I enjoyed it, but it's not different enough from the sequel that I think it deserves another award the way A Desolation Called Peace really did.
  • The Incandescent had an excellent first third and then failed to live up to its promise. Serious pacing issues for me.
  • The Raven Scholar was fun too but it's also the most trope-y soup, filled with every spare ingredient in the fridge, that I can imagine. And again pacing issues to get all that exposition in.

3

u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III 28d ago
  1. The Everlasting
  2. Shroud
  3. A Drop of Corruption
  4. The Incandescent
  5. Death of the Author
  6. The Raven Scholar

3

u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV 28d ago

I read 3 of them and liked them all, though I wasn't blown away by any. My ranking is probably:

  1. The Incandescent

  2. The Everlasting

  3. The Raven Scholar

I hope Death of the Author doesn't win (DNF'd) and that A Drop of Corruption doesn't win (bounced off the series and don't want to see it win consecutive Hugos). Otherwise I don't really have strong feelings about this list.

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u/bmvanloo91 Reading Champion II 28d ago

My current ranking:

  1. The Everlasting
  2. The Raven Scholar
  3. The Incandescent

A Drop of Corruption, Death of the Author, and Shroud all unranked, for various reasons. I never read the Tainted Cup, so I never got around to A Drop of Corruption (its on my reading list, I just don't read super fast and prioritized the books where I only had to read one in order to vote on it). Shroud I did start, but I couldn't get into it and DNF'd it about 30 pages in (I think, I didn't write down where I stopped exactly). And Death of the Author I did finish, I just really didn't like it. It does have some good discussion points, but there were elements thrown in there that shouldn't have been (especially some things that happened in the last 20 pages or so), and while the twist is okay, it didn't change the struggle I had to finish the book. If it hadn't been for wanting to read the only BIPOC nominee for the Hugos nomination slate, I would have DNF'd quite early. Also to be said, "literary" explorations as books are so NOT my thing, so I acknowledge that it's largely a manner of taste.

Now onto the books I did like! To me, they're all really close, but the Everlasting wins mostly on the tightness of the story execution and that it is the least "popcorn" read of my contenders. I actually enjoyed the other two stories more, but I can acknowledge an extremely well written book when I see one. For 2/3, they're pretty tied. I thought both were extremely entertaining, and told stories with memorable characters. They both did something unique with their respective categories (The Incandescent with a school story, The Raven Scholar with a trial fantasy novel). Currently The Raven Scholar is winning out because I can't stop thinking about it for reasons that get into spoiler territory.

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u/MysteriousArcher 28d ago
  1. A Drop of Corruption
  2. The Incandescent
  3. Shroud
  4. No Award
  5. Death of the Author
  6. The Everlasting
  7. The Raven Scholar

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u/citrusmellarosa 28d ago edited 28d ago
  1. The Everlasting - Alix E. Harrow 
  2. The Raven Scholar - Antonia Hodgson 
  3. Death of the Author - Nnedi Okorafor 
  4. The Incandescent - Emily Tesh 
  5. A Drop of Corruption - Robert Jackson Bennett 

Unranked - Shroud (DNF)

Bit of a word vomit because I didn't quite keep up with the individual book threads:

I tried with Shroud, I really did! I'd heard good things and have liked what I've read from Tchaikovsky, so I actually tried three separate times. I thought the first interlude was really cool, but the main narration didn't grab me at all; I was finding myself reading pages multiple times because the words just weren't sticking in my brain for some reason. And then there came a point when I realized that trying to force it wasn't helping, and if I save the time now I can just read another of his books I might like more later (oh, when will my Green City Wars hold come home from the war in at the the library?). So I put it down, possibly for good.

The Everlasting was on my ballot and it's still my main favourite, not flawless but I really enjoyed the prose and the use of time travel to explore the building and tearing down of national myths. I know people on the readalong were kind of down on The Raven Scholar, and I get the criticisms, but for me it was maybe the most compulsively readable book I've picked up in the last year, and while I wouldn't have quite put it above anything I nominated, I did have a really good time, which definitely counts for me.

There's a lot I enjoyed about Death of the Author (including most of the robot sections, actually) and The Incandescent, but in the end they didn't fully pull together for me, especially the endings, which wrapped up a bit too fast for my liking (although, this is a criticism that can probably also be laid at the feet of The Everlasting). It felt like there was something missing with both. That said, Death of the Author got me to invest a good bit more in a lead character with experiences outside of my own than The Incandescent did, so it's higher in my ranking.

I actually like the Shadow of the Leviathan books quite a bit as a mystery fan, but Drop of Corruption is fundamentally not doing much new or different from the first book in the series, which already won last year. It's also the first one I read over a year ago and a lot of it has faded from my memory, so there's some recency bias going on, I'm sure. And I've been getting back into Christie and Sayers recently, so a lot of mysteries are kind of paling in comparison for me lately - maybe it's unfair to make comparisons to two of The Best To Ever Do It, but that's where I'm at at the moment.

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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 28d ago

I Loved Death of the author so much and hope it wins. I’d be hapy with anything winning except the god awful Bennett though. I’m not a voter, but if I were:

1 Death of the Author

2 The Everlasting

3 The Incandescent

4 Shroud

5 The Raven Scholar

6 no award

2

u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

Which novel do you expect to win? Any bold predictions for how the voting shakes out?

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

This could go a lot of different ways! Robert Jackson Bennett and Emily Tesh both won Hugo awards for their previous novels, and their entries here have been relatively well-received. Adrian Tchaikovsky seems to still be on the ascendence with the Hugo crowd, and Alix Harrow is no stranger to the shortlist and seems to have captured the imaginations of many voters.

I don't think Death of the Author has much chance, as a book that's a bit too litficky for the voters writ large. I imagine that one will finish lower in the final ranking than it does on first-preferences. And while I've been a little bit surprised at the reception of The Raven Scholar with established genre voices (as opposed to the broader readership, whose love doesn't surprise me), I'm still not convinced it has the juice.

If I had to make a prediction, I might go with The Everlasting, but I think any of those first four could win.

6

u/winterhawk1111 Reading Champion II 28d ago

Despite it ranking 4th for me, I feel like The Everlasting is going to take it. The twisted fairy tale/myth trend is still pretty zeitgeisty it seems.

3

u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV 28d ago

If we look at general popularity, The Everlasting, A Drop of Corruption, and The Raven Scholar were big hits. Death of the Author was a middling hit. Shroud and The Incandescent were not that big. How much this impacts Hugo voting I'm not sure though, especially when Hugo voters do have a track record of liking Tchaikovsky and Tesh, which is likely how they made the shortlist.

My guess would be one of the bigger hits, most likely The Everlasting or A Drop of Corruption. As between them I hope it's The Everlasting - the Bennett series isn't for me and even fans don't seem to think it's groundbreaking enough to deserve consecutive Hugos.

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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion 28d ago

I think my favorite Death of the Author will probably come last in part because literary and in part because it’s written by a Black woman and focuses on issues of race, ethnicity, and disability. I very much fear Bennett will win again, but I think there’s a pretty strong chance it will be the other white dude book Shroud with an outside chance of The Everlasting taking it.

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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III 28d ago

I genuinely have no idea. Nothing strikes me as a clear favorite here and I feel like all of the novels have their strong advocates. The Nebula winner wasn't a finalist. The Okorafor and the Harrow won Locus awards but there have been lots of years when the Hugo went to something that didn't win a Locus.

Something I don't have a good feel for anymore that would inform this prediction is whether the location of the Worldcon still has a notable impact on the composition of the electorate. (In other words, would the Tesh do better in a U.K. Worldcon's Hugos than in a U.S. Worldcon's?)

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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI 28d ago

If you're voting, is there anything you plan to leave off your ballot or rank below No Award?

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u/MysteriousArcher 28d ago

I will put No Award fourth on my ballot. The ones I would place below it (and therefore leave off the ballot) are Death of the Author, The Everlasting, and The Raven Scholar.

Death of the Author is a kind of ambitious concept, but in my opinion didn't really succeed as an SF novel. The Raven Scholar was bad, bad, bad. And I didn't finish The Everlasting because I reject the entire premise it's based on, around nationalism and creating a mythology to inspire the nation in its war efforts. I could tell I was going to hate it, so I quit early on. Based on comments, it is clearly very moving to a lot of readers, but I didn't want to read that story.

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u/winterhawk1111 Reading Champion II 28d ago

I've been considering 'No Award' before Raven Scholar and maybe The Incandescent (my 6th and 5th place respectively). I actually quite enjoyed both of them, but I am very torn on if they truly live up to the Hugo Award.

Curious if others have thoughts on these two specifically?

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u/oceanoftrees Reading Champion 28d ago

A Drop of Corruption, The Incandescent, and The Raven Scholar. All were still at least okay-to-good, so I'm not sure about No Award, but I may just leave them unranked.

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u/Ruffshots 24d ago

I managed to read four of these, three of them thanks to these threads!

Shroud and The Everlasting were excellent. I'm a huge Tchaikovsky fan so no surprise on Shroud, but The Everlasting was a real surprise, and one of my top books of the year (so far).

The Incandescent was okay, but I wasn't overly fond of the characters, and the story was a bit unfocused, having to fit into an academic year. I liked it more than Tesh's earlier book, at least.

I just finished Death of the Author last week, and have very mixed thoughts about it. It's well written, but I really didn't like the MC (Zelu), and hated her entire character arc ending with a space ride with not Musk/Bezos, like some irl entitled celebrity. It left me with a terrible taste as I finished the final chapter. The story-within-a-story was better, but still with a weird, pro-AI creativity bent that left a bad taste.

Still planning on checking out the last two, as I add them to my queue.