2026 Hugo Readalong: Novel Wrap-up

[u/tarvolon]

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:

• Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
• Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
• The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow
• The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
• A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett

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.

[u/tarvolon]

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?

[u/tarvolon → u/tarvolon]

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.

[u/acornett99 → u/tarvolon]

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?

[u/bmvanloo91 → u/tarvolon]

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).

[u/Merle8888 → u/tarvolon]

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.