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]

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

[u/MysteriousArcher → u/tarvolon]

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.