sabotabby | you asked for my Hugo opinions

Here we go! It's gonna be long though.

You can see the list of finalists here and the list of winners (with stats and such) here.

Overall impressions: People have good taste. Most of the winners, as you’ll see, weren’t that surprising to me, and I had a high degree of agreement in the categories I cared about. I was particularly happy to see three Indigenous winners.

I’m very much a prose person and it shows; I am interested in most of the other categories, but my time is limited, so while I tried to check out as many of the finalists as possible, I didn’t get to everything. If I hadn't read/watched/listen to most of a category, I didn't vote in it. I focused my time on novels, novellas, and short stories and care most about those.

It’s a ranked ballot so I voted for multiple works in many categories, but to avoid this going forever, I’ve only talked about my top choices.

Astounding Award

Winner: Moniquill Blackgoose

My vote: Moniquill Blackgoose

My prediction: Moniquill Blackgoose

I called this b/c my assumption is that everyone else was as blown away by To Shape a Dragon’s Breath as I was. I was correct. Legit can’t wait to see what she does next.

2025 Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book

Winner: Sheine Lende, by Darcie Little Badger

My vote: I didn’t, as I hadn’t read any of them.

My prediction: Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao

No real opinion since I hadn’t read any of these books, but I’ve enjoyed Darcie Little Badger’s other work so I’m happy.

Best Poem

Winner: “A War of Words,” by Marie Brennan

My vote: I didn’t.

My prediction: I don’t know enough about speculative poetry to have an educated opinion.

Best Fan Artist

Winner: Sara Felix

My vote and also my prediction: Sara Felix

I was pretty confused by the entries, to be honest. But I felt she was by far the best one.

Best Fan Writer

Winner: Abigail Nussbaum

My vote and prediction: Abigail Nussbaum

Correct.

Best Fancast

Winner: Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones, presented by Emily Tesh and Rebecca Fraimow

My vote: I didn’t have time to listen to any of them. Since then, I have checked out A Meal of Thorns and really enjoyed the one episode I listened to.

My prediction: Worldbuilding for Masochists, just because it was the only one I’d heard of.

Best Fanzine

Winner: Black Nerd Problems, editors William Evans and Omar Holmon

My vote: I hadn’t read any of them.

My prediction: Ancillary Review of Books, since again, it was the only one I’d heard of.

Best Semiprozine

Winner: Uncanny Magazine

My vote: Strange Horizons

My prediction: Uncanny Magazine

Best Professional Artist

Winner: Alyssa Winans

My vote: I fully don’t remember who I ranked first. I spent the longest of any category deciding and changed my mind several times.

My prediction: Didn’t have one.

This was one of three categories where I had a brutal time ranking because I thought all five artists were impressive. Alyssa Winans deserved to win and so did everyone else.

Best Editor, Long Form

Winner: Diana M. Pho

My vote: I didn’t. I feel like this is one of those categories where you’d have to work with the person directly, or at least see how the manuscript looked before they edited it.

My prediction: Diana M. Pho, mainly because I see her thanked in a lot of the acknowledgments of books I like.

Best Editor, Short Form

Winner: Neil Clarke

My vote: I didn’t, for the same reasons as with long form.

My prediction: Neil Clarke

The joke about Neil Clarke is that he’s getting to the point where he rejects your work before you send it.

Best Game or Interactive Work

Winner: Caves of Qud, Freehold Games

My vote: I didn’t.

My prediction: Legend of Zelda

I dgaf about vidya games but I was happy that an indie game trounced the games that I’d heard of.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

Winner: Star Trek: Lower Decks: “The New Next Generation,” created and written by Mike McMahan, directed by Megan Lloyd

My vote: Doctor Who: “Dot and Bubble”

My prediction: It was going to be something from Star Trek Lower Decks

Try as I might, I could not get into this show and I don’t see what everyone sees in it (note: this is not a request to try to change my mind—I have tried to watch it a few times, in different moods, and it sets my teeth on edge). “Dot and Bubble,” imo, is the most interesting episode of Doctor Who since “Oxygen” and made me think that the show was really going to be good again.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

Winner: Dune: Part Two, screenplay by Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts, directed by Denis Villeneuve

My vote: I don’t think I voted

My prediction: I Saw the TV Glow, since I heard it was really good and most people in fandom are gay.

For me, Dune suffers from the same problem as other Villeneuve projects, which is that his visuals are at odds with his theme. It’s a very pretty movie. It’s a good trailer for the book. But it’s not really engaging with any of the ideas or characters and it makes Paul’s White Savior archetype look cool af. I’ve heard Villeneuve’s aesthetic described as Epic Cold, which is mostly just something I can appreciate with my eyes but not with my heart.

Best Related Work

Winner: Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right, by Jordan S. Carroll

My vote: Speculative Whiteness

My prediction: I thought we might be up our own asses enough as a culture that one of the Hugo investigations would win (no shade on either; they’re excellent) but I was really thinking positively on this one.

If anything other than this won it would have been an outrage. This is one of the best pieces of SFFH scholarship out there. It’s absolutely brilliant. Yes, the author is a buddy of mine, no, that bias has nothing to do with it.

Best Graphic Story or Comic

Winner: Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way, written by Ryan North, art by Chris Fenoglio

My vote: Sadly, I did not have time to read any of these.

My prediction: Star Trek: Lower Decks.

Ryan North is cool but I am more interested in Dinosaur Comics than this.

Best Series

Winner: Between Earth and Sky, by Rebecca Roanhorse

My vote: Tyrant Philosophers by Adrian Tchaikovsky

My prediction: Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson

This one was a real upset and the betting people must have lost their shit. Sanderson is a juggernaut with a legion obsessed fans; Roanhorse has her fans (including me!) but I didn’t think she was anywhere nearly as popular. I’m glad she won and I think that says something very cool about fandom.

I do think Tyrant Philosophers is underrated both in general as a series, and within Tchaikovsky’s own considerable oeuvre. It’s the best thing I read by him and no one else seems to be into it.

Best Short Story

Winner: “Stitched to Skin Like Family Is,” by Nghi Vo

My vote and prediction: “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim

I’m never going to complain about Nghi Vo winning anything—everything she writes is amazing, including this. I just thought Omelas Hole was fucking hilarious and my guilty pleasure is Omelas Discourse.

Best Novelette

Winner, my vote, and my prediction: “The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea,” by Naomi Kritzer

Again, this isn’t me being biased, it’s just that great of a story that I couldn’t imagine everyone not being in consensus about it.

Best Novella

Winner: The Tusks of Extinction, by Ray Nayler

My vote: The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

My prediction: What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher

This year, Best Novella has been the most challenging category for me in all of the awards I can vote in because the entries have all been really strong. I went back and forth on the ranking of these; in the end, the Practice took top place for me because it gave me the most Big Feelings. I unexpectedly loved Tusks of Extinction, though, despite my repeated assertion that it deserved a better title.

Best Novel

Winner: The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett

My vote: Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky

My prediction: Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell

I honestly loved all the novels except Nest, which I assumed would win because it somehow beat out Vajra Chandrasekera’s brilliant Rakesfall in the Nebulas. Glad to report that Worldcon has better taste. (I’m sure he’s a nice guy, this is nothing personal, I just loathed the book.) The Tainted Cup was a bit of a dark horse—I’d never heard of Bennett even though he has quite a bit out, and neither had a lot of the folks I talked to. But the book is genuinely good and interesting and I while I kept changing my mind in terms of ranking, I had it pretty high up there.

But anyway, what did you think? Whether you voted or not, let me know your thoughts!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dagibbs

"Winner: Between Earth and Sky, by Rebecca Roanhorse"

I've read the first two (of the three, so far) in this series, and the first two (and only so far) in her The Sixth World series (_Trail of Lightning_, _Storm of Locusts_) and far prefer the Sixth World books. But, I don't think they'd have qualified for nomination this year.

From:

kore

I loved the Sixth World books! I wish she'd write another one.

From:

i'll tell you all my secrets but i'll lie about my past

you asked for my Hugo opinions

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