The 2025 Hugo finalists were announced last night – in a somewhat low-key way via Hugo administrator Nicholas Whyte (I recognised his voice) and someone else whose voice I didn’t recognise reading out the finalists in a YouTube video. If you don’t want to sit through the video, the full list of finalists is also here on the Seattle Worldcon site and here at File 770, where there’s also some discussion going on in the comments.
ETA 04-08-2025: File 770 also has a link where to read the 2025 Hugo finalists, either complete or in part, for free.
ETA 04-08-2025: Nicholas Whyte shares the Goodreads and Library Thing stats for the Best Novel, Best Novella and Lodestar finalists.
I had two very busy weeks and decided to use the lovely weather on Sunday to go out and visit an Easter craft fair in the village of Filsum in East Frisia (and it really is a very small village, albeit one with a dedicated Autobahn exit). The Easter craft fair was very busy, especially for a small village. Lots of visitors from the Netherlands, but then Filsum is only maybe twenty-five kilometers from the Dutch border.
I don’t have any photos of the craft fair, because photography was not allowed. However, I went home with a jar of spice, a beautiful handpainted china egg for my Easter branches and four vintage egg cups from a stall that was selling them for 50 cent a piece. Not that I don’t have enough egg cups (and I rarely eat hard-boiled eggs anyway), but I couldn’t resist two handpainted Delftware egg cups for my semi-accidental Delftware collection (and noted Delftware fan Skeletor would never forgive me for not picking them up) plus a Jip en Janneke egg cup, since Jip and Janneke was the first book I read in Dutch (like I noted, this craft fair took place only about twenty-five kilometers from the Dutch border, which explains the Dutch egg cups) and a metal egg cup which will double as the Motherboard chalice from Masters of the Universe Revelation.

My haul from the Filsum Easter craft fair: A vintage metal egg cup, a Jip and Janneke egg cup, a jar of spice, a handpainted porcelain egg with snow drops and two handpainted Deltware egg cups.
My haul also found favour with Skeletor, Lord of Destruction and noted collector of Delftware.
At Snake Mountain:

Tri-Klops, Evil-Lyn, Skeletor, Plundor and Anti-Eternia He-Man admire my haul from the Filsum Easter craft fair.
“Look, Lynnie, Delftware! Isn’t it beautiful? Just look at the little windmills.”
“Sigh. I’m so tired of Delftware. I have no idea why everybody is so into this stuff.”
“The sacred chalice has been returned to me. Praised be Motherboard.”
“You are aware that Motherboard is just a front for Hordak, aren’t you, Tri-Klops?”
“Praised be the Mighty Motherboard.”
“I guess the answer is no.”
“I feel kinship to these Jip and Janneke. They are negative beings of the Anti-Universe just like myself.”
“They are also characters from a children’s book.”
“My precious! I shall add you to my hoard and become the richest rabbit in the whole universe.”
“Skeletor, what are Anti-Eternia He-Man and Plundor even doing here? They’re not Evil Warriors.”
“Anti-Eternia He-Man has killed a lot of He-Men, which means our interests are aligned.”
“He has also killed a lot of Skeletors.”
“Maybe, but those Skeletors weren’t me.”
“So what about the bunny?”
“I don’t know. He just showed up and refused to leave.”
“Then why don’t you kick him out?”
“Because that wouldn’t be very nice.”
“You’re Skeletor, Lord of Destruction. You’re not supposed to be nice.”
“Never mind that, Lyn. Just look at those little windmills and admire the craftmanship of those brush strokes!”
“Praised be the Mighty Motherboard.”
“I shall seek out this Jip and Janneke to add them to my Anti-Heroic Forces.”
“Heh, heh, heh, I’m going to be rich. I’m going to be the richest rabbit in the universe and then I will impose beautiful tariffs on everybody else.”
“Sigh. Idiots! I am surrounded by idiots!”
***
And here is the handpainted porcelain egg on my Easter branches, which are still very barren. At any rate, I don’t think it took this long for them to sprout last year.

The handpainted porcelain egg adorns my Easter branches.
After the craft fair, I paid a brief visit to nearby Stickhausen Castle (yes, East Frisia has castles) in the village of Stickhausen. Though all that remains of the castle is the main tower, built in 1498.

The tower of Stickhausen castle, built in 1498.

A Dutch style drawbridge across the river Jümme in Stickhausen.
I took a few photos of the castle as well as a nearby drawbridge. And since I have started to take some of my action figures along on small or bigger roadtrips for some spontaneous outdoor toy photography, I also snapped the following picture of King Randor and Duncan in front of Stickhausen Castle.

“The tower is well fortified. Let the enemy come. We are ready for them.” – “Sire, don’t you think it would be better to stay inside the tower?” – “Hide inside the tower? Never, Duncan. A king’s place is with his troops.” – “Sigh. As you wish, sire. But don’t blame me if you get yourself killed.”
I also made an unplanned detour or rather two, because Autobahn A28 was closed for construction work, so I had to drive past Zwischenahner Meer, a large lake created when a salt dome collapsed millions of years ago, where I had breakfast at Bakery Ewen in a village called Dreibergen.

A look across the Zwischenahner Meer from the ferry pier at Dreibergen.

Another look across the Zwischenahner Meer at Dreibergen
I’d planned to stop for lunch at Autohof Apen-Remels, which was my Dad’s favourite Autohof on the A28 (well, it doesn’t have all that many – only three Autohöfe und two service stations, including the only service station on a German Autobahn that I know of that doesn’t have a name) and where we frequently stopped on route to the Netherlands. Alas, the Autohof was refurbished last year and instead of the independent restaurant with really good food by Autohof standards, there’s only a McDonald’s now. It’s a shame how American fast food chains are gradually taking over the Autohöfe and Service Stations along German Autobahnen. I don’t mind if there is a McDonald’s or Burger King in addition to the regular truck stop, but if there’s nothing else, I’m not stopping there. So I guess it’s time to scratch Autohof Apen-Remels from my personal list of good Autohöfe in Germany. I should probably check out Autohof Moorburg, one of the other two Autohöfe on the A28, if that one’s better.
Today, however, I drove onwards to Oldenburg some thirty kilometers away and had lunch at Papa Rossi, a sort-of Italian restaurant in Oldenburg-Wechloy only a few hundred meters from the Autobahn.
But enough about my day. You’re here for my thoughts on the 2025 Hugo finalists, so let’s delve right in:
Best Novel
In this category, we have a mix of returning favourites and newcomers.
Adrian Tchaikovsky is represented not once but twice in this category with Alien Clay and Service Model, but then he is a very prolific writer and both novels are fine choices. I’m also glad to see Adrian Tchaikovsky getting more Hugo love in recent years, since he has been doing good work for years, but didn’t start to get Hugo nominations until three years ago.
T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon is a long-time Hugo favourite and her novel A Sorceress Comes to Call is a good choice. This novel was also on my personal shortlist, but didn’t make my ballot in the end.
John Wiswell burst onto the scene in recent years and has won multiple Hugo and Nebula nominations for his short fiction, so it’s no surprise to see his debut novel Someone You Can Built a Nest In on the Hugo ballot. This was also one of my nominees BTW.
Robert Jackson Bennett is an author we’ve seen on the Hugo ballot before and The Tainted Cup got a lot of positive buzz, though I haven’t read it yet.
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley got a lot of buzz last year and was nominated for a couple of mainstream literary awards. This was also one of my nominees BTW. Now we do see SF-nal mainstream books on the Hugo ballot from time to time – the most notable example is probably The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon. Coincidentally, the other notable SF-nal mainstream novel of 2024, Orbital by Samatha Harvey, winner of the Booker Prize, did not make the ballot. But then Orbital is less of a typical Hugo book than The Ministry of Time.
This is a very good shortlist overall. We have a good range of publishers represented with Orbit, Tor, Tordotcom (which is not the same thing as Tor), Del Rey, DAW and Sceptre), which will hopefully put the “But only Tor gets nominated” complaints to rest.
Meanwhile, the “But what about the poor widdle menz?” crowd, which seems to be out in force currently, should be thrilled that this is the first majority male Best Novel ballot since 2015 with four men (even if two of them are Adrian Tchaikovsky) and two women nominated. Plus, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Robert Jackson Bennett and John Wiswell are all white dudes, though I guess the usual suspects will find something wrong with them.
Diversity count (Adrian Tchaikovsky counted twice): 2 women, 4 men, 1 author of colour, 3 international authors*.
Best Novella
We have several returning favourites in this category.
Nghi Vo has been a finalist several times before and is nominated for The Brides of High Hill, which I haven’t read yet.
Aliette de Bodard is another returning favourite and her novella Navigational Entanglements was also on my personal ballot.
T. Kingfisher makes her second appearance on the 2025 Hugo ballot with What Feasts At Night. This one was on my personal longlist, but didn’t make my ballot.
Sofia Samatar is another author we’ve seen on the Hugo ballot before, though it’s been a while, because her last nomination was all the way back in 2014, the year she also won what was then the Campbell Award and is now the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. I’m glad to see her back with The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain, which was also on my personal longlist, but didn’t make my ballot.
Ray Nayler is actually a first time Hugo finalist, because his debut The Mountain in the Sea was a Nebula, not a Hugo finalist. I haven’t yet read his nominated novella The Tusks of Extinction, though I’ve heard good things.
Amazingly, Premee Mohamed is a first time fiction Hugo finalist as well. I actually assumed that she’d been nominated in a fiction category before, which she was – for the Nebula. She was also nominated for the Hugo as part of the Escape Pod team. Anyway, The Butcher of the Forest is a great novella and I’m glad to see it and Premee Mohamed on the ballot. This was also one of my personal nominees.
I’m surprised that Countess by Suzan Palumbo didn’t make the ballot, because it was excellent, but then it’s probably sitting just below the nomination ranks.
Publisherwise, this category actually is dominated by Tordotcom with the only outlier being What Feasts At Night, which was published by Nightfire, another Tor imprint. But Tordotcom and other Tor imprints not only have a solid novella program, but also lots of marketing dollars. Though I still wish that Hugo voters would look beyond Tordotcom‘s novella program at the good work done by Rebellion Publishing, Neon Hemlock, Subterranean other small presses or at the occasional novella published in an SFF magazine or even at indie authors publishing standalone novellas.
Diversity count: 5 women, 1 man, 4 authors of colour, 2 international authors
Best Novelette
This category is a mix of returning favourites and newcomers.
Premee Mohamed makes her second appearance on the ballot with “By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”, which I haven’t read yet.
Multiple Hugo finalist and winner Naomi Kritzer made the ballot with “The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”, another story I haven’t yet read. Coincidentally, this is the first time in a decade or so that a story published in one of the so-called “Big Three” print SFF magazines (i.e. Asimov’s, Analog and F&SF) has made the Hugo ballot. Though I’m not sure you can call these mags the “Big Three” anymore, since their importance and readership has dwindled a lot.
Sarah Pinsker is another multiple Hugo finalist and previous winner. She is nominated for “Signs of Life”, which again I haven’t yet read.
Ann Leckie is another previous finalist and winner. This year, she is nominated for “Lake of Souls”, which – this is kind of becoming a pattern in this category – I haven’t read yet.
Eugenia Triantafyllou has been making a name for herself with short fiction in recent years and made the Hugo longlist a couple of times, but this is her first nomination. Once again, I haven’t yet read her nominated novelette “Loneliness Universe”. I also think this might be the first ever Hugo nomination for a Greek person.
Thomas Ha is the second first-time finalist in this category, nominated for “The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”, which is also a Nebula finalist this year. Once again – yes, you guessed it – I didn’t get around to reading it yet. I didn’t get to read nearly as much as I wanted to to last year.
Venue-wise, we have two stories from Uncanny, one from Strange Horizons, one from Clarkesworld, one from Asimov’s, marking the first Hugo nomination for a story published in a print magazine in a decade or so, and one from a collection. All in all, this is a nice mix of venues.
Diversity count: 5 women, 1 man, 2 authors of colour, 2 international authors
Best Short Story
Rachael K. Jones was a Hugo finalist in this category last year and made the ballot again this year with the haunting “Five Views of the Planet Tartarus”. This highly memorable story was also on my personal ballot.
Nghi Vo makes her second appearance on the 2025 Hugo ballot with “Stitched to Skin Like Family Is”, which I haven’t yet read.
Mary Robinette Kowal is a multiple Hugo finalist and previous winner. This year, she is nominated for “Marginalia”, which I haven’t read yet.
Caroline M. Yoachim has been a frequent presence on Hugo and Nebula ballots in recent years as well. This year, she is nominated for “We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read”, which I once again haven’t yet read.
Arkady Martine is a two-time winner for Best Novel and is nominated for her story “Three Faces of a Beheading” this year. This story was on my personal longlist, but didn’t make my shortlist.
Finally, we have “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim. This is her Isabel J. Kim’s first Hugo nomination, though she was a finalist for the Astounding Award in 2023. Once again, I didn’t get around to reading this story yet.
This category has the most overlap with the 2024 Nebula ballot, since three stories appear on both ballots. With regard to venues, we have three stories from Uncanny, two from Lightspeed and one from Clarkesworld, i.e. not a lot of diversity. But then there is a reason that Uncanny, Lightspeed and Clarkesworld are probably the real “Big Three” of our era.
Diversity count: 6 women, 3 authors of colour
Best Series
Seanan McGuire has been a constant and well deserved presence in this category since its inception in 2017. This year, she is nominated for her InCryptid series, which I like a lot.
Adrian Tchaikovsky actually won in this category with Children of Time in 2023, but has disavowed his win following the Chengdu Hugo mess, which has been exhaustively discussed on this blog and elsewhere. Therefore, I’m glad that he gets another shot at an untainted Hugo. This year, he is nominated for his Tyrant Philosophers series. He was also nominated in this category last year for another series, but then like Seanan McGuire, Adrian Tchaikovsky is very prolific..
Brandon Sanderson has also been nominated in this category (and other categories) before, also for the Stormlight Archive series. His work isn’t really for me, but he is hugely popular.
Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy got knocked off the ballot by puppy shenanigans, back when it came out, though the film version of Annihilation made the ballot. Nonetheless, I’m glad to see him nominated.
I enjoyed The Burning Kingdoms trilogy by Tasha Suri lot and am glad to see it on the ballot. Tasha Suri was an Astounding finalist in 2020 as well as a World Fantasy winner, but this is her first Hugo nomination.
Rebecca Roanhorse won the Hugo Award for Best Short story and what was then the Campbell and is now the Astounding Award in 2018 and has had several nominations since then. I enjoy her work and am glad to see her Between Earth and Sky series on the ballot.
The Singing Hills Cycle by Nghi Vo received enough nominations to make the ballot, but was disqualified due to not insufficient wordcount.
Overall, I still don’t think the Best Series Hugo does what I expected it to do, namely honour long-running popular series where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That said, we do have two finalists on this ballot – InCryptid and Stormlight Archives – which absolutely fall into this category. And overall, this is a good Best Series ballot and not just another bite of apple for Best Novel finalists, so I guess Best Series is working, after all, even though it rarely reflects my taste in series.
Publisherwise we have some nice diversity with Tor, Orbit, Saga Press, DAW, Ad Astra and Farrar, Straus and Giroux all represented.
Diversity count: 3 women, 2 men, 2 authors of colour, 2 international authors
Best Graphic Story or Comic
This category tends to get a little stale with the same long-running series getting nominated over and over again.
This year, we only have two returning favourites, volume 9 of Monstress by Marjorie M. Liu and Sana Takeda, which has a ton of nominations and wins under its belt, and book 2 of My Favourite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris, where the first book was a Hugo finalist several years ago.
Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans have both been nominated in this category before for DIE and Kieron Gillen has also been nominated for Once & Future and The Wicked + The Divine. Their 2025 finalist We Called Them Giants is a standalone post-apocalyptic graphic novel.
G. Willow Wilson has also been nominated in this category before for her work on Ms. Marvel. This time around, she is nominated for her work on The Hunger and the Dusk with Chris Wildgoose.
I’m not familiar with The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag, though it seems to get a lot of positive attention.
Finally, we have a tie-in comic called Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way written by Ryan North, art by Chris Fenoglio. This isn’t the first time we have seen a media tie-in comic make the Hugo ballot (and indeed two of my personal nominees were media tie-in comics). And besides, Star Trek: Lower Decks is very popular with Hugo voters.
With regard to publishers, it’s notable that not a single Marvel or DC comic made the ballot. Ditto for Dark Horse and Boom. Instead, two finalists were published by Image, two by IDW, one by Fantagraphics and one by Graphix.
No diversity count, too many people are needed to make comics.
Best Related
It’s no secret that I have a strong preference for well researched academic and popular non-fiction books in this category. And indeed, two finalists are exactly the sort of thing I want to see nominated in Best Related.
The first of these two is Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right by Jordan S. Carroll, an excellent and well researched non-fiction book, which was also one of my personal nominees.
Track Changes by Abigail Nussbaum was not on my personal ballot, but is nonetheless exactly the sort of book I want to see in this category.
Next, we have two finalists which are not books, but nonetheless highly deserving works of non-fiction, namely “Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics” by Camestros Felapton and Heather Rose Jones and “The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion” by Chris M. Barkley and Jason Sanford. Both works are very much companion pieces and were crucial in digging into the complete and utter mess that was the 2023 Hugo Awards. Normally, I’m not a huge fan of “inside baseball” finalists, i.e. works that examine some genre uproar in minute detail, because I keep wondering what a reader in ten or twenty or fifty years will make of those works and the controversy that spawned them. However, the 2023 Hugo Awards were a huge mess, probably the biggest in the history of the award and the dilligent work of Cam, Heather, Chris, Jason and lots of other fans was crucial in uncovering the sheer scope and scale of malfeasance, therefore these two reports are highly deserving finalists. Besides, Cam, Chris, Jason and Heather are all friends and I’m happy to see them nominated.
YouTuber Jenny Nicholson has been nominated in this category before for her video essays/documentaries. This year, she is nominated for her documentary The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel. I actually watched this one – at part of it (it’s three hours long and I don’t care that much about failed US theme park projects**) – because the YouTube algorithm kept pushing it into my feed. Jenny Nicholson actually spent a shitload of money to stay at the infamously expensive Star Wars Hotel, so she knows what she’s talking about, though her style and video essays on YouTube in general aren’t really my preferred format. Personally, I think that documentaries belong in Best Dramatic Presentation, but in those categories, documentaries would get drowned out by popular Hollywood movies and TV shows, so Best Related is probably the best fit and indeed we have seen several documentaries nominated in this category before.
Finally, we come to this year’s edge case finalist, namely “r/Fantasy’s 2024 Bingo Reading Challenge”. r/Fantasy is a big and popular subreddit and home of the Stabby Awards. I’m not a member, so I’m not sure what exactly the “r/Fantasy 2024 Bingo Reading Challenge” was, though I assume the Hugo voters packet will clear this up.. However, I’m sure it was a worthy project, but like the fanfiction archives, virtual conventions, filk records and other edge case finalists of years gone by, this is not a non-fiction book or sufficiently book-like object (i.e. a long-form article, essay, report or documentary) that I think belongs in this category. Coincidentally, we really need a “Best Fannish Thing” or “Best Miscellany” Hugo category to give a home to all of these worthy projects which don’t really fit anywhere else and return Best Related to the Best Non-Fiction category it was supposed to be.
That said, some of the r/Fantasy people showed up at the Hugo finalist Discord and they seem to be lovely folks and clearly happy about their nomination and it’s always great to see happy finalists. They’re also sharing book recommendations.
Diversity count (minus r/Fantasy, because they have about as many people listed as Strange Horizons and I’m not googling them all, though from what I’ve seen in the finalist Discord, they have members of various genders, races and nationalities): 3 women, 4 men, at least 1 author of colour, 2 international authors
Best Dramatic Presentation Long
Not a lot of surprises in this category.
Dune, Part Two is probably as close to a sure bet you can get, since anything with the name Dune attached tends to get nominated. In fact, Dune, the Musical was disqualified due to being first performed in 2023. Honestly, I think at this point Dune must be the most Hugo nominated property of all time.
The Hugo nomination for Wicked was probably inevitable, because the movie was extremely popular. That said, this is the one finalist I dread having to sit through, because I have zero interest in Wicked. I have neither read the book nor seen the stage musical and the trailers looked very unappealing.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a prequel to the 2016 finalist Mad Max: Fury Road and also a good film, so I’m not surprised to see it on the ballot, though apparently it underperformed at the box office.
The Wild Robot was hugely popular and is also apparently a lovely film, though I haven’t seen it yet. Though oddly enough, I did nominate another animated film about robots, which came out around the same time, namely Transformers One.
Flow is the 2025 Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature and allegedly a lovely film, though again I haven’t seen it yet. Though I’m happy to see animated films and TV shows well represented on the Hugo ballot in both Dramatic Presentation categories this year. Besides, this is very likely the first Hugo nomination for Latvia ever.
I Saw the TV Glow is this year’s indie/arthouse finalist that managed to break through the stranglehood of the big studios. That said, I’m not at all surprised to see it nominated, because this movie about two outsiders bonding over and becoming obsessed by an obscure TV show (if that’s all it is) mirrors an experience that so many of us had as teenagers and young adults, when some weird, obscure and now forgotten (and frankly often not very good) TV-show not only completely seemed to understand how we felt and mirrored our experiences**, but also became a vehicle via which we bonded and communicated with others. It’s a movie that almost every Hugo voter can probably identify with to some degree, because everybody had their own Pink Opaque or several. Anyway, this was also one of my nominees and I’m so glad it made the ballot.
Somewhat conspicuous by its absence is The Substance, especially since it was a Best Picture nominee.
No diversity count, too many people are needed to make movies.
Best Dramatic Presentation Short
In the past, this category often had the problem that multiple episodes of a popular series would get nominated, shutting out other worthy works. Even when the maximum number of episodes per series was limited to two, we still has the problem that two or three series took up the majority of the slots, often for several years in a row.
In recent years, this problem seemed to have resolved itself and there was more variety on the ballot, but 2024 and 2025 saw a resurgence of this phenomenon.
Perennial Hugo favourite Doctor Who is represented with two episode, “73 Yards” and “Dot and Bubble”. Now the latest series of Doctor Who was actually pretty good, a return to form after the Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi years, where the series often got entangled in its own mythology. And “73 Yards” was a very good episode, though I didn’t nominate it, because Doctor Who doesn’t need my help. “Dot and Bubble” is a bit more of a surprise, since it got very mixed reviews when it first aired. But then, this episode was also nominated for a Nebula Award.
Star Trek in all of its guises is another perennial Hugo favourite. This year, two episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks made the ballot, namely “Fissure Quest” and “The New Next Generation”, i.e. the final two episodes of the series, which ended last year. “Fissure Quest” got a lot of positive attention, mostly because it featured a Starfleet ship crewed entirely by alternate reality version of past Star Trek characters and gave us Curson Dax, Garak and Dr. Bashir is a married couple (hurray!), the return of T’Pol, voiced again by Jolene Blalock who came out of retirement to play the character one more time, the return of Lily Sloane from First Contact, whom most of us have forgotten, though actress Alfre Woodward went on to many greater things, and a whole squad of Harry Kims. In short, it’s abolutely no surprise that this episode got nominated. As for “The New Next Generation”, it is the series finale of this popular Star Trek show. Besides, I’m always happy to see animated shows on the Hugo ballot.
The creator is Star Trek: Lower Decks was also celebrating the Hugo nomination on BlueSky, which is always nice to see since a lot of Dramatic Presentation finalists barely seem to acknowledge their nomination at all.
The category is rounded out by the Fallout episode “The Beginning” and the Agatha All Along episode “Death’s Hand in Mine”. I actually nominated episodes from both series, though different ones. Coincidentally, Agatha All Along is also the sole work on the entire Hugo ballot that holds up the Marvel flag.
Somewhat conspicuous by its absence is Arcane, which is extremely popular and a past Hugo finalist. Ditto for X-Men ’97, which was very well received. It’s also notable that no Star Wars series made the ballot, neither The Acolyte (which was hated by a vocal minority, but also had its share of fans and actually tried to do something new) nor Skeleton Crew, which most people actually seemed to like.
That said, all in all this is a pretty good ballot, though personally I would have swapped out “Dot and Bubble” and “The New Next Generation” for episodes from other worthy series. Though 2024 was something of a weak year TV-wise, at least for me. There were a few shows I really loved, but none of them made the ballot.
No diversity count, too many people are needed to make TV shows.
Best Game or Interactive Work
As usual, I can’t say much about this category, because I’m not a gamer.
That said, even I have heard of Dragon Age: The Veilguard and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom.
No diversity count, too many people are needed to make games.
Best Editor Long
This is another category with the tendency to get stale, because there are only so many editors working in SFF.
And indeed, Carl Engle-Laird, Lee Harris, David Thomas Moore and Diana M. Pho have all been nominated in this category before, while Ali Fisher and Stephanie Stein are first time finalists. They’re all very worthy, though.
Coincidentally, since Hugo voters seem to enjoy David Thomas Moore’s work at Rebellion Publishing enough to nominated for him for the Hugo for Best Editor Long for the second year in a row, could they maybe check out Rebellion Publishing‘s fine novella program as well?
Considering how female dominated the publishing industry is, it notable that we have gender parity in this category.
Diversity count: 3 women, 3 men, two international editors, one editor of colour
Best Editor Short
Like the long form category, Best Editor Short tends to get stale, because there are only so many editors working in SFF at any given time and they also tend to stay at their respective magazines for a long time. And indeed every single finalist in this category has been nominated for a Hugo before.
That said, Scott H. Andrews of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld, Jonathan Strahan of Lightspeed, Sheila Williams of Asimov’s and Lynne and Michael Damian Thomas of Uncanny all do very good work, even though they have multiple nominations and sometimes wins under their belt.
I’m also very happy to see Jennifer Brozek on the Hugo ballot again and not just because I have a story in the anthology 99 Fleeting Fantasies, which she edited. Because the first time Jennifer Brozek was on the Hugo ballot was in 2015, when she got caught up in the puppy mess, which led to the entire category being no awarded, even though one can hardly blame her for the fact that Brad Torgersen liked her work and put her on his slate.
Diversity count: 3 women, 4 men, 1 international editor
Best Professional Artist
This is another category that tend to get stale, though we do have a nice mix of new names and returning favourites this year.
For starters, I’m happy to see my friend Alyssa Winans on the ballot again. Rovina Cai is another artist who has been nominated several times in this category before and also won in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Maurizio Manzieri and Micaela Alcaino have also been nominated before, while Tran Nguyen and Audrey Benjaminsen are first time finalists. They all do wonderful work, though.
Diversity count: 5 women, 1 man, 4 artists of colour, 3 international artists
Best Semiprozine
This category often consists of “the usual suspects”. Part of the problem is the way the category is defined, which means that long-running, popular magazines, which pay their author pro-rates and are defined as semipro solely because no staff member makes their main income via the work on the magazines, are competing with small mags that pay maybe ten or twenty dollars per story.
And so Strange Horizons, Uncanny Magazine, Escape Pod and FIYAH: Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction have all been nominated multiple times in this category before. They also do excellent work.
khoréo (apologies for WordPress butchering the title) was a first time finalist in this category last year and won another highly deserved nomination this year.
Finally, we do have a new name in this category with the excellent The Deadlands.
There also was a withdrawal for Beneath Ceaseless Skies, who permanently recused themselves from consideration in this category.
So yes, the fact that we keep seeing the same magazines nominated over and over again in this category is a problem, though they are also all highly deserving finalists. Besides, even though five of six finalists in this category are repeat finalists, kh?ré? are only on their second nomination, Escape Pod has never won in spite of multiple nominations and Strange Horizons has only won once in spite of more nominations than any other finalist in this category. Also, new magazines need some time to establish a readership and reputation and some magazines, though highly deserving , just aren’t what Hugo voters commonly read.
No diversity count, too many people are needed to make semiprozines.
Best Fanzine
This is another category where we tend see the same finalists nominated over and over again, which is why it’s good to see a few new names.
Let’s start with the established names.
Galactic Journey is back on the ballot after a year of absence, which of course thrills me, because I am a contributor to the site. And if you look at the finalist listing, you’ll see my name listed, which means that I’m now a four time Hugo finalist in two different categories.
My friends Olav and Amanda of the Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog have been doing great work for years and I’m thrilled to see them on the ballot again.
I’m always happy to find a new issue of The Full Lid in my inbox every Friday. Alasdair and Marguerite do great and are highly deserving finalists.
Journey Planet has been a fixture on the Hugo ballot for years, but then every single issue of Journey Planet is drastically different with its own theme. Journey Planet isn’t one magazine, but several different ones, each of them highly deserving.
Black Nerd Problems have been doing great work for years and made the longlist a few times, so I’m glad to see them finally make the ballot.
Ancillary Review of Books is new to me, though I like what I see.
No diversity count, too many people are needed to make fanzines.
Best Fancast
Again, we have a nice mix of returning favourites and newcomers in the category.
For starters, I’m thrilled to see my good friends of Hugo, Girl!, Hugos There and Worldbuilding for Masochists on the ballot again. The always excellent Coode Street Podcast is another returning favourite.
We also have two first time finalists, Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones, presented by Emily Tesh and Rebecca Fraimow and A Meal of Thorns, presented by Jake Casella Brookins. I’m not familiar with either podcast, though I look forward to checking them out.
No diversity count, too many people are needed to produce podcasts.
Best Fan Writer
This category is close to my heart for obvious reasons and also full of good people doing good work.
I’m very glad to see my friends Camestros Felapton, Alasdair Stuart and Jason Sanford on the ballot again. Örjan Westin has been doing great work with his MicroSFF fiction on Twitter and now BlueSky and I’m happy to see his hard work recognised.
Abigail Nussbaum always has insightful things to say and I’m happy to see her back on the ballot for the first time since her win in 2017.
Roseanna Pendlebury, finally, is a new finalist in this category, though a previous winner for nerds of a feather. She’s also highly deserving.
Next to Best Editor Short, this is the only category that’s all white and yes, this is a problem. And there are some excellent fan writers of colour out there whom I hope to see on the ballot (again) one day, such as Arturo Serrano, Ann Michelle Harris, Wendy Browne, Chris M. Barkley, Christopher J. Garcia, Sarah Gulde, Arthur Liu, RiverFlow, Juan Sanmiguel, Aigner Loren Wilson, etc…
That said, this is an excellent Fan Writer ballot and also a very international one with one American, two British, one Australian, one Swedish and one Israeli finalist and that is reason to celebrate.
Diversity count: 2 women, 4 men, 5 international writers
Best Fan Artist
This category has a lot of repeat finalists, since Iain J. Clark, Sara Felix, Meg Frank, Alison Scott and España Sheriff have all been nominated in this category before. Michelle Morrell is the only new finalist in this category. There is an Alaskan artist with that name, though I’m not sure if it’s the same person.
ETA: Michelle Morrell herself commented that she is not the Alaskan painter, but the artist who designed the lovely free cross stich patterns on the Seattle Worldcon website.
Diversity count: 4 women, 1 man, 1 non-binary, 3 international artists
Best Poem
This is a special one-of Hugo category run by the Seattle Worldcon, though in the past we have occasionally seen special categories become regular categories.
Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead is a highly deserving finalist. It’s also not what most people think of when they think of poetry, since it’s a novel or at least novella-length work written in verse. Calypso could easily have made the novel ballot, since the fact that it’s written in verse is not a disqualifying characteristic.
The remaining finalists are closer to traditional poem length. I’m really happy to see Mari Ness on the ballot, especially since this is her first Hugo nomination as far as I know. Marie Brennan and Ai Jiang have both been Hugo finalists in other categories before. Devon Barlow and Angela Liu are both first-time finalists, though Angela Liu is also an Astounding finalist this year.
With regard to venues, we have two poems from Uncanny, two from Strange Horizons, one from Haven Spec as well as a novel in verse published by Titan.
Diversity count: 5 women, 1 man, 2 poets of colour, 2 international poets
And now we come to the two not-a-Hugos:
Lodestar
I freely admit that I’m not the target audience for YA and I usually leave the Lodestar finalists for last, because the books just aren’t for me and I’m not familiar with any of the finalists. That said, YA fiction is an important part of our genre and the Lodestar has established itself as a valid award in recent years.
Xiran Jay Zhao, Jordan Ifueko, Yoon Ha Lee and Darcie Little Badger have all been nominated in this category (and elsewhere) before and I enjoyed their previous works. H.A. Clarke is a first time Hugo finalist, though they have been a Nebula finalist in the past. So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole is new to me, though it sounds like something I would enjoy.
We also have a withdrawal in this category, namely Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White, which I’m not familiar with either.
Diversity count: 3 women, 1 man, 2 non-binary, 5 authors of colour, 1 international author
Astounding
I enjoyed Hannah Kaner’s debut novel Godkiller and the sequel Sunbringer and am glad to see her back on the ballot.
I also enjoyed Bethany Jacobs’ debut novel These Burning Stars and the sequel On Vicious Worlds a lot and am glad to see her on the ballot.
Moniquill Blackgoose was an Astounding finalist last and won the Lodestar for To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, so I’m not surprised to see her on the ballot again.
Angela Liu burst into the scene in 2023 and has since been nominated for the Nebula, Ignyte and Rhysling Awards and is also nominated in the Best Poem category, which makes her a highly deserving finalist.
Jared Pechacek (apologies for WordPress butchering his surname) was something of a surprise to me. Apparently, he lives in Seattle, so the 2025 Worldcon is on his home turf. I haven’t read his debut novel The West Passage yet, though I look forward to checking it out.
Tia Tashiro had several stories published in Uncanny, Clarkesworld and Apex Magazine. Unfortunately, I haven’t read any of them, though I’m looking forward to remedying that.
Diversity count: 5 women, 1 man, 3 authors of colour, 1 international author.
***
And that’s it for the 2025 Hugo finalists. Personally, I think it’s a very good ballot, even though a few finalists which are not to my taste. But then every year, there are finalists who are not to my taste.
Are some categories too white? Yes. Could we have more diversity in some categories with a lot of repeat finalists? Yes as well. But then, none of these issues are new. There have always been repeat finalists and some categories where the same person or institution won over and over and over again. Just take a look at ballots from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and even 2000s to see how far we’ve come.
So far, there haven’t been a lot of reactions beyond excited finalists. Double finalist Camestros Felapton briefly weighs in on his blog and there is some discussion and a lot of congratulations in the comments.
ETA 04-07-2025: Allison Scott, John Coxon and Liz Batty discuss the 2025 Hugo finalists on the Octothorpe podcast.
ETA 04-10-2025: The transcript of the Octothorpe episode is now up as well.
ETA 04-08-2025: Camestros Felapton shares his thoughts on the Hugo finalists in greater detail.
ETA 04-09-2025: Dina at SFF Book Reviews shares her thoughts on the 2025 Hugo finalists, focussing mainly on the longer form fiction finalists.
ETA 04-14-2025: At the French site Actualité, Antoine Oury reports about the 2025 Hugo finalists. It’s mostly just a listing of the finalists, but he also refers to the Hugos as “Oscars de l’imaginaire”. Found via Jordan S. Carroll.
One person decided to air their displeasure with the 2025 Hugo finalists on social media barely an hour after the finalists had been announced and found some agreement among commenters. I’m not linking to them, because this person is displeased with the finalists every single year (which is their good right) and rude enough to not even wait twenty-four hours to air their displeasure.
I haven’t seen any reaction from the far right yet, though they mostly seem to have stopped paying attention to the Hugo Awards, which is better for all of us.
ETA: 04-08-2025: A certain infamous “leading voice” felt the need to air their thoughts on their Substack newsletter. Basically, it’s just reiterating Hugo grievances from a puppy POV. He might get into the actual 2025 finalists at some point, but I’d have to subscribe to read the entire thing and I’m not subscribing to this person’s mental diarrhea.
There’s also a video on his YouTube channel, if you have the stomach to sit through eighteen minutes of blathering. I suffered through this nonsense, so you don’t have to, and he actually does go into the 2025 finalists, at least the top of the ballot categories, only to display his complete and utter ignorance of current SFF as well as of how the Hugos work.
Also, comparing the number of Hugo nominations and votes in 2015 and 2016, the two main puppy years, with nominations in 2025 doesn’t say what this person thinks it says, because 2015 and 2016 were outlier years with lots of people joining to either support or vote down the puppies.
More reactions will be added to the post as I find them.
I’ll keep the comments open, but if things get rude or people start fighting each other, I reserve the right to close them.
*I define “international” as a writer/creator living outside the US. If we include writers who are first or second generation immigrants, there would be several more. I’ve also stopped counting LGBTQ+ finalists for the diversity count, because it’s very difficult to determine, since not everybody is out. Apologies if I’ve accidentally misgendered anybody.
**Fun fact: In elementary school, I was chided for talking too much about Disney World (which I visited for the first and only time in 1978 at the age of 5, when this was still something very special), because this was considered bragging. Now, 47 years later, I no longer care about theme parks, including the Disney parks, at all.
***Coincidentally, I only realised recently why my entire class became obsessed with Twin Peaks – to the confusion of the adults in our lives, who neither understood nor liked the show. It’s because our school had its own Laura Palmer case, a girl a few years older than us who’d been killed during a spectacular and senseless crime a little over a year before. Many of the students at our school were what I recognise as traumatised now and the teachers did not react well to this at all. Twin Peaks gave us a mirror through which we could process this experience and we lapped it up. Some friends from school and I were quoting lines from Twin Peaks for years.