Some Comments on the 2026 Hugo Winners

The winners of the 2026 Hugo Awards were announced last night or rather very early in the morning at LACon V, the 2026 Worldcon in Anaheim, California. My thoughts on the finalists may be found here and the full voting and nomination statistics and some comments by the administrator may be found here.

I didn’t attend Worldcon this year, because the US government has unfortunately gone even more mad and the risk of being refused entry to the US or – worse – getting thrown into some ICE jail is too big, especially since Worldcon already falls into the gray area between business and leisure travel for me. What is more, travelling to Anaheim would likely also have been very expensive, considering people talked about Uber (i.e. not even a proper taxi) rides from Los Angeles airport to Anaheim costing more than a hundred dollars, horrendous parking fees, etc…  Though I participated virtually and will eventually write a con report about my virtual LACon experience.

Before we get to the Hugos, let’s take a look at the other important election the results of which were announced at Worldcon, namely the results of the site selection vote for the 2028 Worldcon. There’s also a video of the 2026 site selection business meeting here, complete with site selection administrator Tim Szczesuil trying and in at least one case failing to read out the write-in votes. The bid for Brisbane in Queensland, Australia, won and has now been rebranded as Aussiecon 5. This was not exactly a surprise, since the competing bids for Kigali in Rwanda and Nuremberg in Germany both dropped out some time ago. Nonetheless, this result makes me happy, since I am part of the Brisbane bid committee and promoted the bid at the 2026 Eastercon and Eurocon.

Since the Hugo ceremony was so very late at night or rather very early in the morning, I did not watch it live. A recording of the 2026 Hugo ceremony may be found here and I will probably watch it eventually, though it is three hours and fifteen minutes long. However, the people who did watch the whole ceremony, whether online or on site in Anaheim, generally were full of praise for the ceremony, toastmaster Ursula Vernon, who entertained the audience with fabulous hats and fascinating biological facts and for the acceptance speeches.

There were some issues, because no Hugo ceremony is without issues. One issue was that the autocaptioning software used throughout the con is still pretty terrible and turned Hugo finalist Effie Seiberg into “Every Cyborg”, which Effie actually found quite funny. Though I suspect the moderator who introduced their “fellow panelists”, only for the autocaptioning software to claim they introduced for “fallow penis” probably found the whole thing less funny.

A more serious issue was that some of the slides listing the finalists contained mistakes. This was most notable in the Best Fan Writer category, where the slide somehow mashed finalists James Davis Nicoll and Roseanna Pendlebury together, creating Frankenstein’s Hugo finalists James Davis, Nicoll Roseanna (who became her own character and a joke in the Hugo finalist Discord as an annoying and bitchy person) and Pendlebury, while finalist Örjan Westin was reduced to Örjan Wes. There really is no excuse for this sort of thing happening, especially since “Someone screwed up the names of Hugo finalists – again” keeps happening over and over.

Finally, Best Poem finalist Mari Ness, who happens to be a wheelchair user, reported that a volunteer at the Hugo ceremony told her that “backstage is only for walking participants”. We all know that the world, including convention centers and hotels, is not always as accessible as it should be. However, such remarks are completely inacceptable and LACon owed Mari an apology.

So let’s get to the individual categories.

Warning: I will discuss the voting and nomination statistics, so if you don’t want to know this (cause I know that quite a few finalists don’t), then consider yourself warned.

Best Novel

The winner of the 2026 Hugo Award for Best Novel is The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow. This was also my top vote and a most excellent choice it is, too. This is Alix E. Harrow’s second Hugo win after winning Best Short Story in 2019.

If you look at the rankings, The Everlasting led from the first round onwards and won with a pretty notable distance to the runner-up. It’s also notable that all other finalists got a very similar number of first preference votes.

A look at the longlist reveals that Katabasis by R.F. Kuang just missed the ballot by three votes, which is also what I theorised in my finalist analysis. In general, the longlist consists of lots of good and popular SFF novels. What’s interesting is that Stephen Graham Jones made the longlist with The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. Which is an absolutely deserving work. However, Stephen Graham Jones is primarily a horror writer and traditionally, Hugo voters don’t particularly care for horror.

Best Novella  

The 2026 Hugo Award for Best Novella goes to The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar. It’s a good novella and got a lot of positive buzz, though I ranked it somewhere in the middle of my ballot. This is a personal preference, since I’m somewhat weary of fairy tale inspired stories and there were three of those on this year’s Best Novella ballot.

If you look at the voting and nomination data, The River Has Roots not only received the most nominations in this category, but also led from the first voting round onwards.

Looking at the longlist, I realise that I have zero overlap with any novella on the entire short- and longlist except Automatic Noodle.

Best Novelette

The winner of the 2026 Hugo Award for Best Novelette is “Never Eaten Vegetables” by H.H. Pak, which once again was in the lead from the very start. I had it in third place on my personal ballot.

Catherynne M. Valente’s Dolly Parton inspired novelette “When He Calls Your Name” finished in second place in a case of cosmic serendipity, since Hugo voting closed well before the world lost Dolly Parton.

Best Short Story 

The 2026 Hugo Award for Best Short Story goes to “In My Country” by Thomas Ha. Once again, it was in the lead from the first round onwards. It’s notable that most of this year’s winners got significantly more vote than the runner-ups.

I guess “In My Country” is also one of those stories that resonates with our moment in time, since it’s a story about censorship, free speech or the lack thereof and the power of art to make people think.

Best Series 

The winner of the 2026 Hugo Award for Best Series is Old Man’s War by John Scalzi. This was not my top choice in this category, but it’s a highly deserving win and also something of a capstone honour for the Old Man’s War series, which is one of the most notable science fiction series of the 2000s where most individual books made the Hugo ballot back in the day. Plus, Old War Man’s won John Scalzi the then Campbell (now Astounding) Award for Best New Writer. And in fact, if the Best Series Hugo had been around in the heyday of the Old Man’s War series, it would have won long ago.

John Scalzi talks a bit about winning the Best Series Hugo at Whatever.

Besides, John Scalzi winning Best Series and Thomas Ha winning Best Short Story should appease those jerks who complain that too many women are winning Hugos these days. Though of course they won’t be appeased. And in fact, John Scalzi winning Best Series will make puppies cry, which is always excellent.

Best Graphic Story or Comic

The 2026 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story goes to A Wizard of Earthsea: A Graphic Novel, written by Ursula K. Le Guin, adapted and art by Fred Fordham.

This is the ninth Hugo win for Ursula K. Le Guin, three of which were posthumous, and the first Hugo win for Fred Fordham. It marks the return of what I used to call the obligatory Ursula K. Le Guin releated Hugo Award, cause for a few years in the late 2010s, there was something Ursula K. Le Guin related on the Hugo ballot every year, usual in Best Related. This phenomenon ended as publishers ran out of previously unpublished or uncollected Ursula K. Le Guin writings.

The graphic novel version  of A Wizard of Earthsea is certainly a worthy winner. It is well adapted and the art is good and I’m happy for Fred Fordham. What is more, A Wizard of Earthsea is a fantasy classic that ironically was not even nominated for the Hugo upon first publication, the Hugos being a lot more biassed against fantasy back then. Meanwhile, the graphic novel was in the lead from the first round on with a huge distance to the runner-up.

That said, it was pretty far down on my personal ballot. It’s not that I didn’t like it, I just liked other finalists in this category better. I never really connected with A Wizard of Earthsea, probably because I just didn’t encounter it at the right time in my life. Besides, just as with Dune, I get weary if the same story is nominated for and wins Hugos over and over again in different adaptations.

Best Related

The winner of the 2026 Hugo Award for Best Related Work is Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer, which upset some people who claimed that it was not SFF-related enough. Which makes me respond, “Honestly, of all the Best Related finalists and winners in the past ten years or so, this is the one that bothers you rather than the ninety-second acceptance speech or the fanfiction archive, which – while a wonderful project – is probably the biggest edge case in the history of the category.”

I have repeatedly said that in Best Related Work, I have a strong preference for well-researched non-fiction books over all other types of finalists that have been shoehorned into this category. And therefore, I am very happy about Ada Palmer’s win. Besides, we have had popular science books and books about space travel nominated in this category several times, which are not SFF either, so why is a non-fiction book about history and how it is constructed a bridge too far for some?

Ada Palmer shares her acceptance speech on her website, where she also explains what is science ficitonal about Inventing the Renaissance. What is more, Ada Palmer also explains why having a category for SFF-related non-fiction books is important. I’ll quote the whole thing, because I would co-sign it as it is:

I want to use the moment this platform to many have made that we should split “Best Related” into Best Related Nonfiction Book” and “Best Related Other Work.” It’s wonderful that we have recently broadened our definition to nominate and celebrate essays, blog posts, archives, and more, but when Best Related mostly showcased books it meant every year five or six scholars got to add that CV line item, which, for academics who study SFF and often have trouble justifying their work in the academy, that could make the difference between job and no job, or tenure and no tenure. As we celebrate a wider diversity of works, I hate to see that take away from celebrating books when making the ballot can make the difference between a university having one scholar who studies the work we love and having none. So I strongly urge our community to consider splitting the category in future, so books and non-books that study our work can both be celebrated and supported as richly as they deserve!

As I said above, I totally agree with what Ada Palmer says here. The grab bag category that is Best Related Work should be split into Best Non-Fiction Work and what I tend to call Best Fannish Thing. Because things like AO3, the Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom, the r/fantasy bingo, the Mexicanx Initiative, etc… deserve recognition, but not at the expense of non-fiction books that may have taken years to research and write. Besides, as Ada Palmer says, university hiring committees do take note of Hugo nominations and wins, because it means that a scholar’s work has gained recognition.

Looking at the longlist, we see a mix of anthologies, essays, non-fiction books both about SFF and science topics as well as the r/fantasy bingo. So out of fifteen works on the longlist, only two – the Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom and the r/fantasy bingo – are edge cases. Everything else is still a book and sufficiently book-like object.

Best Dramatic Presentation Long

The 2026 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation Long goes to Sinners.

This is not surprising, since Sinners was a very popular and well received film, which got a record number of Oscar nominations, though in the end it only won a fraction of them. Besides, Sinners is also a really great movie and a most deserving winner. It also got the most nominations and won with a comfortable distance to the runner-up Andor.

Talking of which, I was a bit surprised that season 2 of Andor was the runner-up rather than KPop Demon Hunters, as I expected. But then I am the odd Star Wars fan out who doesn’t like Andor all that much, while I enjoyed KPop Demon Hunters so much more than I expected.

Guillermo Del Toro’s take on Frankenstein, a movie I keep forgetting exists for some reason, ended up in fourth place, Superman in fifth and Mickey 17 finished in sixth. I have to admit I’m a bit surprised that Frankenstein beat what was the best Superman film since Superman II.

Looking at the longlist, Murderbot would have made the ballot, except that individual episodes gained more nominations and so Murderbot ended up in Best Dramatic Presentation Short. There are two more TV show season on the longlist, namely Pluribus and Severance. The rest are all popular and well received movies. I’m surprised Bugonia did comparatively well, but then I hate Yorgos Lanthimos’ work and would almost certainly have no awarded it, if it had been nominated. I also wonder why Hugo voters keep wasting nominations on the Dan Trachtenberg version of Predator, since they made it very clear when they declined a nomination for Prey in 2023 that they don’t care about the Hugos.

Best Dramatic Presentation Short

The winners of the 2026 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation Short is the penultimate episode of season 1 of Murderbot “All Systems Red”.

This episode was a runaway winner, gaining more than twice the number of first preferences in this category than the runner up. The second place went to the other nominated Murderbot episode “The Perimeter”, followed by episodes of Pluribus, Severance, Doctor Who and The Wheel of Time.

Uncommon for the Dramatic Presentation categories, Murderbot showrunner Chris Weitz was actually at the ceremony with several other crewmembers, actor David Dastmalchian as well as Martha Wells. Of course, the fact that this year’s Worldcon happened very close to the center of the US film and TV industry probably helped. but it is always nice to see Best Dramatic Presentation winners actually bothering to show up and pick up their Hugos.

A look at the longlist in this category reveals that a third Murderbot episode would have made the ballot, but was removed due to the “only two episodes per series” rule. There is yet another Murderbot episode further down the ballot. We also have three episodes of Andor in the upper nominee ranks, which were disqualified because season 2 of Andor as a whole was a finalist in Best Dramatic Presentation Long. Indeed, without the disqualifications, the finalists in this category would have been three Murderbot episodes, two Andor episodes and one episode of Pluribus. The disqualifications allowed episodes of Severance, Doctor Who and The Wheel of Time to move up, giving us a much more varied ballot.

All in all, the longlist has a whopping four episodes of Murderbot, three episodes each of Andor, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Severance as well as single episodes of Pluribus, Doctor Who and The Wheel of Time. Which shows that multiple episodes of popular TV series continue to dominate this category, though thanks to the “no more than two episodes per series” rule we have a more varied ballot than in the days when almost the entire ballot consisted of Doctor Who or Star Trek episodes.

Best Game or Interactive Work

The 2026 Hugo Award for Best Game or Interactive Work goes to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which also gained the highest number of nominations and was in the lead throughout the voting.

As I’ve said several times, I’m not a gamer and find this category extremely hard to judge. That said, a member of the Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 team was at the Hugo finalist Discord. In general, the game developers actually do care about the Hugos, which helps the category a lot to be accepted

Best Editor Short 

The winner of the 2026 Hugo Award for Best Editor Short Form is Neil Clarke, who is a most deserving winner and also delivered a pointed acceptance speech about the issue that some semiprozine finalists are actually prozines.

Sheila Williams of Asimov’s, who suffered a brain aneurysm combined with a stroke in December, finished in second place. There is a GoFundMe for the medical and care expenses for Sheila Williams and her disabled husband here.

In third place, we have a tie between Jennifer Brozek and Michael Damian Thomas, followed by Lee Harris in fourth place and Scott H. Andrews in fifth. All of these editors do great work, but Scott H. Andrews is someone I really wish got more recognition.

Best Editor Long

The 2026 Hugo Award for Best Editor Long Form goes to Diana M. Pho, who is another worthy winner.

Looking at the nominations, it’s notable that Lee Harris, who eventually finished in second place, got almost twice as many nominations as the next finalist.

Best Pro Artist 

The winner of the 2026 Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist is John Picacio. This is John Picacio’s fourth Hugo win, but then he does excellent work.

Looking at the nominations, the most striking thing is how comparatively few nominations it took to get on the ballot in this category. John Picacio, who gained the highest number of nominations, had only twenty-eight nominations, which wouldn’t even have gotten him anywhere near the ballot in many other categories. The lowest number of nominations to make the ballot was ten, while the lowest number of nominations on the longlist was six. Of course, part of the problem here is that there is a wide spread of nominees in this category. 228 nominations were cast for 220 artists, which means that there are a lot of artists who only get one or two nominations.

Looking at the actual names on the longlist, there are a lot of very good artists listed. However, one name that makes me happy is that fellow German Simon Eckert, who does wonderful packaging artwork for Masters of the Universe as well as game art, just squeezed into the longlist in fifteenth place. I’ll very likely see Simon at Toyplosion in Castrop-Rauxel in two weeks and will ask him if he’s already seen that he made the Hugo longlist.

Best Semiprozine

The 2026 Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine goes to Uncanny Magazine.

Now don’t get me wrong, Uncanny is a great magazine. However, it’s not the only great magazine out there. And since this is already Uncanny‘s ninth Hugo win, I really wish that some of the other great semiprozines out there would win once in a while as well.

In particular, I feel sorry for On Spec, which shut down last year, so this was their last and only chance at Hugo glory.  Escape Pod, khoreo (sorry for mangling the name, but WordPress hates diacritics) and The Deadlands also have never won at all and Strange Horizons have won only once in spite of many, many nominations.

Looking at the longlist, we see that Beneath Ceaseless Skies actually received enough nominations to make the ballot, but since Scott H. Andrews recused Beneath Ceaseless Skies some years ago, he declined the nomination. Clarkesworld also made the longlist, even though they have been a prozine and no longer eligible for years. Which points at the problem that a lot of Hugo nominators aren’t entirely sure what a semiprozine is.

That said, we have several new names on the longlist such as Augment Magazine, Radon Journal, Small Wonders and New Edge Sword and Sorcery. The last one makes me particularly happy and not just because I appeared in the pages of New Edge Sword and Sorcery several times, but also because it’s a really good magazine that deserves the attention. In fact, I was the one who told New Edge editor Oliver Brackenbury that New Edge made the longlist.

Best Fanzine

The winner of the 2026 Hugo Award for Best Fanzine is nerds of a feather.

nerds of a feather is a highly deserving winner and I’m happy for them and consider them friends, though once again, it’s not the only great fanzine out there and nerds of a feather have already won four times, while several other finalists have never won in spite of multiple nominations.

It’s also interesting that while most winners were the lead from the first round of counting onwards, nerds of a feather and An Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog had a head-to-head race. An Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog (who are also friends) was actually in the lead until the penultimate round.

I’m also sad that Galactic Journey finished in last place, because come on, we do great work, and have a niche that’s different from all the other fanzine finalist.

Looking at the longlist, we see several e-mail newsletters, a reddit subforum and even a traditional print fanzine mixed among blogs. I’m also happy to see that the Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Blog of the Seattle Worldcon, to which I contributed, made the longlist, though they were hammered by EPH, probably because there was a lot of overlap with nominations for Galactic Journey and Speculative Fiction in Translation. Even File 770 still made the longlist, even though Mike permanently recused himself in 2018, i.e. eight years ago.

Best Fancast  

The 2026 Hugo Award for Best Fancast goes to Hugo, Girl!

I’m very happy about this, because a) Hugo, Girl! is a great podcast, and b) I consider them friends like many of the fan category finalists. What is more, Hugo, Girl!’s other win was in Chengdu in 2023 with all the issues that entailed, so I am glad they finally have a baggage-free win.

If you look at the voting data, you’ll see that this was another very tight race and that Worldbuilding for Masochists, who are also friends, was actually in the lead until the final round.

A look at the longlist shows a mix of longtime favourites such as The Skiffy and Fanty Show or Hugos There along with names that are new to me. But then, one of the great things about the Hugo longlists is that they provide you with new writers, magazines, podcasts, artists, etc… to check out.

Best Fan Writer

The winner of the 2026 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer is Jason Sanford.

This makes me very happy, because Jason is a friend and because his Genre Grapevine column is invaluable for SFF writers. Plus, Jason suffered some harassment in the past year. In fact, Jason and I were on a virtual panel about the fan categories Hugos together on Thursday and I wished him good luck for the Hugos.

Jason Sanford shares his acceptance speech here and discusses how SFF saved his life as a neurodiverse kid growing up in rural Alabama.

Jason had a pretty comfortable lead throughout the voting process, though he did not have the highest number of nominations, Roseanna Pendlebury, Alex Brown and Örjan Westin all had more. Meanwhile, there was a tight race for second place between Roseanna Pendlebury and James Davis Nicoll with Roseanna only taking the lead on the final round.

If you look at the longlist, the biggest surprise, at least to me, is that I not only made the longlist, but missed the ballot by two votes and was knocked out by EPH. Now if I had made the ballot, I wouldn’t have declined the nomination. I also want to thank the 25 people who liked my work enough to nominate me. However, I already have a shiny rocket at home and I’m more than happy to let someone else have a go. Besides, if the nominations were decided by simple majority, as up to 2017, and not by EPH, I would have made the ballot at the expensse of Jay Brantner a.k.a. “Tar Vol”, a first time finalist. And I would have hated to knock out a first time finalist. Besides, looking at the other names on the longlist, there are several where I believe that several people nominated me as well as them, whereas I don’t think I have a lot of overlap with Jay’s nominators. So in short, EPH is working as it should.

The rest of the longlist includes lots of good people and as with all fan categories, many friends. What is interesting is that Nicholas Whyte just squeezed onto the longlist in fifteenth place. Now Nicholas wasn’t Hugo administrator or part of the Hugo administration team this year, but should Nicholas get enough nominations to make the ballot in a year when he is Hugo administrator, it would be an interesting conundrum. Now we have had Worldcon chairs nominated for Hugos before and there is no conflict, as long as the Hugos are kept completely separate, but never a Hugo administrator.

Nicholas comments on making the Best Fan Writer longlist here and also analyses which of the other nominees on the longlist got his votes, when he was eliminated by EPH. Apparently, three people nominated both of us.

Best Fan Artist

The 2026 Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist goes to Yuumei. It’s a highly deserved win, because their work is beautiful. They were also in the lead from the very start and gained the highest number of nominations. Meanwhile, Terri Ash had the third highest number of nominations, but sadly finished in sixth place, most likely because many Hugo voters didn’t know how to judge fibre art.

Looking at the longlist, I see lots of fan artists I’m familiar with and whose work I like and a few new names. I’m particularly happy to see many fellow Galactic Journey contributors Lorelei Esther and Jessica Holmes on the longlist.

This is also the category where EPH had the biggest impact. For example, many people who nominated Jessica Holmes also nominated Lorelei Esther, so once Jessica was eliminated, Lorelei gained several points. Another nomination cluster involved Alison Scott, Iain Clark and España Sheriff and it’s notable that España gained several points once Alison and Iain had been knocked out.

Best Poem

The winner of the 2026 Hugo Award for Best Poem is “Hex Supply Customer Support Log” by Elis Montgomery.

Looking at the longlist, it’s notable that the nomination count in what is the newest Hugo category (so new that it was still run as a special category this year) is very low. “Care for Lightning” by Mari Ness got the highest number of nominations with thirty-five, the lowest number of nominations needed to make the longlist was only five. The number of votes cast was pretty good and higher than all of the fan categories, but nomination numbers could be improved.

Brandon O’Brien and Angela Liu, both of whom made the ballot, also reappear on the longlist. We also have a poem by Haley Zapal of Hugo, Girl! and nerds of a feather, that Haley originally published on her blog, on the longlist. There’s also a poem by a Chinese author named Xue Mo, which is the only non-English work to make the longlist in any category.

And now we get to the two not-a-Hugos…

Lodestar

The 2026 Lodestar Award for Best YA or Middle Grade Book goes to Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe by C.B. Lee.

It’s a deserving winner, but what’s notable that it started out in fourth place, just a few votes ahead of Oathbound and Among Ghosts and remained in fourth place until the fourth round of voting, when it overtook Holy Terrors. In the fifth round it overtook They Bloom at Night and only beat Sunrise on the Reaping, which had been in the lead from the beginning, in the very last round. Meanwhile, Among Ghosts started in fifth place and clawed its way up to second place.

If you look at the nomination data, you’ll see that the eventual winner Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe not only got the lowest number of nominations (Sunrise on the Reaping got the highest number by far, because it’s part of the massively popular Hunger Games series), but wouldn’t even have made the ballot if not for EPH. Is this the first time that a work which went on to win a (not-a)Hugo only made the ballot at all due to EPH?

What happened here is that several Hugo voters discovered Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe due to it being Lodestar finalist, liked it and placed it fairly high on their ballots. And this is actually what happened to me as well, because I wasn’t familiar with Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe before, but enjoyed it (whereas I did not like Sunrise on the Reaping all that much) and actually put it in first place on my ballot.

In general, it’s notable that aside from Sunrise on the Reaping and Oathbound, all other works on the ballot and the longlist got nomination counts between twenty and only five. I guess Sunrise on the Reaping and Oathbound were books that even people who are not regular YA readers were familiar with and thus put them on their ballots.

By the way, it makes me happy to see North by Ann Marie Harris just squeezed onto the longlist, cause Ann Michelle is great and I hope we’ll see her on the ballot eventually.

Astounding 

The 2026 Astounding Award for Best New Writer goes to Antonia Hodgson.

This is a highly deserving win. And indeed Antonia Hodgson was in the lead from the very start and also gained by far the most nominations. Plus, her novel The Raven Scholar was also a finalist for Best Novel.

Of course, Antonia Hodgson is only a new writer in speculative fiction, since she published four very good historical crime novels (my Mom was a fan) and actually won the CWA Historical Dagger for her debut novel The Devil in Marshalsea in 2015, which also made the shortlist for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. However, the Astounding rules explicitly exclude prior publications in genres other than SFF, so Antonia Hodgson was absolutely eligible under Astounding rules. Nor is she the first writer with prior publications in other genres to win the Astounding. David Anthony Durham and Lev Grossman both had novels published in other genres, before they won the Astounding Award, then still known as the Campbell Award.

Two other writers, Barbara Truelove and Silvia Park, who gained enough nominations to make the ballot were disqualified because of prior publications in SFF, allowing Molly O’Neill and Sophie Burnham to make the ballot.

***

And that’s it for the 2026 Hugo and not-a-Hugo Awards. Overall, we had some excellent winners this year. And while not every winner was my personal top choice, there is none that I would consider undeserving.

As for other comments on the 2026 Hugo winners, Camestros Felapton digs into the nomination statistics here and here.

Regarding the usual deplorables, the self-styled leading voice of nuissance claims that the 2026 Hugo winners prove that the Sad Puppies were right, because the Best Novel winner is not science fiction. Well no, it’s fantasy, but then fantasy works have always been eligible for the Hugos and the first fantasy work to win in a fiction category was “That Hell-Bound Train” by Robert Bloch back in 1959, while the first fantasy novel to win a Hugo was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix back in 2000. Meanwhile, he also claims that Worldcon is dying, illustrated with a photo of John Scalzi goofing about with his Hugo trophy.

Vox Day is surprisingly silent about his personal nemesis John Scalzi winning another Hugo, so he is upset that Nancy Kress was named the latest SFWA Grand Master, since he claims no one knows who she is.

Christopher Chiu-Tabet reports about the 2026 Hugo winners at Comics Beat, focussing unsurprisingly on the winner of the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story.