2025 Hugo Recommendations
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ladybusinessThe subject line is not a typo. 2025 Hugo Recommendations are being collected, category placement is (already) being debated, and word counts are being sourced as I write this. We're also halfway through the publishing year and the 2024 Hugo Award voting deadline is coming up in July. Do you know how you're voting in the fan categories yet? Okay, all the categories, of course, but I'm biased.
After the winners are announced, I tend to let the Hugo spreadsheet for the next year take a backseat. I do one or two reminder calls for recs on my social media each month so people can toss in their recent faves. Otherwise, I'm content to wait until December to do any more aggressive promotion. I want current year winners to enjoy their flowers. So I wanted to post about current recs before my ADHD inevitably made me forget the desire until after the 2024 ceremony.
It's hard to talk about the project without simply making long lists of everything currently listed in the spreadsheet. I'm going to highlight things based on a) what I'm reading and b) what I plan to read currently.
I've read Ghostdrift by Suzanne Palmer, the fourth book in the Finder series. The books that this list introduced me to that I want to read now include Ocean's Godori by Elaine U. Cho (I got this one from the library on my birthday), The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed, and The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton.
Although we're at the halfway point in the year, the novel sheet is still a whole baby. There are many fall releases to come and the many of the books released in April through June are still out there, percolating, waiting to find their readers. Over the last few months, if I look back on the books getting attention on the social medias I'm still on, it would have to be The Book of Love by Kelly Link, The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, and Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera, which was buzzing even before The Saint of Bright Doors started scooping up award nominations.
Tordotcom is once again dominating this category as normal this early in the year. The people (Excel heroes) who come in and put on the Tor ratio in that sheet haven't popped up yet, but I can't imagine they'll stay away long! As lovely as the team at Tor is, we all need a reminder now and then that reading a diversity of editorial perspectives is just as important as reading the books released from a diverse array of authors. Especially for smaller presses, who are publishing more niche stories and need to find their audiences, too.
I have read zero things recommended so far, but have The Dragonfly Gambit by A.D. Sui (h/t to Roseanna for this one), The Practice, The Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar, and These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein on my TBR.
I always feel so badly for Novelette because of its awkward word count space between short story and novella. I tend to start championing this category closer to nomination time and soliciting harder for it than I do the other short fiction categories because it's such a niche category when I try to rec novelettes to non-fandom space folks. They're always like, "what's a novelette?".
I have not yet read any novelettes recommended so far. There's only 11 pieces here so have one long list (it'll be the only one, promise):
If you've loved any novelettes released this year, especially in pay-walled venues, please list them!
I'm honestly shocked that Short Story is sitting at only 40 recs at the half year mark; normally we're closer to 100 at this point. One of my big regrets about the rec sheet is that pay-walled venues tend to get short shrift on the recs front because the people who pay for subscriptions don't know about the spreadsheet, don't have time to contribute (a vibe), or don't care (fair). I'm thinking especially about the smaller pay-walled venues that deliberately publish diverse writers.
I'm surprised to see Clarkesworld and Strange Horizon dominating the rec list, while Uncanny, which publishes lots of big names in the short fiction field, only has one. I figure this will change later, but for now…interesting.
The Series category is up in the air a bit until the winners from this year are announced. The winner can't be nominated again and some of the series are ongoing and indeed may rack up enough words to qualify in the rest of the publishing season.
Right now, I'm sitting solid in favor of the Finder series by Suzanne Palmer, since Ghostdrift makes the series eligible. I encourage everyone to join me in championing fun sci-fi romps. We deserve a fun sci-fi romp on the finalist list next year.
I am hopeful that in 2025 we will get a full slate of all YA books. Actual YA books that are published and marketed as YA, not simply "the YA/YA adjacent books my adult industry colleagues are writing". I can dream, okay? Anyway!
I haven't read anything recommended so far, but I do have several of the books on my TBR, including Blood at the Root by LaDarrion Williams, Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier, and Into the Sunken City by Dinesh Thiru. I remember when Blood at the Root was out looking for a publisher and how much the author was excited for it, so I've had it on my TBR since before it had an ISBN. Thrilled for him!
As aways, my best beloved categories struggle due to participation costs; the seemingly never-ending, self-inflicted reputational damage to the Hugo Awards as an entity; confusing category descriptions that don't map onto current technology; self-rejection; the grind of capitalism, and the fracturing of social media so people and their projects aren't in one place anymore. It's tough out there! I still believe in the power of these categories, though.
Cool thing this year: someone put a fan writing fanwork recs on pinboard as a Fan Writer. This is honestly brilliant and I'm jealous I didn't think of it first, because of course.
Although the finalists for this year are excellent, it was a bit of a gut punch to realize that we've taken a major step back re: diversity of the fan categories, especially re: race. Liz Bourke did a thread on BlueSky about this and how the nature of fan work, often unpaid/not paid a living wage, means that the people who have more time privilege will simply have more space to produce this type of content. I also wonder if the pool of people nominating retracted back to core WSFS members due to the 2023 embarrassment. I have no proof only vibes, but maybe people who participate as a baseline regardless of outside influences have tastes that run more conservative? If such a group exists!
I'm nominating Arturo Serrano solely based on his incredible essay on Scavengers Reign (we were robbed of this as a finalist). Of course, he's been writing for Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together a long time and his archives are deep. He covers more film/TV than I watch, and his post about Poor Things made me reconsider seeing the film, which I had previously opted out of. He made it sound so chewy and interesting. Really looking forward to seeing what else he writes about in 2024.
In Fanzine, I'm back on my soapbox for The Rec Center and Fantasy Café. I appreciate both types of commentary/writing these projects are doing and think they are excellent resources and super fun. I still go ??? over Fantasy Café never being nominated! Not ever?
And although I know it's a huge lift even with Project Texas, I have a few people from BookTok on my list, specifically Toni Morrow and Abby, although Toni does have a YouTube channel, which past Hugo voters tolerated. Both have introduced me to books I would have never found on my own because I'm a misandrist now and extremely filled with judgement about books by Men.
Fan Artist has zero recommendations so far, which is gutting. When I first started the rec sheet it was to help as many people as possible, of course, but also me, specifically, with certain categories like Editor and Semiprozine and Fan Artist. How do I find the speculative fiction/horror art girlies and their portfolios? How do I convince all the incredible fans out there to put themselves forward? As R.B. Lemberg, a genre critic and author I have followed for years and trust so much, said, " Don’t self-reject. Marginalized people, #dontselfreject from writing. We need your voices desperately. We need each other’s voices."
I also hear from people that they're afraid to use the sheet "wrong" or list ineligible items. The literal worst thing that can happen is that recs get moved to a different sheet. Things don't get deleted wholesale, they simply live on elsewhere. There are no call outs or "so and so got a publishing date wrong" or mockery. The Hugo rules can be opaque for certain categories, so the admins are used to moving things around. It's chill. Not a year goes by where stuff I've added hasn't been moved (thanks, novellas that never come with word counts). 😅
Anyone—even professionals—can add recommendations to the 2025 Hugo Rec Spreadsheet, for items released in 2024. Even if you never plan to nominate and vote in the awards, you can add things! These are recommendation sheets, too.
If you're a Hugo participant this year, don't forget to vote for the 2024 Hugo Awards by Saturday 20th July 2024 at 20:17 GMT. Anyone can purchase a WSFS-Only membership to participate in the Hugos for £45, check out the voter's packet, and vote. (I do live in hope that one day this membership fee will be lowered.) If you're voting in the fiction categories and have time, please vote in the fan categories, too, and help us keep them active.
After the winners are announced, I tend to let the Hugo spreadsheet for the next year take a backseat. I do one or two reminder calls for recs on my social media each month so people can toss in their recent faves. Otherwise, I'm content to wait until December to do any more aggressive promotion. I want current year winners to enjoy their flowers. So I wanted to post about current recs before my ADHD inevitably made me forget the desire until after the 2024 ceremony.
It's hard to talk about the project without simply making long lists of everything currently listed in the spreadsheet. I'm going to highlight things based on a) what I'm reading and b) what I plan to read currently.
Novel
I've read Ghostdrift by Suzanne Palmer, the fourth book in the Finder series. The books that this list introduced me to that I want to read now include Ocean's Godori by Elaine U. Cho (I got this one from the library on my birthday), The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed, and The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton.
Although we're at the halfway point in the year, the novel sheet is still a whole baby. There are many fall releases to come and the many of the books released in April through June are still out there, percolating, waiting to find their readers. Over the last few months, if I look back on the books getting attention on the social medias I'm still on, it would have to be The Book of Love by Kelly Link, The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, and Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera, which was buzzing even before The Saint of Bright Doors started scooping up award nominations.
Novella
Tordotcom is once again dominating this category as normal this early in the year. The people (Excel heroes) who come in and put on the Tor ratio in that sheet haven't popped up yet, but I can't imagine they'll stay away long! As lovely as the team at Tor is, we all need a reminder now and then that reading a diversity of editorial perspectives is just as important as reading the books released from a diverse array of authors. Especially for smaller presses, who are publishing more niche stories and need to find their audiences, too.
I have read zero things recommended so far, but have The Dragonfly Gambit by A.D. Sui (h/t to Roseanna for this one), The Practice, The Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar, and These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein on my TBR.
Novelette
I always feel so badly for Novelette because of its awkward word count space between short story and novella. I tend to start championing this category closer to nomination time and soliciting harder for it than I do the other short fiction categories because it's such a niche category when I try to rec novelettes to non-fandom space folks. They're always like, "what's a novelette?".
I have not yet read any novelettes recommended so far. There's only 11 pieces here so have one long list (it'll be the only one, promise):
- "All That Glitters..." by Keegan Young
- "The Bonfire of the Words" by E. Lily Yu
- "The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video" by Thomas Ha
- "The Devil You Don't Know" by D.F. Hunt
- "The Devout" by Cheyenne Shaffer
- "Katya Vasilievna and the Second Drowning of Baba Rechka" by Christine Hanolsy
- "Light Junkie" by Naomi Daniluk
- "The Peregrine Falcon Flies West" by Yang Wanqing
- "The Robot" by Lavie Tidhar
- "Shadow Films" by Ben Peek
- "Why We Eat Each Other" by Yoon Chung
If you've loved any novelettes released this year, especially in pay-walled venues, please list them!
Short Story
I'm honestly shocked that Short Story is sitting at only 40 recs at the half year mark; normally we're closer to 100 at this point. One of my big regrets about the rec sheet is that pay-walled venues tend to get short shrift on the recs front because the people who pay for subscriptions don't know about the spreadsheet, don't have time to contribute (a vibe), or don't care (fair). I'm thinking especially about the smaller pay-walled venues that deliberately publish diverse writers.
I'm surprised to see Clarkesworld and Strange Horizon dominating the rec list, while Uncanny, which publishes lots of big names in the short fiction field, only has one. I figure this will change later, but for now…interesting.
Series
The Series category is up in the air a bit until the winners from this year are announced. The winner can't be nominated again and some of the series are ongoing and indeed may rack up enough words to qualify in the rest of the publishing season.
Right now, I'm sitting solid in favor of the Finder series by Suzanne Palmer, since Ghostdrift makes the series eligible. I encourage everyone to join me in championing fun sci-fi romps. We deserve a fun sci-fi romp on the finalist list next year.
Lodestar
I am hopeful that in 2025 we will get a full slate of all YA books. Actual YA books that are published and marketed as YA, not simply "the YA/YA adjacent books my adult industry colleagues are writing". I can dream, okay? Anyway!
I haven't read anything recommended so far, but I do have several of the books on my TBR, including Blood at the Root by LaDarrion Williams, Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier, and Into the Sunken City by Dinesh Thiru. I remember when Blood at the Root was out looking for a publisher and how much the author was excited for it, so I've had it on my TBR since before it had an ISBN. Thrilled for him!
Fan Categories
As aways, my best beloved categories struggle due to participation costs; the seemingly never-ending, self-inflicted reputational damage to the Hugo Awards as an entity; confusing category descriptions that don't map onto current technology; self-rejection; the grind of capitalism, and the fracturing of social media so people and their projects aren't in one place anymore. It's tough out there! I still believe in the power of these categories, though.
Cool thing this year: someone put a fan writing fanwork recs on pinboard as a Fan Writer. This is honestly brilliant and I'm jealous I didn't think of it first, because of course.
Although the finalists for this year are excellent, it was a bit of a gut punch to realize that we've taken a major step back re: diversity of the fan categories, especially re: race. Liz Bourke did a thread on BlueSky about this and how the nature of fan work, often unpaid/not paid a living wage, means that the people who have more time privilege will simply have more space to produce this type of content. I also wonder if the pool of people nominating retracted back to core WSFS members due to the 2023 embarrassment. I have no proof only vibes, but maybe people who participate as a baseline regardless of outside influences have tastes that run more conservative? If such a group exists!
I'm nominating Arturo Serrano solely based on his incredible essay on Scavengers Reign (we were robbed of this as a finalist). Of course, he's been writing for Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together a long time and his archives are deep. He covers more film/TV than I watch, and his post about Poor Things made me reconsider seeing the film, which I had previously opted out of. He made it sound so chewy and interesting. Really looking forward to seeing what else he writes about in 2024.
In Fanzine, I'm back on my soapbox for The Rec Center and Fantasy Café. I appreciate both types of commentary/writing these projects are doing and think they are excellent resources and super fun. I still go ??? over Fantasy Café never being nominated! Not ever?
And although I know it's a huge lift even with Project Texas, I have a few people from BookTok on my list, specifically Toni Morrow and Abby, although Toni does have a YouTube channel, which past Hugo voters tolerated. Both have introduced me to books I would have never found on my own because I'm a misandrist now and extremely filled with judgement about books by Men.
Fan Artist has zero recommendations so far, which is gutting. When I first started the rec sheet it was to help as many people as possible, of course, but also me, specifically, with certain categories like Editor and Semiprozine and Fan Artist. How do I find the speculative fiction/horror art girlies and their portfolios? How do I convince all the incredible fans out there to put themselves forward? As R.B. Lemberg, a genre critic and author I have followed for years and trust so much, said, " Don’t self-reject. Marginalized people, #dontselfreject from writing. We need your voices desperately. We need each other’s voices."
I also hear from people that they're afraid to use the sheet "wrong" or list ineligible items. The literal worst thing that can happen is that recs get moved to a different sheet. Things don't get deleted wholesale, they simply live on elsewhere. There are no call outs or "so and so got a publishing date wrong" or mockery. The Hugo rules can be opaque for certain categories, so the admins are used to moving things around. It's chill. Not a year goes by where stuff I've added hasn't been moved (thanks, novellas that never come with word counts). 😅
Anyone—even professionals—can add recommendations to the 2025 Hugo Rec Spreadsheet, for items released in 2024. Even if you never plan to nominate and vote in the awards, you can add things! These are recommendation sheets, too.
If you're a Hugo participant this year, don't forget to vote for the 2024 Hugo Awards by Saturday 20th July 2024 at 20:17 GMT. Anyone can purchase a WSFS-Only membership to participate in the Hugos for £45, check out the voter's packet, and vote. (I do live in hope that one day this membership fee will be lowered.) If you're voting in the fiction categories and have time, please vote in the fan categories, too, and help us keep them active.
