Jul 12 2026
Among this year’s Hugo finalists in the four headline fiction categories — short story, novelette, novella and novel — no author has more than one nomination. I don’t think I have a particular view about this distribution. On the one hand, it’s neat when a writer has a banner year and gathers up two or even three …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/07/12/hugo-awards-2026-best-novelette-2/
Jul 08 2026
Ooh, boy, is Doug gonna be surprised when he reads my voting slate for this year’s Hugo Awards nominees for Best Novelette! Presented, as usual, in descending order of preference. Top of my list this year is Catherynne M Valente’s When He Calls Your Name. Perhaps oddly, it is one of the two nominees on …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/07/08/hugo-awards-2026-best-novelette/
Jul 06 2026
I admit, dear reader, that I was finally unable to resist the hype surrounding this series and decided to go see what all the fuss is about. And the answer is: a lot, and most of it really good! Full disclosure, the tipping point for finally getting me to pick this up was likely the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/07/06/dungeon-crawler-carl-by-matt-dinniman/
Jun 19 2026
I am glad that successive Worldcons have decided to make Best Poem a permanent category. Poetry is probably the oldest literary genre, and limiting the Hugo award to prose meant missing out. Speculative or fantastic poetry is difficult, because a work has to be both: good poetry and something beyond the mundane, whether science fiction, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/19/hugo-awards-2026-best-poem-2/
Jun 18 2026
Hello, readers! We have a treat for you today with an interview from acclaimed sci-fi author Kevin Hincker. His latest novel riffs off of the Wag The Dog scenario familiar to consumers of both sci-fi classics (that we won’t name here because of potential spoilers) and political thrillers of page and screen. The Story Eaters …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/18/an-interview-with-kevin-hincker-author-of-the-story-eaters-of-yamm/
Jun 14 2026
True to form, two of this year’s finalists in the category of Best Short Story are listicle stories. I guess by now they’re just another variation in the form, rather than an innovation. The strength in the variation is that it allows an author to show numerous different perspectives or aspects of a situation within …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/14/hugo-awards-2026-best-short-story/
Jun 13 2026
This year’s list of Hugo Award finalists in the category of Best Graphic Story of Comic is unusual in that for the first time since 2016 neither Saga nor Monstress is among them. The balance between one-offs and continuing characters/series is a little more usual, with three volumes from each. The ongoing series are a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/13/hugo-awards-2026-best-graphic-story-or-comic/
Jun 06 2026
A detective on a generation starship is an interesting premise. Olivia Waite has taken the venerable concept of a slower-than-light spaceship, the Fairweather, taking humans to another star system and given it several new aspects. She has moved the launch date into a medium-distant future. The people on the ship are not desperate refugees fleeing …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/06/murder-by-memory-by-olivia-waite/
Jun 01 2026
Plucky robots pluck up their pluck and, having stymied the dastardly review bombers, stay right the pluck where they are. This story was not for me. +++ Doreen liked Automatic Noodle more than I did; her review is here. This was the sixth of the Hugo finalists for Best Novella that I read, and the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/01/automatic-noodle-by-annalee-newitz-2/
May 26 2026
I was feeling very intellectually chipper last week and decided to get a head start on some of my Hugo 2026 Awards reading, beginning with a nominated novella from a podcaster I adore. Automatic Noodle is the story of a restaurant’s robot employees in a California that has successfully seceded, at some cost, from the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/05/26/automatic-noodle-by-annalee-newitz/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire