The 2025 Hugo Award for Best Novel shortlist has been announced!
The Hugo Awards, first presented in 1953 and presented annually since 1955, are science fiction’s most prestigious award. The Hugo Awards are named after pioneering science fiction magazine editor, Hugo Gernsback. He founded Amazing Stories, the first major American science fiction magazine, in 1926, and is widely credited with popularizing science fiction and bringing it to a wider audience.
To find out more, visit: https://www.thehugoawards.org/
The winner will be announced on August 16th.
| The Hugo Award for Best Novel: Shortlist 2025 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Robert Jackson Bennett | The Tainted Cup | A Holmes and Watson–style detective duo take the stage in this fantasy with a mystery twist. In an opulent mansion at the borders of the Empire, an Imperial officer lies dead - killed when a tree spontaneously erupted from his body. Even here, where contagions abound and the blood of the Leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death at once terrifying and impossible. Called in to solve the crime is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricity. At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory. Soon, the mystery leads to a scheme that threatens the safety of the Empire itself. For Ana, all this makes for a deliciously thorny puzzle - at last, something to truly hold her attention. And Din? He’ll just have to hold on for the ride. |
| Kaliane Bradley | The Ministry of Time | A civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test whether time-travel is feasible. Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, supporting and monitoring expat '1847' - Commander Graham Gore, a former Victorian polar explorer. Gore, an adventurer by trade, soon adjusts to this bizarre new world of washing machines, feminism and Spotify; and during a long, sultry summer the pair move from awkwardness to friendship to something more. But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the histories that have shaped them? And how do you defy that history when it is living in your house? |
| T. Kingfisher | A Sorceress Comes to Call | From bestselling author T. Kingfisher comes a dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm's Goose Girl, rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic. |
| Adrian Tchaikovsky | Alien Clay | Professor Arton Daghdev has always wanted to study alien life in person. But when his political activism sees him exiled to the planet Kiln, condemned to work under an unfamiliar sky until he dies, his idealistic wish becomes a terrible reality. Kiln boasts a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem. Its monstrous alien life means Arton will risk death on a daily basis – if the camp’s oppressive regime doesn’t kill him first. But, if he survives, Kiln’s lost civilization holds a wondrous, terrible secret. It will redefine life and intelligence as he knows it – and might just set him free. |
| Adrian Tchaikovsky | Service Model | Meet CharlesTM, the latest in robot servant technology. Programmed to undertake the most menial household chores, Charles is loyal, efficient and logical to a fault. That is, until a rather large fault causes him to murder his owner. Understandably perplexed, Charles finds himself without a master – therefore worthless in a society utterly reliant on artificial labour and services. Fleeing the household, he enters a wider world he never knew existed. Here an age-old human hierarchy is disintegrating into ruins, and an entire robot ecosystem devoted to its wellbeing is struggling to find a purpose. Charles must face new challenges, illogical tasks and a cast of irrational characters. He’s about to discover that sometimes all it takes is a nudge to overcome the limits of your programming. But can he help fix the world, or is it too badly broken? |
| John Wiswell | Someone You Can Build a Nest In | This unusual queer romance is a heartfelt fable about disability and the possibility of reconciling conflicting needs through love and understanding. |
