Nominations for this year’s Hugo Awards, the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book, and the Astounding Award for Best New Writer closed on March 9, 2024. The finalists will be announced Friday, March 29, at Levitation, the UK National Convention (Eastercon), taking place in Telford, UK. The announcement is scheduled for 3 pm GMT (UTC +0) immediately following their opening ceremony. Details of the final ballot process will be announced during April. The awards will be presented at a ceremony taking place on Sunday evening, August 11, during Glasgow 2024, the 82nd World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon). They are also planning to provide free online streaming of the ceremony.
While I got most of my nominations in the evening before nominations closed, I was able to fill in some more that morning and received my final confirmation about 10 minutes before voting closed at 11 am in my time zone. Here is what I submitted for the first five categories:
BEST NOVEL
- Some Desperate Glory, Emily Tesh (Tordotcom)
- Starling House, Alix E. Harrow (Tor)
- The Water Outlaws, S.L. Huang (Tordotcom)
- Translation State, Ann Leckie (Orbit)
- Witch King, Martha Wells (Tordotcom)
All of these were books I was really looking forward to before they came out, and all of them lived up to my high expectations. I feel like Translation State is the most likely to make the ballot, but I was pleased to see Witch King and The Water Outlaws were also Nebula finalists.
BEST NOVELLA
- Rose/House, Arkady Martine (Subterranean)
- The Crane Husband, Kelly Barnhill (Tordotcom)
- The Lies of the Ajungo, Moses Ose Utomi (Tordotcom)
- The Mimicking of Known Successes, Malka Older (Tordotcom)
- The Navigating Fox, Christopher Rowe (Tordotcom)
Out of these, I think The Mimicking of Known Successes is getting the most attention, although The Crane Husband also got a Nebula nomination.
BEST NOVELETTE
- “Ivy, Angelica, Bay”, C.L. Polk (Tor.com, 8 Dec 2023)
- “John Hollowback and the Witch”, Amal El-Mohtar (The Book of Witches, Jonathan Strahan, Harper Voyager)
- “Saturday’s Song”, Wole Talabi (Lightspeed 156, May 2023)
- “The Year Without Sunshine”, Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny 55, Nov/Dec 23)
- “What the Mountain Takes, What the Journey Offers”, Jae Steinbacher (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 374, 26 Jan 2023)
I managed to pick two more Nebula finalists here: “Saturday’s Song” and “The Year Without Sunshine”. I could see Naomi Kritzer making an appearance either in this category or for her short story Nebula finalist “Better Living Through Algorithms”.
BEST SHORT STORY
- “A Name is a Plea and a Prophecy”, Gabrielle Emem Harry (Strange Horizons, 14 Aug 2023)
- “Brincando Charcos (Jumping Puddles)”, Ben Francisco (Strange Horizons, 30 Oct 23)
- “Constant Ivan and Clever Natalya”, M.A. Carrick (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 373, 12 Jan 2023)
- “Fandom for Witches”, Ruoxi Chen (Fantasy 96, Oct 2023)
- “The Big Glass Box and the Boys Inside”, Isabel J. Kim (Apex 135, Jan 2023)
No overlap with the Nebula ballot for me here. I would like to see last year’s Astounding Award finalist Isabel J. Kim make the ballot. She also had a couple Clarkesworld stories that I heard people mention nominating.
BEST SERIES
- InCryptid, Seanan McGuire (Backpacking Through Bedlam)
- October Daye, Seanan McGuire (Sleep No More / The Innocent Sleep)
- The Craft Sequence, Max Gladstone (Dead Country)
- The Last Binding, Freya Marske (A Power Unbound)
- The Universe of Xuya, Aliette de Bodard (A Fire Born of Exile)
Yes, I nominated four previous finalists which have enough new material to be eligible again. I think they are all still worthy. Although, if I had thought of it, I would probably have nominated Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch series instead of both of Seanan McGuire’s series. I’ve heard quite a few people mention The Final Architecture by Adrian Tchaikovsky, but I haven’t read that yet.
I’ll be back tomorrow with more of my choices. What were your favorites in these categories?
Laura’s Library 