Hugo 2021 List

The Hugo finalists were announced on Tuesday on the DisCon III YouTube channel, and it is a really good ballot, again. I’ll first just give the list, then follow up with my comments.

Best Novel

• Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury US; Bloomsbury UK)
• The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• The Relentless Moon, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor; Solaris)
• Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tordotcom)
• Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga; Solaris)
• Network Effect, Martha Wells (Tordotcom)

Best Novella

• Finna, Nino Cipri (Tordotcom)
• Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom)
• Upright Women Wanted, Sarah Gailey (Tordotcom)
• Come Tumbling Down, Seanan McGuire (Tordotcom)
• Riot Baby, Tochi Onyebuchi (Tordotcom)
• The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Nghi Vo (Tordotcom)

Best Novelette

• “The Inaccessibility of Heaven”, Aliette de Bodard (Uncanny 7-8/20)
• “The Pill”, Meg Elison (Big Girl)
• Helicopter Story, Isabel Fall (Wyrm)
• “Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super”, A.T. Greenblatt (Uncanny 5-6/20)
• “Monster”, Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld 1/20)
• “Two Truths and a Lie”, Sarah Pinsker (Tor.com 6/17/20)

Best Short Story

• “Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse”, Rae Carson (Uncanny 1-2/20)
• “Metal Like Blood in the Dark”, T. Kingfisher (Uncanny 9-10/20)
• “Little Free Library”, Naomi Kritzer (Tor.com 4/8/20)
• “The Mermaid Astronaut”, Yoon Ha Lee (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 2/27/20)
• “A Guide for Working Breeds”, Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Made to Order)
• “Open House on Haunted Hill”, John Wiswell (Diabolical Plots 6/15/20)

Best Series

• The Daevabad Trilogy, S.A. Chakraborty (Harper Voyager)
• The Lady Astronaut, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor; Solaris; Audible; F&SF)
• The Poppy War, R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager)
• October Daye, Seanan McGuire (DAW)
• The Interdependency, John Scalzi (Tor; Tor UK)
• The Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells (Tordotcom)

Best Related Work

• A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler, Lynell George (Angel City)
• Beowulf, Maria Dahvana Headley (MCD x FSG Originals)
• FIYAHCON, L.D. Lewis, Brent Lambert, Iori Kusano & Vida Cruz
• “George R.R. Martin Can Fuck Off Into the Sun, or: The 2020 Hugo Awards Ceremony (Rageblog Edition)”, Natalie Luhrs (Pretty Terrible 8/20)
• The Last Bronycon: a fandom autopsy, Jenny Nicholson (YouTube)
• CoNZealand Fringe, Claire Rousseau, C, Cassie Hart, Adri Joy, Marguerite Kenner, Cheryl Morgan & Alasdair Stuart

Best Graphic Story or Comic

• Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, Octavia E. Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy, illustrated by John Jennings (Abrams ComicArts)
• Die, Volume 2: Split the Party, Kieron Gillen, illustrated by Stephanie Hans (Image)
• Once & Future, Volume 1: The King Is Undead, Kieron Gillen, illustrated by Dan Mora (BOOM!)
• Monstress, Volume 5: Warchild, Marjorie Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda (Image)
• Ghost-Spider, Volume 1: Dog Days Are Over, Seanan McGuire, illustrated by Takeshi Miyazawa, Rosie Kämpe, and Ig Guara (Marvel)
• Invisible Kingdom, Volume 2: Edge of Everything, G. Willow Wilson, illustrated by Christian Ward (Berger)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

• Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn
• Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
• The Old Guard
• Palm Springs
• Soul
• Tenet

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

• Doctor Who: “Fugitive of the Judoon”
• The Expanse: “Gaugamela”
• The Good Place: “Whenever You’re Ready”
• The Mandalorian: “The Jedi”
• The Mandalorian: “The Rescue”
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: “Heart” (parts 1 and 2)

Best Editor, Short Form

• Neil Clarke
• Ellen Datlow
• C.C. Finlay
• Mur Lafferty & S.B. Divya
• Jonathan Strahan
• Sheila Williams

Best Editor, Long Form

• Nivia Evans
• Sheila E. Gilbert
• Sarah Guan
• Brit Hvide
• Diana M. Pho
• Navah Wolfe

Best Professional Artist

• Tommy Arnold
• Rovina Cai
• Galen Dara
• Maurizio Manzieri
• John Picacio
• Alyssa Winans

Best Semiprozine

• Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• Escape Pod
• Fiyah
• PodCastle
• Uncanny
• Strange Horizons

Best Fanzine

• The Full Lid
• Journey Planet
• Lady Business
• nerds of a feather, flock together
• Quick Sip Reviews
• Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog

Best Fancast

• Be the Serpent
• The Coode Street Podcast
• Kalanadi
• Claire Rousseau’s YouTube channel
• The Skiffy and Fanty Show
• Worldbuilding for Masochists

Best Fan Writer

• Cora Buhlert
• Charles Payseur
• Jason Sanford
• Elsa Sjunneson
• Alasdair Stuart
• Paul Weimer

Best Fan Artist

• Iain J. Clark
• Cyan Daly
• Sara Felix
• Grace P. Fong
• Maya Hahto
• Laya Rose

Best Video Game

• Animal Crossing: New Horizons
• Blaseball
• Final Fantasy VII Remake
• Hades
• The Last of Us: Part II
• Spiritfarer

Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book (Not a Hugo)

• Legendborn, Tracy Deonn (McElderry; Simon & Schuster UK)
• Elatsoe, Darcie Little Badger (Levine Querido)
• Raybearer, Jordan Ifueko (Amulet)
• A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, T. Kingfisher (Argyll)
• A Deadly Education, Naomi Novik (Del Rey; Del Rey UK)
• Cemetery Boys, Aiden Thomas (Swoon Reads)

Astounding Award for Best New Writer

• Lindsay Ellis
• Simon Jimenez
• Micaiah Johnson
• A.K. Larkwood
• Jenn Lyons
• Emily Tesh

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In every category other than the Artist, Video Game, and Editor – Long Form, at least one item from my nominating ballot made it to the final ballot. And in eleven categories two or more items I nominated made the final list.

On the one hand, I suppose this means I have similar enough tastes to much of the regular Hugo nominating community. On the other hand, this means that in a whole bunch of categories I have a lot of reading/watching to do. On the gripping hand, well, that means I have to read a bunch of stuff for the next few months! Which, as a bibliophile, that’s a good thing.

Let’s get a little specific: in the novel category, two books I nominated made it. All four of the other titles that made it to the ballot were already on my radar to read. In fact, two of those four I’ve already bought, I just hadn’t started reading them, yet.

I should mention that four of the six people who made it to the ballot in Fan Writer are people I nominated. And honestly, the other two are people whose works I’ve read and if I could have nominated more than five people they very well might have made it to my nomination list. Which means that much like last year, this is going to be a very painful category to rank. Some of these I read some much that they basically feel like extended members of my family, so I want to put them all at position number 1 on my ballot. Dang it!

I feel like one particular entry in the Best Short Story list requires an entire post or more on its own — and it already got a post on this blog 13 months or so ago! So I’m not going there.

The only book that I nominated for the Lodestar Award, A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking is a book I loved so much last year that I bought many copies of it to give to various friends and family members for Christmas and birthday presents. I also wasn’t absolutely certain it belong in the Young Adult category, so I nominated it for both Best Novel and Beat Young Adult Novel. In addition to how awesome I think the book is, full disclosure, I should mention that while I don’t expect the author to remember me, the two of us have had dealer’s den tables across from each other at certain conventions, so I may have an extra level of bias in regard to her work.

Finally, thanks to the uncertainties of the pandemic, the committee running this year’s WorldCan has decided to reschedule to convention for a date when they are certain they can host an in-person convention. So instead of being in the latter half of August or the first bit of September as has been tradition for a number of years, this year’s WorldCon will begin on December 18 in Washington, D.C. Way too close to Christmas and in the middle of Advent season for a lot of people.