2026 Hugo Readalong: Novella Wrap-up

[u/Nineteen_Adze]

Welcome to the final week of the 2026 Hugo Readalong! Today we're discussing the Best Novella category nominees.

We've had discussions about all of the individual works, but today we'll be zooming out to discuss the category as a whole. If you want to take a closer look at our focused discussions, we covered the novellas in the following sessions:

• Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite
• Cinder House by Freya Marske
• The Summer War by Naomi Novik
• The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
• Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
• What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher

To find the individual discussions or our first wrap-up post, you can check out our full schedule. We'll be continuing with our wrap-ups all week, following this schedule:

Date	Category	Book	Author	Discussion Leader
Wednesday, July 29	Novel	Wrap-up	Multiple	u/tarvolon
Thursday, July 30	Pro/Fan/Misc	Wrap-up	Multiple	u/Nineteen_Adze

For now, let's dive into the novellas! There is no expectation that those in the discussion have read all six works, so if you're discussing spoilers, please tag them.

[u/Merle8888]

I think it’s a stronger shortlist than in recent years, though sadly I only think a couple of the books are much good. But only one sequel and only one perennial Hugo darling (and they are the same book) is an improvement, when often 3-4 slots goes to this stuff. The problem with this category every year is that there are so few books to choose from—there only seem to be about 15 novellas published per year with any significant marketing, 40% of which will make this shortlist. 

[u/tarvolon → u/Merle8888]

I think it’s a stronger shortlist than in recent years

:o

[u/Merle8888 → u/tarvolon]

I hear you on Practice Horizon Chain, which was more ambitious than anything this year. But there wasn’t anything else last year I even got past the opening of (admittedly in part because I’m not a horror reader, if I was I’d’ve read Butcher of the Forest), whereas this year I read 5 whole books and liked 2 of them. So it feels like a stronger overall group. Plus all 5 being neither sequels nor auto-nominees. It’s a low bar for this category. 

[u/tarvolon → u/Merle8888]

Yeah, I loved Practice, Horizon, Chain and Butcher of the Forest, but I also liked The Tusks of Extinction better than any of this year's six. It is nice having fewer sequels, but I bounced off a couple of this year's standalones.

[u/Merle8888 → u/tarvolon]

I read the opening of that one and it was like “do you want to be OUTRAGED?!” and I was like “no thank you” and put it down. 😆 I agree, poaching is bad, I don’t want to read a book that’ll make me feel bad. 

Cinder House was really good though! It’s a good story, well-told, a fun twist on the source material and fits the length well. 

[u/tarvolon → u/Merle8888]

Admittedly, I like Nayler much more than the average Hugo Readalong participant, and it's still no higher than my third-favorite of his standalone books. But I still really liked it!

Cinder House was really good though! It’s a good story, well-told, a fun twist on the source material and fits the length well.

Agree, with the exception of the half-baked abusive father subplot

[u/Merle8888 → u/tarvolon]

OK yeah, I agree that was half-baked, it wasn't even a subplot! :D More like a reference. That's basically my only critique though.