These awards are too many for me to track easily, but I am here to tell you the winner of the 2024 Hugo Award for best novel: Emily Tesh’s Some Desperate Glory (Tordotcom, Orbit UK). It’s a fine novel, interesting, with an interesting narrative twist that turns out to feel very authentic, unlike some which just seem like cheap bids for excitement.

That said, this novel would not have been my own choice. If I ran the zoo (and of course I don’t), I would have chosen The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom), which has already won the 2024 Nebula Award and the 2024 Locus Award for best novel by a new writer. It is superb.

And if not that, then the hugely fun The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, by Shannon Chakraborty (Harper Voyager, Harper Voyager UK).

Tesh’s novel is fine, though. I really enjoyed reading it, even though I had a sinking feeling that it was about to go to the gimmicky plot dark side. It doesn’t, and it delivers a very serious and important message, too.

The short-list was a rich one. Any of these books would repay a reading with a great reader rush:

• The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty (Harper Voyager, Harper Voyager UK)
• The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom)
• Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (Tordotcom, Orbit UK)
• Starter Villain by John Scalzi (Tor, Tor UK)
• Translation State by Ann Leckie (Orbit US, Orbit UK)
• Witch King by Martha Wells (Tordotcom)

Although I didn’t have time to explore the other Hugo categories, I was very much taken with the award for best series: Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie (Orbit US, Orbit UK). One of the titles on the best novel short-list is Translation State, by Leckie. That novel, an excellent read, is set in the Radch universe of Leckie’s series. In preparation for reading Translation State, I re-read all three novels in the Imperial Radch series. They are just great. I suppose I’d say Translation State doesn’t quite measure up to the overall excellence of the base series, but that’s an extremely high bar. The series certainly deserves its Hugo win this year. Find out more here.