Here’s my third post reviewing the finalists for the Hugo Award for Best Novel. The award will be presented on Aug. 30 2026 at LaCon, Anaheim, California.
The list of finalists:
- A Drop of Corruption, Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey; Hodderscape)–reviewed HERE
- The Everlasting, Alix E. Harrow (Tor US; Tor UK)–reviewed in this post
- The Raven Scholar, Antonia Hodgson (Orbit US; Hodderscape)
- Death of the Author, Nnedi Okorafor (Morrow; Gollancz)–reviewed HERE
- Shroud, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor UK; Orbit US)
- The Incandescent, Emily Tesh (Tor US; Orbit UK)–reviewed HERE
The Everlasting, Alix E. Harrow (Tor US; Tor UK)
In this Groundhog Day time-loop of a novel, two voices tell a story. One is the voice of Una Everlasting, the knight in shining armor carefully manipulated by a cruel queen to serve as the image and spirit of an empire. The other is the voice of Owen Mallory, the hapless young man chosen to chronicle Una’s adventures.
As we know from other time-loop stories, it is nearly impossible to exit the loop–close to impossible even to realize you are trapped in one, doomed to repeat the same events over and over. The mystery of why the time-loop traps Una and Owen, how they cope with their plight, and what they do about it is the absorbing matter of this novel.
It is set in a kind of parallel Britain–or is it?–with characters like the noblest of King Arthur’s knights–or is she?–and the most successful of King Arthur’s chroniclers, Thomas Malory–or is he? Calling the shots, an unscrupulous, scheming monarch, an anti-Arthur bent on creating an anti-Camelot.
I really enjoyed this novel, although at times the grind of the looping got to me. The characters, flawed and fascinating, kept me interested. Will the characters solve and resolve their mystery, even if we readers doubt we’ll/they’ll ever get there? Read to find out. As a bonus, there’s a very tiny mystery, a clever puzzle right at the end, waiting there for our own eager minds to solve.
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