Here’s my fourth post documenting my quest to read and review all six finalists for the 2026 Hugo Award for Best Novel, to be announced on August 30, 2026, in Anaheim, California, at LAcon:

The finalists:

• A Drop of Corruption, Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey; Hodderscape)–reviewed HERE
• The Everlasting, Alix E. Harrow (Tor US; Tor UK)–reviewed HERE
• The Raven Scholar, Antonia Hodgson (Orbit US; Hodderscape)–reviewed in this post
• 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 Raven Scholar, Antonia Hodgson (Orbit US; Hodderscape)

This epic fantasy, the first in a projected trilogy, boasts all the most delicious fantasy themes and tropes: court intrigue, a complex caste system based on eight animal avatars who rule the world of the story, an intricate magic system, a deadly series of trials that chosen heroes must undergo, and a compelling tale of scrappy underdog vs. oppressive establishment.

The novel’s narrative style is ingenious. Mostly, events are filtered through the eyes of a solitary scholar of the Raven class. Sneered at by her fellow Raven class members for her low social origins, Neema Kraa has employed her dogged work ethic to turned herself into the emperor’s most indispensable tool. She’s a truly complex character, appealing and relatable. But early in the novel, she engages in a morally gray act that will torment her throughout the story.

We don’t receive Neema’s story in the straightforward way of other novels. In fact, The Raven Scholar opens on a different set of characters entirely. What happens to them resonates throughout the novel, but we never come back to the most important one, the character we could be forgiven for thinking would be the novel’s main character. So the novel misdirects us from the beginning, and I never could figure out why that was a good idea. (Q: You could just be an obtuse reader. Ever think of that? A: Yes).

At times, we are guided by a disembodied narrative voice. At other times, we view events through the eyes of Neema’s friend and maybe lover, Cain Ballari, a follower of the Fox avatar. Then, about halfway through, the perspectives of the animal avatars themselves, especially the Raven in all its aspects, begin taking over, often on the same page with sudden shifts to the human perspectives. Embellishing the story throughout, we find footnotes to fictional scholarly sources. All of these elements jostling together can be a little confusing. I just went with it.

But there are so many details in the novel that sometimes the reader doesn’t know where to look. There’s a lost pet chameleon, for example, which may or may not be important to the overall story. It seems a bit cutesy, even though most of the novel is not.

Neema and Cain often come across, especially at first, as YA characters. As the story wended on, I decided no, they’re not–but that too was a bit confusing to me. Sometimes they veered off in the YA direction with all of those kinds of tropes, and sometimes they didn’t.

The names of characters in The Raven Scholar are often symbolic, reflecting the roles and personalities and castes of the characters. But then, although the world-building does not seem drawn, particularly, from any Western tradition, a major character’s name is “Cain,” with its distinct overtones of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Yet those are never explored in the novel and, unlike other names, Cain’s is never given an easily understandable explanation based on the world of the novel. Sure, the figure of Cain is the figure of the outcast, which fits Cain Balleri’s character. Just not in the lore of this novel’s world.

With all of these narrative red herrings, I found the novel, while compelling, a bit haphazardly put together.

It’s an exciting read, though. The stakes are raised when Neema’s arch-enemy in her clan (a classic YA mean girl) is found dead, especially when Neema herself becomes both prime suspect in and lead investigator of the murder. And that’s not even the biggest mystery in the novel.

The animal avatar characters are fun. I enjoyed their voices.

The world-building had me bemused at times. There are a lot of majestic fortress and castle-type buildings, some wuxia-type weaponry, buff men and women with swords fighting for dominance, eerie magic including body horror, all cheek by jowl with very contemporary-sounding dialogue and characters, Instagram-worthy parties for the characters to attend, and incongruous objects like watches on people’s wrists.

Overall, I found this novel entertaining to read, even as I noticed I was wandering aimlessly through a lot of it. I did admire the ending, which wrapped things up enough to be satisfying while leaving room for the sequel. Maybe some of the novel’s many loose ends will be resolved in the rest of the trilogy.

Next up: The Hugo Award for Best Novel–SHROUD