It has been quite the wait! At last the finalists are announced. Here are the short-listed candidates for Best Novel:

• Audition for the Fox, by Martin Cahill
• Once Was Willem, by M.R. Carey
• The Secret Market of the Dead, by Giovanni De Feo
• The Everlasting, by Alix E. Harrow
• The Adventures of Mary Darling, by Pat Murphy

The winners in this and all the other categories will be announced at the World Fantasy Convention, Oct. 22-25 2026, in Oakland, CA.

As always, I regret I don’t have more time to read in other categories besides Best Novel. I see there are some marvelous choices in other categories, especially shorter works by the award-winning Thomas Ha. His novella “Uncertain Sons” is a finalist in the Best Long Fiction category, his short story “In My Country” is a finalist in the Best Short Fiction Category, and his collection Uncertain Sons and Other Stories (which includes the novella) is a finalist in the Best Collection Category.

Is it unfair that I’m mentioning Ha’s work here, considering I don’t have time to read everything in those other three categories? I suppose, but because I reviewed his collection when it was a finalist for this year’s Philip K. Dick Award and admired it more than just about anything I’ve read this year, speculative fiction or not, I’m mentioning it anyway. The collection won a special citation at the Philip K. Dick Awards. And the judges of the World Fantasy Awards have listed Ha in three of its categories, high praise in itself.

I should mention, too, that Outlaw Planet, a novel by World Fantasy Award short-listed author M. R. Carey, was the book that did win this year’s Philip K. Dick Award.

If I do have time to read around in more of the World Fantasy Award categories, I’ll try to make my way through at least the Best Long Fiction nominees. But woot, I have a head start on the Best Novel category. I’ve already read one of the novels, Alix Harrow’s The Everlasting, in my survey of Hugo Award-nominated novels.

Now I’d better get going! I have four more novels to read. I’ll report back.