Calling all SciFi fans! The winners for the 2020 Hugo Awards have been announced! As the most prestigious award in the science fiction universe, Hugo winners and nominees are closely followed by fans of the genre around the world. While there was no in-person ceremony this year, the online awards event (hosted by George R.R. Martin) was streamed live on Saturday, August 1st. Categories included best novel, novelette, short story, series, graphic story, and much more. Here are the winners of a few standout categories:
Best Novel
“Ambassador Mahit Dzmare arrives in the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire only to discover that her predecessor, the previous ambassador from their small but fiercely independent mining Station, has died. But no one will admit that his death wasn’t an accident—or that Mahit might be next to die, during a time of political instability in the highest echelons of the imperial court.
Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan’s unceasing expansion—all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret—one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life—or rescue it from annihilation.” -Goodreads.com
Nominees
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
Gideon the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir
The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
Best Novella
“Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.
Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.” -Goodreads.com
Nominees
In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire
To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark
Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom (Exhalation) by Ted Chiang
The Deep by Rivers Solomon with Daveed Diggs
Best Novelette
“What will become of our self-destructed planet? The answer shatters all expectations in this subversive speculation from the Hugo Award–winning author of the Broken Earth trilogy.
An explorer returns to gather information from a climate-ravaged Earth that his ancestors, and others among the planet’s finest, fled centuries ago. The mission comes with a warning: a graveyard world awaits him. But so do those left behind—hopeless and unbeautiful wastes of humanity who should have died out eons ago. After all this time, there’s no telling how they’ve devolved. Steel yourself, soldier. Get in. Get out. And try not to stare.” -Goodreads.com
Nominees
Omphalos, by Ted Chiang (Exhalation (Borzoi/Alfred A. Knopf; Picador))
Away With the Wolves, by Sarah Gailey (Uncanny Magazine: Disabled People Destroy Fantasy Special Issue, September/October 2019)
For He Can Creep, by Siobhan Carroll (Tor.com, 10 July 2019)
The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye, by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine, July-August 2019)
The Archronology of Love”, by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed, April 2019)
Best Series
“Two hundred years after migrating into space, mankind is in turmoil. When a reluctant ship’s captain and washed-up detective find themselves involved in the case of a missing girl, what they discover brings our solar system to the brink of civil war, and exposes the greatest conspiracy in human history.” -Synopsis of Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse #1 from jamessacorey.com)
Nominees
InCryptid, by Seanan McGuire
Planetfall series, by Emma Newman
Winternight Trilogy, by Katherine Arden
The Wormwood Trilogy, by Tade Thompson
Luna, by Ian McDonald
Best Graphic Story or Comic
“From Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award Winner Nnedi Okorafor (Who Fears Death, Binti, Akata series) comes Laguardia. Set in an alternative world where aliens have come to Earth and integrated with society, LaGuardia revolves around a pregnant Nigerian-American doctor, Future Nwafor Chukwuebuka, who has just returned to NYC under mysterious conditions. After smuggling an illegal alien plant named “Letme Live” through LaGuardia International and Interstellar Airport’s customs and security, she arrives at her grandmother’s tenement, the New Hope Apartments in the South Bronx.
There, she and Letme become part of a growing population of mostly African and shape-shifting alien immigrants, battling against interrogation, discrimination and travel bans, as they try to make it in a new land. But, as the birth of her child nears, Future begins to change. What dark secret is she hiding?” -Goodreads.com
Nominees
Monstress, Volume 4: The Chosen, written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda
Mooncakes, by Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker, letters by Joamette Gil
Paper Girls, Volume 6, written by Brian K. Vaughan, drawn by Cliff Chiang, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Jared K. Fletcher
The Wicked + The Divine, Volume 9: “Okay”, by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles
Die, Volume 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker, by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, letters by Clayton Cowles
Please click here for the complete list of 2020 Hugo Award Winners
Thanks for reading!
-George, FTPL
