To stay up-to-date with mainstream science fiction and fantasy literature and to explore new authors, each year I read all the nominees for the Hugo Award for best novel. I’ve read all the winners before 2000 and all the nominees thereafter, so it’s interesting to compare historically and to see how the genre changes. This year, the following books were nominated:
- Adrian Tchaikovsky – Alien Clay
- Kaliane Bradley – The Ministry of Time
- Adrian Tchaikovsky – Service Model
- John Wiswell – Someone You Can Build a Nest In
- T. Kingfisher – A Sorceress Comes to Call
- Robert Jackson Bennett – The Tainted Cup
As I’ve done since 2020, I will review all the books in order from least to most worthy of winning the Hugo. Please note that I wrote these mini reviews right after reading each book, so I didn’t have the full picture when writing each. The reading order is from left to right in the image below.
6. Adrian Tchaikovsky – Service Model
From the last fit (episode) of the original Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy BBC radio drama:
Autopilot: There has been a delay. The passengers are kept in temporary suspended animation for their comfort and convenience. Coffee and biscuits are served every ten years, after which passengers are returned to suspended animation for their comfort and convenience. Departure will take place when flight stores are complete. We apologise for the delay.
Ford: Delay? Have you seen the world outside this ship? It’s a wasteland. A desert. Civilisation’s been and gone. It’s over. There are no lemon-soaked paper napkins on the way from anywhere.
Autopilot: The statistical likelihood is that other civilisations will arise. There will one day be lemon-soaked paper napkins. ‘Till then, there will be a short delay. Please return to your seats.
I chose to spend half my mini review of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Service Model on this quote, both because it seems to be the original inspiration for the book and because it summarises quite well what it’s about. What happens with robots when humans go away? How does a lonely robot valet who just wants to serve find his way through life when he can find no humans to serve?
The core idea here is certainly good enough for the minutes it takes up in the Douglas Adams radio show (which I’ve listened to so much over the years that I can recite most of it verbatim). It would also be enough for a short story or a novella. It is emphatically not enough for a novel.
This book is repetitive to the point of being boring. Exploring various ways robots can be stupidly obedient is only funny for so long. Interestingly enough, one of the most well-known examples, Nick Boström’s paperclip maximiser, isn’t featured in the book. Beyond that, almost every trope of robot intelligence, interaction and behaviour is covered somewhere. From multiple angles. Several times. Bleh.
I did not like this book. It’s not that anything in particular is spectacularly bad; it’s just that the ideas are so diluted and regurgitated that I stopped caring about anything after about a third of the novel. If you want funny robot dialogue, read Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries, which is actually funny. If you want robots and/or post-apocalypse, there’s an endless list of books I’d recommend over this one.
5. Adrian Tchaikovsky – Alien Clay
Adrian Tchaikovsky is completely new to me, and I arbitrarily started with Alien Clay. It’s a fast-paced, action-filled story about oppression, exploration and revolution, set in a penal colony on an alien world. This is one of the few places where humanity has found traces of intelligent life in the form of complex ruins, but the builders disappeared a thousand years ago. Where did they go? Why did they leave? And will they come back?
The main character is an academic sent to the penal colony for unorthodox thinking and subversive behaviour. Once there, he continues to fight against oppression while exploring life on the alien world.
I found this novel mediocre at best, and I doubt I will remember much, if anything at all, a year from now. The setting is the only redeeming feature, as the plot and characters don’t have much to offer. The pacing is also off: large parts of the story are glossed over, which results in us never really getting to know or care about any of the characters, except maybe the main character.
With an awesome setting and a compelling plot, this would have been understandable; otherwise, one novel would have turned into a trilogy. But alas, the setting is only moderately interesting, and the plot, as mentioned, is nothing spectacular.
As a result, I didn’t like Alien Clay. It’s not terrible, but it’s certainly not worthy of any kind of prize for best novel (and I say this after reading only one of the nominees). When reading modern science fiction, I expect much more than Adrian Tchaikovsky has to offer.
4. Kaliane Bradley – The Ministry of Time
I always feel a bit apprehensive when starting fantasy novels nominated for the Hugo. The same goes for time-travel stories. They’ve been done so many times, and it’s hard to get them right. I think there are two ways to approach them: either use time travel as a narrative device, a way to get the characters where and when you want them, or go all-in on the time-travelling and make it an integral part of the plot.
There are plenty of good examples of the first approach among recent Hugo winners. Connie Willis has won three Hugos for such novels: Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, and Blackout/All Clear. There are also strong examples of the second kind, most notably The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley, or if we dip into the novella category, This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.
This might seem like a lot of setup for a mini review of a book I haven’t named yet, but The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley hovers between these two approaches. On one hand, it’s a grounded story about time travellers from the past arriving in the modern United Kingdom, but on the other hand, there’s also a thriller subplot in the background, with government agents, time-travelling assassins and more.
The story follows one of the “bridges”, people who work for the newly established Ministry of Time, helping time expats adjust to contemporary life. We follow an unnamed first-person narrator assigned to assist Graham Gore, an arctic explorer who was rescued from Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to find the Northwest Passage. Based on what little I know about the author, the narrator seems at least partly autobiographical, since they share a Cambodian heritage, grew up in the UK, are around the same age, and so on.
Most of the novel focuses on the narrator’s growing relationship with Graham, as well as with some of the other time expats who came with him. There’s also some light intrigue around the Ministry, the narrator’s handler, and the other bridges, but it doesn’t amount to much. The thriller subplot is kept mostly in the background, but towards the end, the plot thickens and the time travel component becomes more central. What machine was used to fetch people from the past? Who built it? What is it for? What capabilities does it have? What’s the ultimate purpose of time travel?
Back to what I said at the beginning: the main problem with this novel is the time-travel element. If time travel had simply been an excuse to bring Graham from 1845 to the present, I think I would have enjoyed the novel more. Some light intrigue at the Ministry of Time would have been fine. Another way to go would have been to fully embrace the time travel thriller angle, but that would have been a completely different book.
As it stands, this feels like a pretty good romance with a not-so-great thriller subplot tacked on. We learn too little about it, too late for it to make much sense or to care about it. That said, the book is well-written. All the parts are there, it’s just the way they’re put together that left me a bit disappointed.
3. John Wiswell – Someone You Can Build a Nest In
My journey through this year’s batch of nominees for the Hugo Award for Best Novel continues. The award covers both the science fiction and fantasy genres, and although science fiction still dominates, fantasy has been more frequently nominated this century.
Personally, I’m a bit apprehensive when starting a nominee in the fantasy genre, not necessarily because I don’t usually read much fantasy, but because some of the worst nominees historically have been from this genre.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In, by John Wiswell, was a pleasant surprise. While a fantasy romance involving a repressive noble family and monster hunting doesn’t sound very appetising, it’s saved by the fact that the story is told from the perspective of the monster.
This is, at least initially, excitingly refreshing. The narrative, especially how it talks about humans and human society, reminds me of The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, even though the style is quite different. The author sometimes succeeds in being funny or even insightful by looking at normal things from a strange angle.
And it is an unusual angle. The monster, who is also the narrator, is some kind of anthropomorphic creature who sustains herself by eating what monsters eat (sheep, people, etc.), and uses their bones and organs as humans use tools or wear clothes. She can, then, pass as human, although with some limitations and with effort.
Naturally, the monster in question is rather likeable, otherwise there wouldn’t be any romance, which there is, and this would be a horror story, which it isn’t. She’s woken early from her winter hibernation by a group of monster hunters, sent out by a noble family which has been after her for a generation. She escapes by pretending to be a kidnapped maiden, and while in human form, befriends and falls in love with a young woman, who turns out to be the black sheep of the family that sent the monster hunters.
As mentioned, this is initially exciting and quite good. If I were to base my review only on the first third, I would have been more enthusiastic than I am. As the plot develops, I find it less and less intriguing, however, and while the characters are interesting and relatable (especially the monster), the setting is rather bland and boring. I still think Someone You Can Build a Nest In was well worth reading, though, and I’d be happy to try something else by John Wiswell in the future, too.
2. T. Kingfisher – A Sorceress Comes to Call
T. Kingfisher is the only one of the authors nominated for this year’s Hugo Award for Best Novel that I’m familiar with. A Sorceress Comes to Call is another down-to-earth fairy tale with extra depth and darkness, quite similar in theme and style to Nettle and Bone, which won the Hugo in 2023.
Like Nettle and Bone, this book mixes domestic fantasy with darker elements, including some light horror. The tone is mostly cosy, but there are moments of genuine discomfort, especially in the portrayal of psychological control and the slow build of tension around it.
The story follows Cordelia, a girl who has grown up under the thumb of her powerful, controlling sorceress mother. They move into a country manor under false pretences, and the situation gradually starts to unravel. Most of the book alternates between Cordelia’s point of view and that of Hester, sister to the master of the manor, who starts to notice that something is off. The dual perspective works, although it’s initially a bit frustrating that we as readers are ahead of the characters for quite a while.
The characters are strong overall, and even the side characters feel real enough and support the emotional core of the story. The setting is functional but not very distinct, which works fine since the focus is clearly on the characters and their interactions anyway. This is not a book that tries to impress with world-building.
What stands out most is the way Kingfisher continues to explore angles of fairy tales that often get ignored: the emotional aftermath, the quiet resistance, the older women who usually get sidelined. There’s a lot of compassion in the writing, and a willingness to sit with things that would normally get brushed past.
If you liked Nettle and Bone, you’ll like this one. If you haven’t read either, they are roughly equally good in my opinion, and while not thematically my cup of tea, still well written enough to be worth recommending!
1. Robert Jackson Bennett – The Tainted Cup
What is the Empire? Is it an efficient system for keeping at bay the leviathans that attack its shores every wet season? Is it the engineers who maintain the giant sea walls and build the giant bombards that kill the kaiju-like monsters? Or is it the legions who fight the creatures? Or perhaps the bureaucracy that makes all this possible?
Or is it the investigators who seek the truth to maintain justice?
Din is an apprentice, assigned to Ana, an eccentric, mostly blindfolded investigator. Ana sends him to a murder scene to investigate, and Din uses his perfect memory to report back to her, and she’s able to solve the crime in true Sherlock Holmes style (i.e. we as readers stand no chance of solving the crime, but we can enjoy the ride).
But the crime is not entirely solved; a thread is left unresolved, which leads into the deep structure of the Empire. Investigating brings risks: what is justice worth if bringing it about might also weaken the Empire enough to bring it down?
I enjoyed this novel quite a lot. The setting, clearly inspired by the Roman Empire but with enough fantastic elements (Kaiju-like creatures, chemically altered people, etc.) to feel genuinely refreshing. I also enjoyed the characters, even if they are mostly defined by their role in the story and their abilities rather than by their backgrounds, which we know almost nothing about.
I’m not a fan of murder mysteries in general, but I prefer this kind (and Sherlock Holmes) to those where you’re expected to work out who did it before the investigators do. The interactions between Din and Ana are also entertaining enough to carry the story, even though the murder mystery mainly serves as a reason to explore the setting and the characters’ roles within it.
A mix of Sherlock Holmes and Attack on Titan, set in ancient Rome? Yes, please!
Thoughts and reflections
I found it difficult to rank the nominees this year. I thought the top three books were roughly on the same level, and I chose The Tainted Cup as my favourite, mostly because it has the most innovative setting and was genuinely quite entertaining. However, A Sorceress Comes to Call is clearly better written in all regards, and Someone You Can Build a Nest In is also innovative, but more so when it comes to perspective than setting.
Then we have The Ministry of Time, which was also well written but handled the science fiction elements too awkwardly to be truly interesting. Finally, we have the two Adrian Tchaikovsky books, which I disliked for completely different reasons. Alien Clay is not bad, it’s just not very good. Service Model was truly annoying and the only book I considered giving up on this year.
Overall, no book stood out as being awesome, which is a pity, because finding awesome speculative fiction is the main reason for reading the Hugo nominees. To see how good of a strategy reading all the nominees actually is for finding books I genuinely love, I went through the past six years (including this one) to highlight all the books I really liked and will probably reread at some point. Out of 36 books in total, here they are, in rough chronological order:
- Kameron Hurley – The Light Brigade
- Tamsyn Muir – Gideon the Ninth
- Susanna Clarke – Piranesi
- Tamsyn Muir – Harrow the Ninth
- Martha Wells – Network Effect
- Shelley Parker-Chan – She Who Became the Sun
- Tamsyn Muir – Nona the Ninth
- T. Kingfisher – Nettle & Bone
- Vajra Chandrasekera – The Saint of Bright Doors
There are also some books that almost made the cut, but one in four is still not bad. That means I’ll keep reading the nominees each year in search of new authors and awesome books!
Did the right book win?
I don’t know, because the Hugo hasn’t been awarded yet. The results will be announced on August 16th, so I will update this article later with an extra section about that.
Update: Yes! The right book did win!
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