Will this list redeem 2023 releases for me? || Hugo 2024 Short List 

Fun fact four of the five nominees for best novel were blurbed by authors who have been nominated by the Hugos before. The Adventures of Amina el Sarafi was blurbed by R.F. Kuang, Some Desperate Glory was blurbed by Tamsyn Muir, Translation State was blurbed by John Scalzi and Witch King was blurbed by N.K. Jemisin

To Shape a Dragon's Breath is fantastic, but yeah, I was baffled to see it on a YA list. It has younger characters, but... I would not qualify it really as YA. Just based on vibes, not even based on facts like Del Rey not having a YA imprint! Even though I don't think it belongs on that list, I kind of hope that the nomination gets it some more attention, because it is so great and got totally overlooked because of Fourth Wing (they're very different books - To Shape is slower, more thoughtful, while Fourth Wing is more traditional high-pace fantasy- but they both have dragons and dragon schools).

Some Desperate Glory is a standalone and was one of my favorite read of 2023 ! It was an Illumicrate pick and I was expecting less than nothing from it and it really took me by surprise

Some desperate glory was one of my faves last year!! Great stand-alone space opera :))

I would not start with Starter Villain if you haven't read any Scalzi before. For his popcorn books, I would suggest The Kaiju Preservation Society as a better starting point. I just read Better Living Through Algorithms by Naomi Kritzer over lunch today and loved it! It is free online. I'm happy that no Wayward Children novellas were nominated this year. My enjoyment of that series has gone down.

lol i love how Martha Wells declined the murderbot nom, she probably knows the series has had enough hugo noms already, so might as well promote her other book instead

Starter Villain is a very solid contender for my worst book of 2024. I honestly can't imagine any book that could unseat it, but you never know.

Most of the short fiction (novelette and short story) can be read online for free by just googling the title and author. No need to wait for the voter packet! I think the only exceptions this year are the two Chinese short stories that were published in the book you mentioned and I Am AI by Ai Jiang, which is on Hoopla if your library provides it.

For all the books I've read that were published in 2023, I've realized that very few were SFF so I feel I need to catch up a lot, lol 🚀 I think Starter Villain was probably the most fun I've had reading in a while because the humor did really work for me (I haven't read any other Scalzi before, but I was in a rare mood for an unserious book). I also just started reading To Shape A Dragon's Breath and had a moment of real confusion about whether it was YA or not because the main character is 15 but the tone doesn't seem as young, but I'm only a few chapters in (and most of my attention has been on the setting of an alternate New England).

It’s the first year for me buying a membership and going to Worldcon so I had no idea that it came with a packet, thank you fir sharing that! ❤

Its an interesting list, theres some Im intrigued by but at the same time I don't understand the love for Witch King apart from it being Martha Wells haha like I made it 25% and noped out. Im also shocked big favs of the booktube/booktok/booktwitter didnt make the cut, like now Messenger, Lawrence, Islington, Sanderson just feels very odd. That being said I am really excited to get my pack and just read through some of the noms, especially some of the translated stuff because I think thatll be fantastic. I know BG3 will win for games and it deserves it but my little heart wants Alan Wake 2 to win, because Id been waiting for that game for a decade, and it gave me the perfect campy twin peaks stephen king homage with a musical number I desired.

Not connected to the Hugos, but have you seen the new Fantasy Reddit Bingo for 2024? The prompts look so fun (to me at least)! 😊 Although some of them seem like they will be quite hard for me to fulfill 👀

i thought saint of bright doors was incredible, love to see it getting recognition through these noms

Completely in agreement with you on the YA rant. These awards are not handling that category correctly.

As an adult that reads lots of YA books, I agree that so many adults only read the YA that doesn’t actually appeal to teens. I try to read anything YA fantasy or sci-fi that strikes my fancy, so I end up with a mix of books with various audiences. I can usually tell which books will work better for teens than for adults, because they don’t appeal to me. But that doesn’t make them bad books. Quite the opposite.

I haven't heard a single person love Witch King and yet somehow it's on all of these dang lists lol

Yaay, Malka Older. I started saints again. It's so unique so far

Interesting response, the Lodestar Award, is specifically ‘not a Hugo’ and so should perhaps be open to an alternate voter list of Nominanators if the could agree on who they should be or maybe even a ‘Panel of Jufges’ who could select an appropriate list, with the Judges being appointed as ‘Esperts’ in Y/A Books, though as this a volunteer Run Convention it may not be easy to grins suitable Judges.

I really enjoyed Starter Villain but depending on the person, I wouldn’t recommend it as the first Scalzi. I’d actually personally recommend Redshirts if you like Star Trek parodies and meta elements (Starter Villain can have similar vibes to it) or the Interpendency trilogy for political space scifi with humour and banter

I'm reading The Saint of Bright Doors, and it is so intriguingly weird. Otherwise, I'm having a hard time getting myself hyped to read most of what's on this list. Maybe because all I really want to read right now is cozy fantasy of manners? 🚀

🚀 Loki is one of, if not the best, Marvel/ Disney series they've put out.

I'm not 100% sure how our tastes align, but I really enjoyed reading Starter Villain as a campy, fun read that doesn't take itself too seriously. I heard about 30 seconds of the audio and it grated my ears - so definitely read this one with your eyeballs if you choose to pick it up.

🚀🚀🚀 Glad there is no scandal this year at least.

I’m one of the nostalgia Nix fans however I really liked The Sinister Booksellers of Bath. I think it reads right at the good cross of upper YA/New Adult, and while appealing to adults, it’s not quite there. One of the few YAs I’ve really liked the last idk 5ish years. The 80s setting though I’m not sure is quite to the appeal the age of current young adult readers. Maybe it is.

Oh my, poor (but also very repsonsible) Glasgow😅 I DNF'd The Saint of Bright Doors but only because it wasn't what I expected and I'm definitely tempted to try it again at one point. It was definitely unique, and did a few things I hadn't seen before.

Yeah, I think it's very likely that Baldur's Gate 3 will win that, but Alan Wake 2 also won a ton of stuff and is CRAZY GOOD. It has a very meta narrative and has even a musical section, which is pretty cool. Haven't seen all of the game yet, but goddamnit is it awesome 🚀

To make it even more confusing, Del Rey in the UK does publish YA 🙃. I've had so many arguments with people about whether the book reads adult or YA but I think people see school and just can't get past the idea that it's YA. I remember when I actively read a lot of YA being frustrated that adult voted awards like the Lodestar seemed to just go to whatever adult author was writing in YA that year but now I don't read enough YA to know what teens actually like so I'm part of the problem!

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okay so you KNOW i'm an empress stan and while i've loved the entire series, nothing has come close to empress until mammoths at the gates which i would say is a very close second for me

I understand the author not turning down a hugo nomination, but I hate seeing adult books on the lodestar list. I also wish they made it clearer on the shortlist it's middle grade and ya because I've seen so many people complain there's mg on there

I'm so happy that the last binding by Freya Markse is nominated. It's not going to win, but it's cool it's there

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I liked Starter Villain just for the cat humor. I'm not a fan of some funny sci Fi such as Andy Weir. Some Desperate glory is worth reading - I wouldn't say it's a military sci-fi once it gets going!

I'm a Martha Wells super fan and while I finished it, I think she could have cut two worlds, three magic systems and half a dozen characters from the Witch King.

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Yeah I was gonna watch the 3 Body Problem but then I saw that the showrunners are the creators of the Game of Thrones show and I just am not putting myself through that, nope. And I haven't read the book(s) cuase iirc it's quite misogynistic. New Doctor Who is good! Has that good old Davies feel, and Murray Gold is back! It really is just a delight, and I'm actually, for the first time in _years,_ excited about the new episodes, and Gatwa is pretty great as well. If Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't win, I'm calling cheats and lies and deceptions.

Some desperate glory can be seen as a crossover book. For YA readers who want to try adult

For me, the novels is the most uninspiring shortlist since I started paying attention and also because there were SO MANY AMAZING 2023 books that I read. It’s just more fodder to pay attention to basically every other SFF award.

I liked Some Desperate Glory, but I don’t feel like it is award worthy. It was a very solid four stars for me.

The recent noms for Witch King might be the most puzzling sff award noms ever for me….for possibly the worst reading experience of my life

So agree with you about Thornhedge. I think one of her weakest and I skim read it.

Scalzi should go the Martha Wells route because if you have read one Scalzi, you have read them all. Not a bad writer, his work brings in a lot of "new" readers, which is always good, but not award winning material.

Meh. Not really that excited by the list this year. I'm happy to see Mammoths at the Gates and The Mimicking of Known Successes on there, but otherwise, just not that interested in picking things up, so I think we're skipping getting memberships this year.

I 100% would have DNF'd Starter Villain if I had stuck to the audiobook. I do enjoy Scalzi books, have enjoyed Wil Wheaton narrating before, but this one did not work for me at all. Wheaton's tone when he was reading the protagonist was so over-the-top and obnoxious and made me loathe the character. I switched to the physical book, and it immediately became 10x better and actually enjoyable.

🚀 Loki is one of, if not the best, Marvel/ Disney series they've put out.

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