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2020 Hugo Award Finalists Announced

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Annika Barranti Klein

Staff Writer

Annika Barranti Klein likes books, obviously.   Twitter: @noirbettie

Last night, the finalists for the 2020 Hugo Awards, the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult book, and the 1945 Retrospective Hugos were announced via webcast. Due to COVID-19, the 2020 WorldCon convention, including the Hugo ceremony, have been moved from New Zealand to a 100% virtual con in order to protect everyone’s safety.

Many Book Riot favorites appear on the final ballot, narrowed down from 27,033 nominations from 1,584 people. A selection of the finalists is below.

Best Novel

  • Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
  • The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
  • A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
  • Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
  • The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow (Alix is also nominated for Best Short Story for “Do Not Look Back, My Lion” in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, which was one of my favorite stories last year)

    Best Novella

    Best Series

    (Links go to either the first book in the series or to a box set, when available.)

    Best Graphic Story or Comic

    Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book

    Astounding Award for the Best New Science Fiction Writer, sponsored by Dell Magazines

    This is the award previously known as the Campbell. If you have not watched/listened to/read a transcript of Jeanette Ng’s speech when she won the award last year, you absolutely should. (Holy Hera, she wrote it on her phone while sitting in the audience!)

    • Sam Hawke (2nd year of eligibility)
    • R.F. Kuang (2nd year of eligibility)
    • Jenn Lyons (1st year of eligibility)
    • Nibedita Sen (2nd year of eligibility)
    • Tasha Suri (2nd year of eligibility)
    • Emily Tesh (1st year of eligibility)

    The full list of finalists is at Tor.com.


    More on the Hugo Awards:

    The 2019 Hugo Award Winners

    Why the John W. Campbell award was renamed The Astounding Award