Hugo Awards 2025

They travelled into the unknown and left themselves behind...On the distant world of Kiln lie the ruins of an alien civilization. It’s the greatest discovery in humanity’s spacefaring history — yet who were its builders and where did they go?Professor Arton Daghdev has always wanted to study alien life up close. Then his wishes become a reality in the worst way. His political activism sees him exiled from Earth to Kiln’s extrasolar labour camp. There, he’s condemned to work under an alien sky until he dies.Kiln boasts a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem like nothing seen on Earth. The monstrous alien life interacts in surprising, sometimes shocking ways with the human body, so Arton will risk death on a daily basis. However, the camp’s oppressive regime might just kill him first. If Arton can somehow escape both fates, the world of Kiln holds a wondrous, terrible secret. It will redefine life and intelligence as he knows it, and might just set him free...

A boy meets a girl. The past meets the future. A finger meets a trigger. The beginning meets the end. England is forever. England must fall.In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test the limits of time-travel.Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847' - Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition to the Arctic, so he's a little disoriented to find himself alive and surrounded by outlandish concepts such as 'washing machine', 'Spotify' and 'the collapse of the British Empire'. With an appetite for discovery and a seven-a-day cigarette habit, he soon adjusts; and during a long, sultry summer he and his bridge move from awkwardness to genuine friendship, to something more.But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the structures and histories that have shaped them? And how do you defy history when history is living in your house?

To fix the world they first must break it further.Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into their core programming, they murder their owner. The robot then discovers they can also do something else they never did before: run away. After fleeing the household, they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating, and a robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is finding a new purpose.

Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she's fallen in love.Shesheshen is a shapeshifter who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth.However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she’s found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human who has mistaken Shesheshen for a fellow human. Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, she realizes humans don’t think about love that way.Shesheshen hates keeping her identity secret from Homily, but just as she’s about to confess, Homily reveals why she’s in the area: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?Eating her girlfriend isn’t an option. Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, but to give herself and Homily a chance at happiness, she has to figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. As the hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, Shesheshen must unearth the truth quickly, or soon both of their lives will be at risk.And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn to build a life with, rather than in, the love of her life.Discover this creepy, charming monster-slaying fantasy romance—from the perspective of the monster.EndorsementsNebula Award—winning debut author John Wiswell

Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms, and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend—unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia’s mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away on Falada’s sturdy back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester. Cordelia’s mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage, and Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister.Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother, how the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. Hester knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind.A dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm's Goose Girl, rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic

In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible.Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home.At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.A Holmes and Watson-style detective duo take the stage in this fantasy with a mystery twist, from the Edgar-winning, multiple Hugo-nominated Robert Jackson Bennett.Endorsements“endlessly inventive” — Vulture“wicked sense of humor” — NPR

The Cleric Chih accompanies a beautiful young bride to her wedding to an aging lord at a crumbling estate situated at the crossroads of dead empires. But they’re forgetting things they ought to remember, and the lord’s mad young son wanders the grounds at night like a hanged ghost.EndorsementsThe Hugo Award–winning series returns with its newest standalone entry: a gothic mystery involving a crumbling estate, a mysterious bride, and an extremely murderous teapot.The Singing Hills Cycle has been shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, the Locus Award, the Ignyte Award, and has won the Hugo Award and the Crawford Award.

Everyone has secrets. Mags’s has teeth.Magdalena Herrera is about to graduate high school, but she already feels like an adult with serious responsibilities: caring for her ailing grandmother; working a part-time job; clandestine makeouts with a girl who has a boyfriend. And then there’s her secret, which pulls her into the basement each night, drains her of energy, and leaves her bleeding. A secret that could hurt and even kill if it ever got out — like it did once before.So Mags keeps her head down, isolated in her small desert community. That is, until her childhood friend Nessa comes back to town, bringing vivid memories of the past, an intoxicating glimpse of the future, and a secret of her own. Mags won’t get attached, of course. She’s always been strong enough to survive without anyone’s help.But when the darkness starts to close in on them both, Mags will have to drag her secret into the daylight, and choose between risking everything... or having nothing left to lose.From Molly Knox Ostertag, writer-illustrator, comes a darkly beautiful story of identity, family, love, loss, and magic.

G. Willow Wilson and Chris Wildgoose invite readers to experience love on the brink of extinction in a high fantasy tale.In a dying world, only humans and orcs remain—mortal enemies battling for territory and political advantage. But when a group of fearsome ancient humanoids known as the Vangol arrive from across the sea, the two struggling civilizations are forced into a fragile alliance to protect what they have built.As a gesture of his commitment to the cause—and to the relief of his bride-to-be, Faran Stoneback—the most powerful orc overlord, Troth Icemane, sends his beloved cousin Tara, a high-ranking young healer, to fight alongside brash human commander Callum Battlechild and his company of warriors. With a crisis looming, the success of this unlikely pair’s partnership and the survival of their peoples will depend on their ability to unlearn a lifetime of antagonistic instincts toward one another…and rise above the sting of heartbreak.Experience love on the brink of extinction.EndorsementsHugo and World Fantasy Award–winning writer G. Willow Wilson

Maika, Kippa, and Ren return to their own world to discover a full year has passed in their absence—and Zinn is back in the clutches of Maika’s father, the megalomaniacal Lord Doctor. From the relative safety of the pirate-controlled Spice Islands, Maika and her friends must regroup, recover, and find a way to stop the Lord Doctor’s murderous rampage before he destroys the Known World.Collects Monstress #49–54Can loyalty and love transcend a history of betrayal and blood?EndorsementsThe ninth volume of the multiple Eisner, Harvey, Hugo, and British Fantasy Award-winning series.

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters: Book Two is presented as the fictional graphic diary of 10-year-old Karen Reyes, and follows her as she tries to solve the murder of her beloved and enigmatic upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a Holocaust survivor, while the interconnected stories of those around her unfold.In Book Two, dark mysteries past and present continue to abound in the tumultuous and violent Chicago summer of 1968. Young Karen attends the Yippie-organized Festival of Life in Grant Park and finds herself swept up in a police stomping. Privately, she continues to investigate Anka’s recent death and discovers one last cassette tape that sheds light upon Anka's activities in Nazi Germany.She wrestles with her own sexual identity, the death of her mother, and the secrets she suspects her brother Deez of hiding. Ferris’s exhilarating cast of characters experience revelations and epiphanies that both resolve and deepen the mysteries visited upon them earlier.Visually, the story is told in Ferris's inimitable style, which combines panel-to-panel storytelling and cartoon montages filled with B-movie horror and pulp monster-mag iconography. Full-color illustrations throughout.Concluding the story of young Karen Reyes, the most inspiring “monster” in contemporary fiction. The eagerly awaited conclusion to one of the most acclaimed graphic novels of the past decade.

Mariner just wants to have a normal day, but no matter what side of the bed she wakes up on, the world is ending. Literally. If she has coffee, Borg attack! If she has raktajino, cue the Romulan boarding party! And in each scenario, Mariner and her friends end up dead, sometimes the ship is destroyed—and the day starts all over again.But by exploring the different paths, you, the reader, can discover things that Mariner can’t. There are inconsistencies that don’t make sense—putting aside the fact that Mariner’s choice of drink each morning shouldn’t affect which alien races attack the ship, other facts of her world seem to change too. Something is definitely off. It’s up to you to discover!Warp into the action with Star Trek’s first-ever interactive original graphic novel!

We Called Them Giants is a story of communication across a chasm at the end of the world. Lori wakes to find the streets empty. Everyone has gone. Or at least, nearly everyone. She’s thrown into a world where she has to scrape by in the ruins of civilization, nearly starving, hiding from gangs when… They arrive.

Reveals the alt-right’s project to claim science fiction and—by extension—the future Fascists such as Richard Spencer interpret science fiction films and literature as saying only white men have the imagination required to invent a high-tech future. Other white nationalists envision racist utopias filled with Aryan supermen and all-white space colonies. Speculative Whiteness traces these ideas through the entangled histories of science fiction culture and white supremacist politics, showing that debates about representation in science fiction films and literature are struggles over who has the right to imagine and inhabit the future. Although fascists insist that tomorrow belongs to them, they have always been and will continue to be contested by antifascist fans willing to fight for the future.

A god will returnWhen the earth and sky convergeUnder the black sunIn the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man's mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri begins a new trilogy set in a world inspired by the history and epics of India. A captive princess and a maidservant who possesses forbidden magic become unlikely allies on a dark journey to save their empire from the princess's traitorous brother.Imprisoned by her dictator brother, Malini spends her days in isolation in the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once the source of the powerful, magical deathless waters but is now little more than a decaying ruin.Priya is a maidservant, one among several who make the treacherous journey to the top of the Hirana every night to clean Malini's chambers. She is content to be an anonymous drudge, so long as it keeps anyone from guessing the dangerous secret she hides.But when Malini accidentally bears witness to Priya's true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled. One is a vengeful princess seeking to depose her brother from his throne. The other is a priestess seeking to find her family. Together, they will change the fate of an empire.

Cryptid, noun: Any creature whose existence has not yet been proven by science. See also "Monster."Cryptozoologist, noun: Any person who thinks hunting for cryptids is a good idea. See also "idiot."Ghoulies. Ghosties. Long-legged beasties. Things that go bump in the night...The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity—and humanity from them.Enter Verity Price. Despite being trained from birth as a cryptozoologist, she'd rather dance a tango than tangle with a demon, and is spending a year in Manhattan while she pursues her career in professional ballroom dance. Sounds pretty simple, right?It would be, if it weren't for the talking mice, the telepathic mathematicians, the asbestos supermodels, and the trained monster-hunter sent by the Price family's old enemies, the Covenant of St. George. When a Price girl meets a Covenant boy, high stakes, high heels, and a lot of collateral damage are almost guaranteed.To complicate matters further, local cryptids are disappearing, strange lizard-men are appearing in the sewers, and someone's spreading rumors about a dragon sleeping underneath the city...

Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide, the third in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another. The members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.

I long for the days before the Last Desolation. Before the Heralds abandoned us and the Knights Radiant turned against us. When there was still magic in Roshar and honor in the hearts of men.In the end, not war but victory proved the greater test. Did our foes see that the harder they fought, the fiercer our resistance? Fire and hammer forge a sword; time and neglect rust it away. So we won the world, yet lost it.Now there are four whom we watch: the surgeon, forced to forsake healing and fight in the most brutal war of our time; the assassin, who weeps as he kills; the liar, who wears her scholar's mantle over a thief's heart; and the prince, whose eyes open to the ancient past as his thirst for battle wanes.One of them may redeem us. One of them will destroy us.

There has always been a darkness to Ilmar, but never more so than now. The city chafes under the heavy hand of the Palleseen occupation, the choke-hold of its criminal underworld, the boot of its factory owners, the weight of its wretched poor and the burden of its ancient curse.What will be the spark that lights the conflagration?Despite the city's refugees, wanderers, murderers, madmen, fanatics and thieves, the catalyst, as always, will be the Anchorwood — that dark grove of trees, that primeval remnant, that portal, when the moon is full, to strange and distant shores.Ilmar, some say, is the worst place in the world and the gateway to a thousand worse places.City of Long Shadows. City of Bad Decisions. City of Last Chances.EndorsementsArthur C. Clarke Award winner and Sunday Times bestseller Adrian Tchaikovsky's triumphant return to fantasy, with a darkly inventive portrait of a city under occupation and on the verge of revolution."Brilliant science fiction and far-out worldbuilding." — James McAvoy"Entertaining, smart, surprising and unexpectedly human." — Patrick Ness"A refreshingly new take on post-dystopia civilizations, with the smartest evolutionary worldbuilding you'll ever read." — Peter F. Hamilton