Final Hugo Predictions 2025

Finalists announced! https://seattlein2025.org/wsfs/hugo-awards/2025-hugo-award-finalists/

New reaction post here! https://mrphilipslibrary.wordpress.com/2025/04/07/2025-hugo-finalists-snubs-surprises-and-stats/

EDIT 3/24: I hate to edit the FINAL prediction post, but the Crawford Awards were announced on 3/23/25 (after Hugo voting closed) and I feel like I have to factor them in because I have in every previous year. Someone You Can Build a Nest In is on the Honour List for the award, which just barely edges it ahead of Alien Clay, so those two have flip-flopped between the #6 spot and the bonus #7 spot. Also, as I was re-reading the post, and specifically the bullet about The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles and the link to the Spreadsheet of Doom I realized that I didn’t include the book as being on the SoD (which is quite a significant factor) in my database because of the confusion surrounding its word count. When I updated, Imposition shot up which caused a shift, ie. bumping Haunt Sweet Home out of the bonus slot and The Woods All Black off the list and into the bonus slot. Just wanted to be transparent so I don’t seem sketchy like I’m changing things last-minute.

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We’re winding down to the end of a what has been a blessedly drama-free Hugo season, and things feel like they’re somewhat back to normal after the dumpster fire that was Chengdu. Anyway, Hugo dramas come and go. Statistics are eternal. 365 days a year. Fittingly, there ended up being 365 novels in the database I used to determine this year’s predictions, and another 119 novellas. I’ll go ahead and break down how the prediction model shook out this year and provide some context, notes, and completely unqualified opinions below.

As a refresher, I correctly predicted 5/6 of the eventual novel finalists last year, but only 3/6 of the novella finalists, partly because two of the eventual finalists–specifically the two Chinese-language works–were not even in my database since they weren’t present in any of the 26 predictors I tracked at that time. It’s doubtful that any complete unknowns will show up this year, but anything is possible. My lists have not actually been 100% correct since 2021, but they tend to predict 4 or 5 out of 6 correctly pretty consistently. It’s all in good fun. Although I do take it slightly personally and am a little ashamed when I’m way off lol.

In the Best Novel category, what we have is a situation of 8 novels fighting for 6 spots. The point difference between these books is really pretty miniscule. So even though I’ll only “count” 6 as official predictions, it really could be any of these. I’ll add a bonus 7th spot in the event that one of the six declines a nomination.

• The thing that stands out the most to me about this list of novels is how many white guys are on there. There haven’t been 3 dudes as finalists in the same year since 2018. And not 3 white or cisgender dudes since 2014 at the height of Puppy shenanigans. This particular area of fandom has tended to be quite progressive with their picks since that time. In two of the last five years, all 6 finalists were women.
• Of these, the only book that I think is truly a lock is A Sorceress Comes to Call. In the past five years, T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon has been an 8-time finalist for her fiction; she’s beloved. I don’t think she’s quite at the point of passing on nominations simply because she’s been nominated so many times, as some authors do. Partly because her win at Chengdu for Nettle & Bone will always have an asterisk next to it because of the censorship that took place that year. IMO it’s safe to say Babel would have won if it weren’t unjustly disqualified. For better or worse, Best Novel is generally considered the top prize, the “Best Picture” so to speak, and I’m sure Vernon would want the opportunity to feel like she earned it legitimately.
• I (subjectively) feel like in most years there tends to be 3 or so finalists that are generally considered locks. Not so this year. Ministry of Time was a hugely popular book since its release and was very widely read. It’s always seemed a little genre-adjacent, though. A little mainstream–more romance/literary fiction than actual SFF. It’s hit just about every predictor I track, but I’m skeptical of its chances here.
• The Tainted Cup is the other one that I feel like has gotten the most buzz and seems to be the most widely acclaimed by the people I associate with Hugo voters.
• The prolific Adrian Tchaikovsky wrote not one, but two hit novels this year in Service Model (last of the 8 I mentioned above) and Alien Clay. Service Model was the one that was in the lead for most of the season, but Alien Clay has edged it out in the last month or so. I haven’t read either, but the vibe I’m getting is that Alien Clay is the more hard SF of the two, and Service Model is more humorous. It’s hard to say which one Hugo voters will get behind more, but if I had to guess, I would say Alien Clay. Tchaikovsky has been a finalist 4 times in the last 5 years, twice for Best Series (winning once), and twice for Best Novella, but has never cracked Best Novel.
• John Wiswell has been a finalist 3 times in the last 5 years in the short story and novelette categories. Someone You Can Build a Nest In is his debut novel. In the past 5 years, 8 Best Novel finalists have been debuts, including 2 last year with Saint of Bright Doors and Some Desperate Glory, which went on to win. It seems to belong somewhere in the “cozy” subgenre of SFF that has gained popularity in the past little while, along with books like Legends and Lattes, and poster child Becky Chambers’ works. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see it on the ballot.
• Katherine Arden has been a finalist thrice–twice for the Astounding Award, and once for her Winternight trilogy in Best Series. Even her very popular first book in that series, The Bear and the Nightingale didn’t make it onto the “longlist” of 10-also rans in the year of its release, so I’m not super confident in The Warm Hands of Ghosts chances.
• James S.A. Corey has also been a 3-time finalist–twice for the Expanse series, winning the second time, but hasn’t been a Best Novel finalist since the very first book in that series, Leviathan Wakes was nominated back in 2012.
• This is purely speculation, but I’ve been curious about the correlation between Nebula finalists and Hugo finalists. Like how much of the correlation is due to overlap in voting bodies (how many SFWA members also choose to vote for the Hugos), and how much of it is due to some phenomenon (The Nebula Boost) where SFF fans will read Nebula nominees after they’re announced–that they may not have otherwise read–and subsequently nominate them for Hugos after that initial exposure. This year the Nebula finalists were announced only two days before Hugo voting closed, which is a much tighter turnaround than in years past, so there would not really be enough time for that phenomenon to occur, if it exists at all. In the past 5 years 50% of Hugo finalists were also Nebula finalists. Only two of this year’s Nebula finalists are on my list (A Sorceress Comes to Call & Someone You Can Build a Nest In in the bonus slot). Kelly Link’s The Book of Love ended up just outside the top 10 in my prediction model, and Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera is in the top 16, but none of the others are close. Of course, last year’s Nebula winner, Chandrasekera’s Saint of Bright Doors became a Hugo finalist, even though it was only #25 in last year’s model so I’m interested to see what kind of overlap there is this year.
• Other possible finalists include Dead Cat Tail Assassins by previous finalist P. Djeli Clark (although confusion about it being novella-length could potentially have impact); Space Oddity by Hugo darling Catherynne M. Valente, which is the sequel to previous finalist (2019) Space Opera. There aren’t any other novels this year that particularly stand out to me as having a significant chance, but feel free to sound off if you think I’m wrong.
• Sorry for rambling so much.

Here are the novellas. There are 10 total that are grouped pretty close together.

• In addition to the 7 novellas listed above, there are three more that are super-duper close: Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard, Mislaid in Parts Unknown by Seanan McGuire, and The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older.
• McGuire’s Wayward Children series, of which Mislaid in Parts Unknown is part, was generally considered to be a perennial auto-lock until last year when it missed the ballot by a few votes. After 3 previous Hugo wins, maybe the voting body has cooled on the series and decided it’s time to recognize other works. But McGuire has a very dedicated group of followers and I could see a concerted effort to get her back on the ballot.
• The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, the sequel to The Mimicking of Known Successes which was a finalist last year, is technically above the word count for a novella (42,839 according to the Spreadsheet of Doom) but according to the WSFS constitution: “The Worldcon Committee may relocate a story into a more appropriate category if it feels that it is necessary, provided that the length of the story is within twenty percent (20%) of the new category limits.” From my understanding, this work is within that 20% and so can make the ballot as a novella.
• The most noticeable thing to me about this list is how much horror is on it. The Woods All Black, What Feasts at Night, and Haunt Sweet Home all fall into that category. And Butcher of the Forest seems to have horror elements as well. There have only been 2 horror novellas in the past 5 years of finalists, including What Moves the Dead, the first in the series that includes What Feasts at Night.
• Worth noting that all of the novellas on this list (and 14 of the top 15) are published by Tordotcom or Tor Nightfire.
• Other possible/likely finalists include She Who Knows by Nnedi Okorafor, Saturation Point by Adrian Tchaikovsky and Lost Ark Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa.

Last year it was about 3 weeks between the close of voting and the announcement of the finalists, so I figure we’ve got at least another 2 weeks before we find out who the finalists are. Let me know what you think about everything.

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