2022 Hugo Awards Reading List: What Should I Have Read? Tell Me!

Reading Time

It’s been many years since I’ve done one of these. As I mentioned on my 2022 resolutions post/rant, I want to do a lot more reading and a lot more positive interactions in fandom. The first step: opening myself up to a public conversation about the Hugo Awards, the things I particularly loved, and more. But I don’t want to do that alone, which is where you come in.

For several years, I asked folks to tell me what stories (fiction of all lengths and comics) they particularly enjoyed in the prior year. I then used those suggestions to together a longlist of works I consider worth checking out. This helped me narrow my focus for my nominating ballot and give other folks some insight into my process (and help narrowing their lists, too).

So here we are. The comments are open, and I want to know:

What SF/F/H (broadly defined) published in 2021 do you think deserves consideration for the Hugo Awards?

All lengths of fiction (novel, novella, and short fiction) and comics (web, graphic, etc.) are welcome.

So, tell me. What should have read? Go!

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15 Responses

    1. You mean the collection of Chinese SF stories? I’ve got that collection, and I’m really looking forward to it!

  1. M.A. Carrick’s The Mask of Mirrors. A twisty plot; multiple interesting and distinct viewpoint characters, with whose often contradictory goals I found myself immediately in sympathy; sound prose; above all, excellent worldbuilding that feels deep and rich without ever making the reader drink from the exposition bucket.

  2. I would love it if you considered Arturo Serrano’s essay “I’m Colombian. Here’s What Encanto Means to Me” for Related Work. I’m obviously proud of everything we do at Nerds of a Feather, but the Encanto essay is next level good. Possibly the best thing we’ve ever published.

    Arturo should also be considered for Fan Writer because holy balls he absolutely crushed last year.
    http://www.nerds-feather.com/2021/11/im-colombian-heres-what-encanto-means.html

  3. Not for your reading list, but if you’re inclined to vote for Best Editor (Short Form), I’d like you to consider Air and Nothingness Press’ Todd Sanders – he delivers the goods for readers, with beautiful and impeccably edited books, but also takes very good care of his authors, for whom he goes above and beyond. AaNP is a labour of love for him, and he does a lot of work for it unpaid, but in his dealing with writers he’s as far from unprofessional as you can get. If you’d like to read a bit more about our experience with him, visit our blog (you can skip the bit in which we set our own stall out) -> https://turniplanterns.wordpress.com/2022/01/17/nominate-us-for-a-hugo/

  4. Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley was one of the oddest but most compelling SFF novels that I read last year. It did particularly well at conjuring a genuine sense of the alien without falling back into any number of overworn tropes.

  5. Elder Race and also Shards of Earth, Adrian Tchaikovsky
    Obviously, Aliens. Jennie Goloboy
    The Councillor,. EJ Beaton
    Assassin’s Orbit, John Appel
    RESET by SARINA DAHLAN (my favorite of the year probably)
    She Who Became the Sun,. Shelley Parker-Chan

  6. Here are some of the stories I enjoyed last year:

    – SKYWARD INN by Aliya Whiteley (novel)

    – ‘Samsāra in a Teacup’ by Lavanya Lakshminarayan (short story) | https://apex-magazine.com/short-fiction/samsara-in-a-teacup/

    – ‘A Hollow in the Sky’ by Alexander Glass (short story) | http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2877438

    – ‘Confessor’ by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne (short story) | https://www.amazon.com/Gollancz-South-Asian-Science-Fiction/dp/9391028624

    – ‘The Traveller’ by Tashan Mehta (short story… I think) | https://www.amazon.com/Gollancz-South-Asian-Science-Fiction/dp/9391028624

    There are others, but that is what pops to mind.

  7. Philia, Eros, Storge, Agápe, Pragma by R.S.A. Garcia
    The Abomination by Nuzo Onoh
    The Unlikely Heroines of Callisto Station by Marie Vibbert

    2021 Novelette

    Babylon System by Maurice Broaddus
    Breaching the Distance by Hannah Onoguwe
    District to Cervix: The Time Before We Were Born by Tlotlo Tsamaase
    Dreamports by Tlotlo Tsamaase
    That Story Isn’t the Story by John Wiswell
    2021 Short Story
    A Taste of Unguja by Eugen Bacon
    An Arc Of Electric Skin by Wole Talabi
    Barefoot and Midnight by Sheree Thomas
    By the Light of the Stars by N.R.M. Roshak
    Comments on Your Provisional Patent Application For An Eternal Spirit Core by Wole Talabi
    Deep in the Gardener’s Barrow by Tobi Ogundiran
    Dontay’s Bones by Danian Darrell Jerry
    Finishers by Christi Nogle
    I Can Be A Hero Too by Carol Scheina
    I Would by Benjamin C. Kinney
    Inhabiters by Kingsley Okpii
    Of Rights and Passage by Danian Darrell Jerry
    Osu by Kingsley Okpii
    Seven Steps to Immortality by Jennifer Brozek

    Simbiyu and the Nameless by Eugen Bacon
    Soulmark by Brandon Crilly
    That Fish Sex Movie by Fiona Moore
    The Boy With The Golden Arm by Danian Jerry

    The Extermination Device of the Blacksmith by Solomon Uhiara
    The Failing Name by Eugen Bacon
    The Ghosts of Trees by Fiona Moore
    The Tale of Jaja and Canti by Ogundiran Tobi
    The Water Runner by Eugen Bacon
    Things Can Only Get Better by Fiona Moore
    Things From Our Kitchen Junk Drawer That Could Save This Spaceship by Marie Vibbert
    What Makes You Forget by Victor Pseftakis
    When the Water Stops by Eugen Bacon
    2021 Games

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