Reading List · Science fiction and fantasy
The Hugo Awards are annual science fiction and fantasy prizes chosen by members of the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon). They are named after Hugo Gernsback, founder of the magazine Amazing Stories. The first Hugos were presented in 1953 in Philadelphia, when Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man won Best Novel. Winners receive a rocket-ship trophy and no prize money. Best Novel is the flagship category, and the 2026 award went to Alix E. Harrow's The Everlasting.
By Lisanne Swart · 75 winning novels since 1953 · Science fiction and fantasy · All literary prizes · Last reviewed 28 October 2026
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The 2026 Hugos were presented on 30 August 2026 at LAcon V, the 84th Worldcon, in Anaheim, California, where The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow won Best Novel. The 2027 awards will be presented at the Worldcon in Montreal; dates were not found in the sources consulted.
Quick answer
The Hugo Award for Best Novel is a science fiction and fantasy prize voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention, first presented in 1953. The latest winner is The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow, announced at LAcon V in Anaheim on 30 August 2026.
How this page chooses
The timeline at the top lists every winner for Best Novel, all 77 of them. The latest fifteen have their own entry further down, oldest first; the titles in the timeline that you can click are those.
Under each book is a line of plain fact about the book or its author, and nothing that cannot be checked.
Oldest first. The line in red is a fact about the book or its author, not an opinion about it.
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Written as the diary of Morgana, a fifteen-year-old Welsh science fiction fan, in 1979 and 1980; after her twin sister's death she is sent to live with her father's family and attend a girls' boarding school in England.
Also won the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the British Fantasy Award.
Ensign Andrew Dahl joins the starship Intrepid, where low-ranking crew members keep dying on away missions, and discovers that events aboard are being driven by a badly written television show.
Also won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel; the audiobook was narrated by Wil Wheaton.
Breq, the sole surviving ancillary body of a starship's AI destroyed by treachery, seeks revenge against the ruler of the Radch empire, where ship AIs control human bodies as soldiers.
Ann Leckie's debut; it also won the Nebula and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the only novel to win all three.
During China's Cultural Revolution, astrophysicist Ye Wenjie secretly makes contact with Trisolaris, a planet in a three-star system; decades later, a collapse in scientific research prompts an international investigation.
The first novel by an Asian writer to win Best Novel, in Ken Liu's translation; adapted by Netflix as 3 Body Problem (2024).
On a supercontinent called the Stillness, a catastrophe triggers a “Fifth Season” of extreme climate change, and three orogenes, people who can manipulate the earth, try to survive a society that hunts and controls them.
Jemisin became the second Black writer to win the Hugo for Best Novel; first book of the Broken Earth trilogy.
The second Broken Earth novel follows Essun and her daughter Nassun, both orogenes, who are separated as the latest Fifth Season deepens and who begin to uncover why these disasters keep recurring.
Made Jemisin the first author in over two decades to win Best Novel in consecutive years.
The final Broken Earth novel sets Essun and her daughter Nassun on opposing courses involving the Moon and the Obelisk Gate, with the future of the Fifth Seasons at stake.
Also won the Nebula Award for Best Novel; Jemisin became the first writer to win Best Novel three years running.
After a meteorite strikes the US East Coast in 1952 and threatens Earth's climate, mathematician and former WASP pilot Elma York campaigns for women to join the space programme.
Also won the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Locus Award.
Mahit Dzmare, ambassador from the independent Lsel Station, arrives at the capital of the Teixcalaanli Empire carrying the implanted memories of her predecessor, and must find out how he died.
Arkady Martine's debut novel; it also won the Compton Crook Award.
Murderbot, a security android, accompanies a research expedition that is attacked by a hostile transport, and finds itself aboard a ship it recognises as belonging to its old ally ART.
Also won the Nebula Award for Best Novel; the first full-length novel in the Murderbot Diaries.
After an alien force destroys a colony of the Teixcalaanli Empire, an admiral enlists the specialist Three Seagrass, who brings Mahit Dzmare, to try to communicate with the unknown enemy.
Sequel to A Memory Called Empire, giving Martine two Best Novel wins; also won the Locus Award.
Marra, the youngest of three princesses, leaves her convent to rescue her sister from an abusive prince, first completing three impossible tasks set by a dust-wife.
T. Kingfisher is the pen name of Ursula Vernon.
Kyr, an elite soldier raised on the separatist Gaea Station, longs for revenge for Earth's destruction in the Majo War, until she learns that the story she was taught is false.
Emily Tesh's first full-length novel, after two novellas; also shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.
Young engraver Din Kol becomes assistant to the eccentric investigator Ana Dolabra; their first case, an engineer's poisoning in a grand mansion, widens when a leviathan breaches a sea wall.
Also won the World Fantasy Award and was a finalist for the 2025 Edgar Award for Best Novel.
Scholar Owen Mallory, back from war, studies Sir Una Everlasting, a knight who helped found the nation of Dominion, and learns he must travel back in time to guide her through the events of her legend.
Also won the 2026 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel; the 2026 Nebula went to a different book.
The Hugo is chosen by fans: anyone who holds the required membership of that year's Worldcon can nominate and vote, and the winner is decided by instant-runoff voting, with “No Award” always an option. The Nebula Award, first presented in 1966 for works of 1965, is voted on by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, a professional body, and is presented each spring at the SFWA Nebula Conference.
Because the Nebula is labelled by publication year and the Hugo by the year of the ceremony, a double winner usually carries consecutive dates, such as Dune (Nebula for 1965, Hugo 1966). Brian Aldiss described the Nebula as reflecting more literary judgement and the Hugo as tracking reader popularity. Recent novels to win both include Among Others, Ancillary Justice, The Stone Sky, The Calculating Stars and Network Effect.
No Hugos were given in 1954, and Best Novel was not awarded in 1957; the awards have been given every year since 1955. Best Novel has been shared three times: in 1966 (Frank Herbert and Roger Zelazny), 1993 (Vernor Vinge and Connie Willis) and 2010 (Paolo Bacigalupi and China Miéville). Retro Hugos, added in 1996 for earlier Worldcon years without awards, went to novels such as Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (for 1954, awarded in 2004).
In 2015 the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies campaigns dominated the nomination ballot with slates; voters placed “No Award” above nearly all slate finalists, and a new nomination system, E Pluribus Hugo, was first used in 2017. In 2023, at the Chengdu Worldcon, several authors were declared ineligible without explanation, which led to censures and resignations among the administrators.
The Hugo is an annual science fiction and fantasy award voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention. Best Novel is its flagship category.
The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow, announced on 30 August 2026 at LAcon V in Anaheim, California.
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett.
The Hugo is voted on by Worldcon members, largely fans, while the Nebula is voted on by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, a professional writers' organisation.
Recent double winners include Among Others, Ancillary Justice, The Stone Sky, The Calculating Stars and Network Effect; earlier ones include Dune, The Left Hand of Darkness and Neuromancer.
Robert A. Heinlein and Lois McMaster Bujold have four regular Best Novel Hugos each; Heinlein also won two Retro Hugos.
Yes. Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem, translated by Ken Liu, won in 2015.
No. Hugo winners receive a rocket-ship trophy on a base designed by each year's Worldcon, but no cash.
Winner list last verified 28 October 2026.
The notes on this page are all mine,
and the books are all theirs.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
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