**Ranking the Hugo Novel Nominees: A Fan's Perspective**

Impeccable writing quality and masterful storytelling are often the hallmarks of award-winning novels, but sometimes it's not about creating something entirely new, but rather doing something familiar in a different way. As a fan of science fiction and fantasy, I had the opportunity to review and rank this year's Hugo novel nominees.

First up was **The Kaiju Preservation Society** by John Scalzi. This book tells the story of a man who loses his job in tech post-pandemic but finds himself recruited into a group known as the Kaiju Preservation Society, which is dedicated to preserving these massive creatures from an alternate dimension in an alternate reality. If you're a fan of Pacific Rim or similar Kaiju movies, you'll likely enjoy this book's slice-of-life approach and atmosphere. While Scalzi's writing is solid, I didn't find the characters particularly memorable, but that wasn't the point – it was meant to be a fun, lighthearted story. It's astounding that this book has been nominated for an award of this caliber, especially considering its straightforward premise.

Next up was **The Harrow** by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell. I'll admit that I wasn't as enamored with this book as some others on the list. While it's undoubtedly a beautifully illustrated and imaginative tale, I didn't find it to be as strong of an installment as some might. The writing quality is impeccable, but in my opinion, Harrow was not quite as impactful or memorable as other nominees. Gideon, another nominee, seems to have had more staying power with me.

**The Fan Favorite: Legends & Lotts Di by Travis Baldry**

Now we come to a darling of every book community – **Legends and Lotts Di** by Travis Baldry. This post-D&D campaign-turned-novel follows the story of an orcish woman who opens a coffee shop in a fantasy world, much like a coffee shop simulator game. It's a delightfully cute and wholesome tale that explores themes of found family and co-workers. While some might argue that this book has helped jumpstart the cozy fantasy genre, I don't think it quite reaches the level of excellence that some other nominees have achieved in this category.

**The Standout: Netrell & Bone by T. Kingfisher**

And finally, there's **Netrell and Bone** by T. Kingfisher – a dark fairy tale about a woman who seeks to avenge her sisters' abuse at the hands of a prince. This book is a masterclass in world-building, character development, and storytelling. It's a beautifully crafted tale that combines elements of fantasy and darkness with moments of warmth and heart. The author's writing is superb, and I was thoroughly captivated by this story. In my opinion, **Netrell and Bone** stands out as the only truly award-worthy novel on this list. With its complex characters, engaging plot, and immersive world-building, it's a testament to T. Kingfisher's skill that this book has won me over so thoroughly.

Overall, while I didn't find all of these novels to be equally impressive, they each have their own unique charms and qualities that make them enjoyable reads. Ultimately, my vote goes to **Netrell and Bone**, but I'm excited to explore the other nominees further – particularly T. Kingfisher's upcoming novella, **Nolla**.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys it's Sam and this is my ranking of this year's Hugo nominees for the novel category I've been so not engaged with what's going on in the book Community lately so I'm sitting here like did this as the filming of this did those already get announced I don't think so I think I would have seen even though I haven't been as engage I think I would have seen even though other things are happening in the world right now that are very important I still think I would have seen that anyway here are my thoughts and opinions on these books and how they rank I will link my initial like reaction to these and talking about my TBR for this uh on the screen because I say in there and just worth repeating here that I think this list is like fairly weak even having read a number of them um but still had some like decent books in there just not necessarily what I would picture as like award-winning quality necessarily uh but here's what I thought of all of those and I will go in the order from worst in my opinion to best so first is the spare Man by May reaban not koal which I gave two stars to this is a Sci-Fi mystery in which our main character's husband newlywed husband is accused of murder on a ship when they are going to Mars and she is having to clear his name while Mar Coal's writing is like perfectly fine and she seems to be very much a Hugo darling so I'm not shocked that she was necessarily on this list I had not heard about this book at all until the nominees were announced so yeah zero Buzz at least in my spheres about this and some of the World building and stuff is like very much fine but ultimately I think as far as like a Sci-Fi mystery this was incredibly mediocre and I found it to be just like very slow in parts and for a closed Circle mystery not actually like a ton of suspense in my opinion and then the ending was so dox makina where it just was like a very easy out to explain how everything happened in a way that was very annoying like the only reason I kept reading this was because it was for the hugos and because I was like okay well I do sort of like want to know that's the whole thing with a mystery and then you get to the end and you're like really like I prefer a mystery where like you could connect the dots and maybe figure it out yourself this one you kind of can't and I find that very annoying so yeah two out of five stars then we had the daughter of Dr Maro by Sylvia Marino Garcia this is actually a book that we read for our house Sal book club pick last year when it came out and this is essentially a retelling of the Dr Maro like story but told from the perspective of uh a daughter it's like historical and it's a beautiful secluded part of Mexico and so if you don't know about the Dr maroe story it's like a man that's basically doing experiments um that are like a lot of like body horrores stuff of combining like humans and animals and things like that so it's that sort of like horror adjacent thing I did not find this scary at all this is definitely a very slow story um very atmospheric all of sylv Mora Garcia's stories are very atmospheric she is obviously an excellent writer but as far as like the plot and my like connection to the story not very high for me it was just like very much fine uh I actually would have preferred if there were some more horror elements like I think we could have gotten deeper into the like suspense of it all um for example shortly before reading this I had read Mexican Gothic which is also by her which I felt had more of that and I would have liked that in here too um that just kind of like Eerie creepiness uh yeah and this was just kind of like I don't know some of the characters felt kind of flat there's an argument to be made that maybe that was intentional because of like who our narrator is and and some of the like being secluded and naive and things like that but ultimately I just think it was like it was just like very much fine and I gave it three out of five stars then possibly controversially we have Nona the nth by tamson Mir this is the third book in the lockb series and I can't obviously go into much detail about this but if you are familiar with the series at all it's lesbian necromancers in space a ton of like Space Opera e political intrigue um just an utter mind there are tons of people online who talk about this in detail and have like whole charts and graphs and things because there are so many elements and it can be very hard to understand this one I rated lower than some of the other books on this list um and and as a separation from the series um because the series for me is like a four to five star series like just impeccable but this actual installment I felt was um a bit of an offshoot of what was actually going on it felt like it wasn't super connected to the main story even though I know that it is there's parts that felt really slow I just wasn't as connected to it it felt less sci-fi in a lot of ways to me than the other books in the series and yeah it just felt like a delay in the main story until like the end when a lot of stuff starts coming together so my overall enjoyment of this in comparison to the other two books in this series was just so much lower so this is just like a solid three for me do I think that the series is impeccable and like the writing quality and like it as a Masterwork is going to be fantastic yes but this one for being a nominated work and I think Harrow is stronger and I think Harrow was nominated last year um but Harrow uh and Gideon both I feel like were stronger installments than this one for me personally then we have the Kaiju preservation Society by John schaly which I gave 3.75 Stars maybe like a 3.5 um now that I've had a little bit of time away from it but honestly I really enjoyed this but again not as like an award-winning book um this is telling a story of a man who um post pandemic lost his job in Tech and ends up getting approached to be a part of this like Kaiju preservation society which is basically preserving Kaiju in an alternate earth like an alternate Dimension um and it's just if you like Kaiju if you like Pacific Rim like you're probably going to like this it feels very slice of Lifey I don't find the characters to be anything super memorable it's very much like the atmosphere and like this fact that you're in just like a land of Kaiju and they're studying them and it's fun and that's what it was supposed to be like this book was not written to be anything more than fun which is why it's like astounding that it's nominated for an award of this caliber uh but yeah it was fine and it was very fun and I do think about it a lot and I do talk about it for just like its funest but it's not doing anything like extra there's no like extra themes to it which is again what I was talking about when I was talking about the nominees here is like for a nominee of any kind of a word for me I want there to be like it's doing something different or it's saying something different or it's saying something similar that what we've always said with certain genres but in a different way or like the themes are like this is just like kaju are cool and that's true okay next we have a fan favorite Legends and lot di by Travis baldry which I gave four stars to most people know this by now this is a darling of like every book Community but it's basically like post DND campaign pain uh a woman Barbarian kind of orc character if you're familiar with like D and D opens a coffee shop and it's basically like a coffee shop Sim in a book in a fantasy world it's very cute it's very wholesome it's very much like found family found co-workers it's like a little bit between that it's there there's low stakes uh it's just sweet for stars because I found it delightful and enjoyed it highly there's some saffic relationships in here it's just it's cute um but again award-winning quality I don't know people have made the argument that this has really jumpstarted cozy fantasy as a genre for people totally get that and maybe that's where people are wanting to like award it with something um but I think in the Cozy genre there's better than this this is still cute and precious so and finally my vote and the only five star on this list is nettel and Bone by T king fisher honestly um I haven't done the novellas yet because I'm waiting on one Nolla but tea king fisher might also win for me in that category as well this is a dark fairy tale following a woman whose sisters have been horribly abused by this Prince and she wants him to die and so she goes on this quest to uh like magically solve that and it becomes this like again collecting of like a found family like a real found family so many interesting characters so many interesting dark story elements it's so good and like it it's so heartfelt and also cozy like yes there are Stakes here and yes there's some like gruesomeness and like Darkness to this but this I feel like is like Peak cozy with more substance I loved it uh yeah it's it's perfect it's everything I am now officially a T Fisher fan and will continue to read her works this is the only book really on this list that I feel like is truly like worthy of an award my own judgment there and and I that's not me saying that other books shouldn't get award but when I think of uh awardwin material this is definitely something would come to mind because the writing is excellent the plotting is excellent the story is excellent the characters are excellent like no notes everything in here is perfect so Nal and Bone would be my choice for the novel category for the heos this year so that is it for my ranking of the Hugo novel nominees this year comment down below let me know what your ranking would be who you would pick to win this year thank you all for watching and I'll see all you guys soon byehey guys it's Sam and this is my ranking of this year's Hugo nominees for the novel category I've been so not engaged with what's going on in the book Community lately so I'm sitting here like did this as the filming of this did those already get announced I don't think so I think I would have seen even though I haven't been as engage I think I would have seen even though other things are happening in the world right now that are very important I still think I would have seen that anyway here are my thoughts and opinions on these books and how they rank I will link my initial like reaction to these and talking about my TBR for this uh on the screen because I say in there and just worth repeating here that I think this list is like fairly weak even having read a number of them um but still had some like decent books in there just not necessarily what I would picture as like award-winning quality necessarily uh but here's what I thought of all of those and I will go in the order from worst in my opinion to best so first is the spare Man by May reaban not koal which I gave two stars to this is a Sci-Fi mystery in which our main character's husband newlywed husband is accused of murder on a ship when they are going to Mars and she is having to clear his name while Mar Coal's writing is like perfectly fine and she seems to be very much a Hugo darling so I'm not shocked that she was necessarily on this list I had not heard about this book at all until the nominees were announced so yeah zero Buzz at least in my spheres about this and some of the World building and stuff is like very much fine but ultimately I think as far as like a Sci-Fi mystery this was incredibly mediocre and I found it to be just like very slow in parts and for a closed Circle mystery not actually like a ton of suspense in my opinion and then the ending was so dox makina where it just was like a very easy out to explain how everything happened in a way that was very annoying like the only reason I kept reading this was because it was for the hugos and because I was like okay well I do sort of like want to know that's the whole thing with a mystery and then you get to the end and you're like really like I prefer a mystery where like you could connect the dots and maybe figure it out yourself this one you kind of can't and I find that very annoying so yeah two out of five stars then we had the daughter of Dr Maro by Sylvia Marino Garcia this is actually a book that we read for our house Sal book club pick last year when it came out and this is essentially a retelling of the Dr Maro like story but told from the perspective of uh a daughter it's like historical and it's a beautiful secluded part of Mexico and so if you don't know about the Dr maroe story it's like a man that's basically doing experiments um that are like a lot of like body horrores stuff of combining like humans and animals and things like that so it's that sort of like horror adjacent thing I did not find this scary at all this is definitely a very slow story um very atmospheric all of sylv Mora Garcia's stories are very atmospheric she is obviously an excellent writer but as far as like the plot and my like connection to the story not very high for me it was just like very much fine uh I actually would have preferred if there were some more horror elements like I think we could have gotten deeper into the like suspense of it all um for example shortly before reading this I had read Mexican Gothic which is also by her which I felt had more of that and I would have liked that in here too um that just kind of like Eerie creepiness uh yeah and this was just kind of like I don't know some of the characters felt kind of flat there's an argument to be made that maybe that was intentional because of like who our narrator is and and some of the like being secluded and naive and things like that but ultimately I just think it was like it was just like very much fine and I gave it three out of five stars then possibly controversially we have Nona the nth by tamson Mir this is the third book in the lockb series and I can't obviously go into much detail about this but if you are familiar with the series at all it's lesbian necromancers in space a ton of like Space Opera e political intrigue um just an utter mind there are tons of people online who talk about this in detail and have like whole charts and graphs and things because there are so many elements and it can be very hard to understand this one I rated lower than some of the other books on this list um and and as a separation from the series um because the series for me is like a four to five star series like just impeccable but this actual installment I felt was um a bit of an offshoot of what was actually going on it felt like it wasn't super connected to the main story even though I know that it is there's parts that felt really slow I just wasn't as connected to it it felt less sci-fi in a lot of ways to me than the other books in the series and yeah it just felt like a delay in the main story until like the end when a lot of stuff starts coming together so my overall enjoyment of this in comparison to the other two books in this series was just so much lower so this is just like a solid three for me do I think that the series is impeccable and like the writing quality and like it as a Masterwork is going to be fantastic yes but this one for being a nominated work and I think Harrow is stronger and I think Harrow was nominated last year um but Harrow uh and Gideon both I feel like were stronger installments than this one for me personally then we have the Kaiju preservation Society by John schaly which I gave 3.75 Stars maybe like a 3.5 um now that I've had a little bit of time away from it but honestly I really enjoyed this but again not as like an award-winning book um this is telling a story of a man who um post pandemic lost his job in Tech and ends up getting approached to be a part of this like Kaiju preservation society which is basically preserving Kaiju in an alternate earth like an alternate Dimension um and it's just if you like Kaiju if you like Pacific Rim like you're probably going to like this it feels very slice of Lifey I don't find the characters to be anything super memorable it's very much like the atmosphere and like this fact that you're in just like a land of Kaiju and they're studying them and it's fun and that's what it was supposed to be like this book was not written to be anything more than fun which is why it's like astounding that it's nominated for an award of this caliber uh but yeah it was fine and it was very fun and I do think about it a lot and I do talk about it for just like its funest but it's not doing anything like extra there's no like extra themes to it which is again what I was talking about when I was talking about the nominees here is like for a nominee of any kind of a word for me I want there to be like it's doing something different or it's saying something different or it's saying something similar that what we've always said with certain genres but in a different way or like the themes are like this is just like kaju are cool and that's true okay next we have a fan favorite Legends and lot di by Travis baldry which I gave four stars to most people know this by now this is a darling of like every book Community but it's basically like post DND campaign pain uh a woman Barbarian kind of orc character if you're familiar with like D and D opens a coffee shop and it's basically like a coffee shop Sim in a book in a fantasy world it's very cute it's very wholesome it's very much like found family found co-workers it's like a little bit between that it's there there's low stakes uh it's just sweet for stars because I found it delightful and enjoyed it highly there's some saffic relationships in here it's just it's cute um but again award-winning quality I don't know people have made the argument that this has really jumpstarted cozy fantasy as a genre for people totally get that and maybe that's where people are wanting to like award it with something um but I think in the Cozy genre there's better than this this is still cute and precious so and finally my vote and the only five star on this list is nettel and Bone by T king fisher honestly um I haven't done the novellas yet because I'm waiting on one Nolla but tea king fisher might also win for me in that category as well this is a dark fairy tale following a woman whose sisters have been horribly abused by this Prince and she wants him to die and so she goes on this quest to uh like magically solve that and it becomes this like again collecting of like a found family like a real found family so many interesting characters so many interesting dark story elements it's so good and like it it's so heartfelt and also cozy like yes there are Stakes here and yes there's some like gruesomeness and like Darkness to this but this I feel like is like Peak cozy with more substance I loved it uh yeah it's it's perfect it's everything I am now officially a T Fisher fan and will continue to read her works this is the only book really on this list that I feel like is truly like worthy of an award my own judgment there and and I that's not me saying that other books shouldn't get award but when I think of uh awardwin material this is definitely something would come to mind because the writing is excellent the plotting is excellent the story is excellent the characters are excellent like no notes everything in here is perfect so Nal and Bone would be my choice for the novel category for the heos this year so that is it for my ranking of the Hugo novel nominees this year comment down below let me know what your ranking would be who you would pick to win this year thank you all for watching and I'll see all you guys soon bye\n"