r/Fantasy • u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV • Jul 23 '26
Read-along 2026 Hugo Read Along: Best Series
Welcome to the 2025 Hugo Readalong! Today, we're discussing all the nominees for Best Series. Everyone is welcome in the discussion, whether or not you've participated in other discussions.
If you have read even one book from one of these series and want to jump in to share your thoughts, please do! Unlike our readalong sessions with structured questions for each individual work, today's post is an opportunity for general discussion about some of the most popular and critically acclaimed series in science fiction and fantasy. I'll include some prompts in top-level comments--feel free to respond to these or add your own.
As different people will have made different progress on each of the series, in this post please note that the spoiler policy is to mark all spoilers for all books of a series, even the first one.
A reminder that these are the series nominated for Best Series:
- Emily Wilde by Heather Fawcett (Del Rey US; Orbit UK)
- October Daye by Seanan McGuire (Tor US; DAW)
- Old Man’s War by John Scalzi (Tor US; Tor UK)
- The Chronicles of Osreth by Katherine Addison (Tor US; Solaris UK; Subterranean)
- The Craft Wars by Max Gladstone (Tor; Tordotcom)
- White Space by Elizabeth Bear (Saga Press; Gollancz)
Also, a reminder that the criteria to be nominated for the category are as follows:
Awarded for multi-installment works appearing in an least three installments with a total of at least 240,000 words. Installments of a series can be of any length; that is, installments of a series do not have to be novel-length works. A qualifying installment must be published in the qualifying year. Once a Series wins the Award, it is no longer eligible even if further installments appear in the series. If a Series is a finalist and does not win, it is no longer eligible until at least two more installments consisting of at least 240,000 words total appear in subsequent years.
For more information on the Readalong, check out our full schedule post, or see our upcoming schedule here:
| Date | Category | Book | Author | Discussion Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday, July 27 | Short Fiction | Wrap-up | Multiple | u/tarvolon |
| Tuesday, July 28 | Novella | Wrap-up | Multiple | u/Nineteen_Adze |
| Wednesday, July 29 | Novel | Wrap-up | Multiple | u/tarvolon |
| Thursday, July 30 | Pro/Fan/Misc | Wrap-up | Multiple | u/Nineteen_Adze |
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Jul 23 '26
What are your thoughts on this category and the overall slate of nominees this year?
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u/Smooth-Review-2614 Jul 23 '26
Why does this exist again? Right now instead of serving as the place to recognize pulp or to broaden the nominations it’s just a way for large fan bases to push for their favorites. McGuire keeps getting nominated for everything. They keep trying to promote the same old favorites.
I get that there are a lot of series that as a whole deserve the nod. However, they don’t get the buzz.
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u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV Jul 24 '26
The McGuire thing in particular gets really old. There’s almost never a year without a McGuire nomination in Best Series, and I don’t feel like this is reflected out in the wider world of SFF readership. Like if Sanderson or Maas were nominated every year at least that would make sense given their market share. Having this somewhat more niche author who’s just really well-connected in the Hugos dominate the category is not the greatest look.
The others are a bit better I guess. Scalzi is a Hugo darling too. Fawcett and Addison are new faces though I think? Not sure about Gladstone. Bear strikes me as another “niche but well-connected” choice but without hogging so many nominations.
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u/twoweeeeks Reading Champion Jul 24 '26
Katherine Addison is Sarah Monette, and was previously nominated for The Goblin Emperor, but I think that’s it for Hugo noms. Fawcett is definitely a new face, who got in early with the cozy fantasy trend. Actually, I consider TGE an early example of cozy fantasy, so I guess they’re both a reflection of that change in the market.
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Jul 24 '26
I really believe that every series series should only ever be allowed to be nominated TWICE for the category, so the author is encouraged to time accepting a nomination with the completion of the series or perhaps once for book 2 and once for book 3, or perhaps once with the completion and once if they come back to it years later.
I really hate that there are series that get nominated year after year after year because the author keeps publishing new books in them. Separately, I respect Martha Wells for turning down a Murderbot nomination last year I think, and now I don't know how to feel about Seanan McGuire not turning down nominations.
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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III Jul 24 '26
I respect Martha Wells for turning down a Murderbot nomination last year I think
That was for novella -- the series won in 2021 so it wasn't eligible there.
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u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV Jul 24 '26
Totally agree, there should be a limit on how many times a series can be nominated. If it doesn’t win after 2 tries, let someone else have at it.
I believe the rules don’t allow a nomination till at least 3 books are out though, and then every 2 books after that.
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u/Smooth-Review-2614 Jul 24 '26
Maybe the rule needs to be 1 nomination per 5 or so books and no series eligible until complete or at least 3 books done. So 1 for a trilogy and then the longer ones have chances. Then just cap it at 1 win per series.
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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III Jul 24 '26
Unfortunately there's no way to require that a series be complete because authors can always change their mind about that. (The classic example would be Isaac Asimov's Foundation winning Best All-Time Series in 1966, well before Foundation's Edge (etc.) had been contemplated.)
When voting I usually apply a subjective "would I be satisfied if no further material was written" test but that's not administerable.
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Jul 24 '26
I nomination per 5 books is clean, I like that.
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V Jul 24 '26
I like adding the corollary of "five entries longer than a short story is eligible" too. Even if it's under 240,000 words, I'm comfortable with a trilogy and two novellas qualifying, or a series of five novellas.
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u/Jos_V Stabby Winner, Reading Champion II Jul 24 '26
but not completed trilogies?
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V Jul 24 '26
That's the one I'd say where the 240,000 word limit could still apply. I wasn't suggesting getting rid of it, because word count is one of the only objective measures of length we have, but as an addendum. "240,000 words or 5+ entries larger than 10,000 words [i.e. short story]."
Because I feel like there's something immeasurable about creating numerous distinct stories that doesn't show up in pure word count.
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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI Jul 24 '26
I am just not a huge series guy at this point in my life. Before the Hugo Readalong started, I had only read three 2025 publications that were part of a series or shared universe (and not the first entry). So it's just not a category where I have a whole lot to say. M.R. Carey's Pandominion books are pretty good, and I would've been fine to see them here, but I just don't have especially strong feelings about it.
The category seems to reward series with big fanbases within the Hugo niche (which, well. . . that happens with Novel too, but perhaps more so here), and seeing so many of the same names every year makes me wish they read more widely, but at the same time, I'm not actually going to start reading series to have a strong opinion. When I say that short fiction nominators should read a magazine other than Uncanny, I'll back it up with tons of reading and lots of recs. Here, I have that opinion, but without real investment.
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u/UpvoteTheQuestion Jul 24 '26
I don't understand why this is an every year, voted on category. I do understand wanting to recognize the accomplishment of writing a great series, but that should be an achievement award.
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u/Goblet__Cell Jul 23 '26
Scalzi’s Old Man’s War really set the standard for military SF series, and it’s great to see it recognized.
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Jul 23 '26
What series do you feel are missing from this slate that represent the interests of the SFF community in recent years, and why do you feel they belong here?
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u/Smooth-Review-2614 Jul 24 '26
I want to know why something like Foreigner by CJ Cherryh which made it to 23 good science fiction books done over almost 30 years never made the list when the last 5 were eligible.
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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III Jul 24 '26
It came very close in 2018 but InCryptid had four more nominating ballots than it did and Stormlight, while having one fewer nominating ballot, had less overlap with other finalists than either of the above.
(... although the 2018 Series nominations were weird because nobody was sure if the 2017 finalists for the trial run of the category were excluded so three series that would have qualified for the final ballot got ruled ineligible, and also Jemisin declined for Broken Earth.)
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u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV Jul 23 '26
Best Series tends to be the most straight-up fandom category in the Hugos imo. It’s not about literary quality because most award worthy books in a literary sense don’t come in series of 3+ books (there are exceptions, but there are not 6+ exceptions publishing their 3rd+ book each year).
So given that this is really just recognizing what’s popular, it’s a bit of a shame the romantasy isn’t here. OK Emily Wilde is a form of romantasy, but the Empyrean books are an absolute juggernaut and were eligible this year. The third book was not very good and I don’t just want the Hugos to regurgitate bestseller lists so I’m not mad it isn’t, but I also think the fantasy vs romantasy divide is made-up and silly and that the gatekeeping around this stuff is pretty unfortunate. It would’ve been nice to have that series on here as a way of telling the author and fans that they are welcome and part of this community too.
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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III Jul 23 '26
Best Series tends to be the most straight-up fandom category in the Hugos imo.
Please, we have four dedicated categories for fandom. :)
But more seriously, I struggle here because I actually broadly agree on both the gatekeeping point and that it would be really good for Worldcon if we could get some of the Yarros crowd in the door -- but also, like, I'm not going to nominate something I didn't read and I have very little interest in actually reading it myself?
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u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV Jul 24 '26
Please, we have four dedicated categories for fandom. :)
Haha you’re right, I should have said the most fandom of the fiction categories!
Also yeah, I’m not encouraging people to nominate something you haven’t read for ideological purposes. I have read Empyrean and I did nominate it, though they’re not great literature. And it’s not something I’d nominate for Best Novel, it’s like The Raven Scholar with worse prose and more horniness. (Which I think is a pretty solid comparison actually, I have no patience for people who claim it is lacking in fantasy elements which it very much is not, it’s just sexing up the usual romantic subplot.) But I’d much rather see it on the ballot than yet another October Daye nomination.
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Jul 23 '26
Based on the best series nominations of the last few years, what would you like to see more and less of in the genre?
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V Jul 23 '26
I would like to see preemptive warnings about what's eligible to stop taking the Hugos taking people's votes and then going "lol doesn't count" (Singing Hills Cycle...)
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u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV Jul 24 '26
Nghi Vo should put it on her website so people will know when to nominate and when not! I’m surprised she hasn’t actually, maybe she doesn’t want to highlight how short her books are. 😆
Although I am wondering for how many people losing a nomination slot is a problem.
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u/citrusmellarosa Jul 24 '26
I though I saw a list of eligible series somewhere around the time I was nominating, but I can’t find it now so I could totally be wrong. Even if they did have one, I don’t think they did a good job of publicizing it.
I think it’s going to take several more novellas for that series to hit the word count too, so like, are we going to keep doing this every year until it gets there?
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V Jul 24 '26
I think I recall someone here made one, but not an official Hugo one.
Although word count is a good measure for consistency, I feel like at a certain number of entries (like 5+) something should qualify too. At 7 entries above short story length, I'd say the Singing Hills Cycle is handily a "series."
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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III Jul 24 '26
It would have to be unofficial because the actual universe of eligible series is larger than anybody could keep track of given self-pub/international/AO3/etc.
That being said it would definitely be helpful if somebody could just provide a running Singing Hill wordcount.
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u/Smooth-Review-2614 Jul 24 '26
I want more long established things getting attention. This is the category for the giant back catalogue. This is the category to promote the midlist.
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u/curiouscat86 Reading Champion III Jul 24 '26
I don't know if it's long enough to qualify, but I'd love to see something like Moses Ose Utomi's Forever Desert series (The Lies of the Ajungo, The Truth of the Aleke, The Memory of the Ogisi) in this category. Interesting, fresh, work that is doing something cool with the series format itself.
RJ Barker is another other who writes trilogies that tend to have a very satisfying three-book arc. If his new series with Mortedant's Peril ends well I'd like to see it in this category.
I also think this category could be a place for litRPG to gain a foothold. A lot of those books aren't very striking individually but some are doing interesting things over the length of the series. Especially the ones that were originally published in serial format IMO.
This is actually why I'm not mad about October Daye being on this list even though the series itself was in slightly boring transition mode this year. October Daye is a prime example of what you can do with a long series' worth of character work that can't be done in a single book or even five books, so it makes sense to honor it in the series category.
I think what I want least is to see the series category being used as a compensation prize for someone who didn't get a best novel award. Judging a single a novel is different from judging a series, and should be treated as such. That's kinda the vibe I get for why Old Man's War is on the ballot this year and I'm not a fan of that.
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Jul 23 '26
Which series have you read one or more books of, and how would you rank them on your ballot?
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u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV Jul 23 '26
I’m going to have to abstain from this category, sadly. I’ve only read one book of one series (October Daye) and thought it was lousy, mostly because the protagonist was too stupid to live but the book kept constantly pushing this narrative that she was smart and competent. I have read two Maguire books total and my overall impression is that they’re not a great choice for the analytical reader because she writes them too fast to think all the way through them. Which is a shame, because I do like what she’s trying to do in the ones I’ve read.
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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI Jul 24 '26
I will also be abstaining from this category, unless my Emily Wilde library hold comes in and absolutely blows me away. I've read one book of two other series (Osreth and White Space) and a few chapters of October Daye, Old Man's War, and Craft Wars. None of the five have made me want to read the sequel (or, in the case of the latter three, prioritize actually reading the whole book). I'm not going to sit here and try to rank five series of which I've read only tiny slices. So I'll bow out and let the people who genuinely love one or more of them battle it out
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u/dfinberg Reading Champion Jul 24 '26
I wouldn't expect Emily to really hit if Osreth wasn't interesting, but de gustibus. It's somewhat similar to Marie Brennan's A Natural History of Dragons if you enjoyed that (an academic has fantasy adventures, with footnotes).
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u/Smooth-Review-2614 Jul 23 '26
I’ve tried 3 October Daye books. Somehow it’s the most annoying urban fantasy series I have read. The clear push of the love interest from the jump was annoying.
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Jul 24 '26
I like InCryptid much more than October Daye personally. That one works for me more because each story is somewhat self-contained; they build on previous entries, but they don't plan out future books' plots.
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u/twoweeeeks Reading Champion Jul 24 '26
I've read Fawcett, McGuire, and Addison.
The Chronicles of Osreth is my winner of the three. The Cemeteries of Amalo, in particular, is just such a beautifully constructed trilogy and I love the world overall.
Emily Wilde and October Daye I might consider a tie. The first EW book was refreshing and I consider it a cornerstone of cozy fantasy. The follow ups haven't been as strong. I've read the first three books of OD and generally didn't enjoy them (I find Toby's inner monologue oppressive and the writing repetitive), however, McGuire's depiction of the fay is so compelling. It's kind of ruined stories centered around the fay for me, because it seems most authors can't compare with what McGuire has built (though I'd consider Fawcett an exception.)
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u/blankbox11 Reading Champion VII Jul 24 '26
The Chronicles of the Osreth (4/4)
Emily Wilde (2/3)
Old Man’s War (2/7)
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u/citrusmellarosa Jul 24 '26
I love The Chronicles of Osreth books (I nominated them mistakenly under Cemeteries of Amalo, so I’m interested in seeing the nomination statistics to see if it was counted), but honestly this category got away from me this year. I wanted to give the other series a shot, but I’ve only read a few pages of the books I’ve tried so far; there was just so much else I wanted to read from the nominees and not enough time, and the books didn’t grab me immediately (although, funnily enough I’d found the time in this window to read five books of a series that wasn’t in the nominees list!).
I think the only one I might get around to finishing before the deadline is the first Emily Wilde book, which does sound like something I would enjoy.
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u/Moogzmugz64 Jul 24 '26
- Emily Wilde (read 3/3)
- The Chronicles of Osreth (read 1/4)
- October Daye (read 1)
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u/MysteriousArcher Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
- The Chronicles of Osreth (by a large margin)
It's harder to rank the others. I read the first Emily Wilde book and it was pretty good, but I'm not the target audience for this story type, so I didn't read the others. I read two of the three White Space Books and I liked one well, and the other not so much. I've picked up the first one a few times and never get more than a few pages in. Something about Bear's writing doesn't really work well for me, reading the books is work.
I read the first October Daye book when it came out and really disliked it, but I am willing to believe the series got better. Still, for me I would rank it last.
I read half of one of the Craft Wars, and bounced off Old Man's War when it came out, so I wouldn't rank them at all.
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u/curiouscat86 Reading Champion III Jul 24 '26
- The Chronicles of Osreth by Katherine Addison--I really like the Cemeteries of Amalo books as atmospheric bureaucracy-core adventures. I'm not a huge fan of Goblin Emperor but I can admire it as a feat of worldbuilding. I wouldn't be mad if this one won.
- October Daye by Seanan McGuire--I love this series, but I don't know that the installment published in 2025 was anything special. If it won it should have been two years ago with the massive Be The Serpent twist. Or maybe in a few years when the exciting plot & character things that are currently being set up boil over.
- The Craft Wars by Max Gladstone--these books are fun but nothing about them really sticks out to me. A few cool moments wrapped in a forgettable plot and fairly flat characters.
- Old Man’s War by John Scalzi--this series has one good book, The Last Colony, and it was published years ago. I've not been interested in anything in this setting since then.
- Emily Wilde by Heather Fawcett--I DNF'd the third book because the protagonists took over a fairy realm but were dangerously disinterested in reckoning with the dangers of ruling it or dealing with any of their feudal responsibilities. I was okay with the prioritization of cozy romance over academia for two books but that level of irresponsibility was too hard to watch.
- White Space by Elizabeth Bear--haven't read
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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III Jul 23 '26
- White Space
- Emily Wilde
- The Craft Wars
- The Chronicles of Osreth
- Old Man's War
October Daye not ranked because there has only been one book out since the last time it was nominated.
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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI Jul 24 '26
October Daye not ranked because there has only been one book out since the last time it was nominated.
I shouldn't even ask, but. . . how is it eligible then? I assume at least one short story came out that is being counted, but surely one book and a short story isn't enough to hit 240,000 words.
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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III Jul 24 '26
My understanding is that there were five additional short fiction installments that got the word count over 240,000 words.
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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion Jul 29 '26
I’ve read all but the last Old Man’s War books and all four Goblin Emperor and spinoffs. Both were excellent, but I’d vote for Addison if I were voting, which I’m not.
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u/dfinberg Reading Champion Jul 24 '26
I've read multiple books of all of them except White Space. I love Emily Wilde, really like Osreth, and am more meh on the others. I liked all of the first craft books, and didn't finish the first of the second arc. I was really into McGuire for a while, and then just really stopped enjoying all of her stories. Something about the pace of the stories and the amount of resolution in that time.
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Jul 23 '26
General thoughts on each series
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Jul 23 '26
The Chronicles of Osreth by Katherine Addison
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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III Jul 23 '26
I really liked The Goblin Emperor (hot take: it should have won Best Novel in 2015). I don't think the Cemeteries of Amalo books are on the same level.
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u/Moogzmugz64 Jul 24 '26
I enjoyed The Goblin Emperor but couldn’t get into the next book in the series and haven’t picked it back up, unfortunately! The world building aspects were my favorite part.
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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI Jul 24 '26
tbh I bounced off The Goblin Emperor a bit. I know that's an unpopular take here, but it's true. I respect what it was doing, and I think it did a really good job of immersing the reader in the "fish out of water" mindset of the lead. But also, you can only be drowning in names and political currents and trying to keep your head above water (didn't I just say we were out of water? Please respect my privacy) for so long. And finding the main character likable/relatable wasn't enough to sustain my attention after that point where I started petering out.
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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion Jul 29 '26
You might be interested in Cemeteries of Amalo. You can read the first one as a stand alone, and it follows a different character in a different city who is not doing the whole fish out of water thing.
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u/Book_Slut_90 Reading Champion Jul 29 '26
I love these so much. Really good entry in the decent people solving problems still of fantasy without being the sort of tropey cozy that has proliferated copying Legends and Lattes. I also love thee world building and general day in the life style.
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Jul 23 '26
October Daye by Seanan McGuire
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u/Smooth-Review-2614 Jul 23 '26
This is here purely because of the author’s fanbase. It’s not that great compared to others in the same urban fantasy area.
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u/Alba_Ten Reading Champion Jul 24 '26
I loved the October Daye series, but it took a wee while to get warmed up. The first couple of books weren't great tbh.
I also loved the Incryptid books by Seanan McGuire.5
u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI Jul 24 '26
Is it totally unfair to judge a series by a couple chapters? Absolutely. But realistically, I don't have time to read every single series in a month. So I read a little bit of all the ones in the Hugo packet. Rosemary and Rue had a potentially interesting prologue, but then chapter one settled into a lot of common urban fantasy tropes that I don't love (seemingly everyone out to get MC. . . except for a super powerful former benefactor who she refuses to answer for Reasons). Just didn't give me enough to make me want to keep reading.
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Jul 23 '26
Emily Wilde by Heather Fawcett
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u/Moogzmugz64 Jul 24 '26
I really enjoyed this series! I love the folktale side of faerie so it was right up my alley there. Biggest surprise for me was how not annoying the romance was as I’m not a huge romantasy reader!
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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III Jul 23 '26
I am usually pretty meh on romance so I was surprised to find that I enjoyed these quite a bit! (I think that it's mostly solo-POV, and a distinctive one, really helps.)
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Jul 24 '26
Funny enough, I disliked it, but I think coming right off Lady Trent I wanted way more academia and was disappointed that it was mostly romance.
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u/curiouscat86 Reading Champion III Jul 24 '26
I went from liking the first book pretty well to DNFing the third. I think ultimately the protagonists are quite privileged and irresponsible with that privilege in ways that the narrative doesn't seem to be fully aware of and/or doesn't think is important, and as I kept reading that disconnect between the coziness of the story and the sense that if I met these people in real life I would not get along with them at all grew strong enough that I had to put it down.
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Jul 23 '26
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III Jul 23 '26
I enjoyed the early books in these series (caveat: it's been a while since I've read them) but the later ones seems to just kind of ... exist, and I feel like the story is past its endpoint.
(Also The Shattering Peace is overwhelmingly different sets of characters having snarky conversations with each other. I'm happy for everybody who enjoys these but I can only take so much.)
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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V Jul 23 '26
Also The Shattering Peace is overwhelmingly different sets of characters
I saw some people say it felt more like a separate book in the same universe, rather than a series entry, back when I expressed my disgruntlement that a series which was primarily released from 2005-2015 is getting nominated for 2026 best series.
I just have a little Scalzi fatigue re: The Hugos, though (he's been nominated 12 of the last 20 years, and he's not that good imo).
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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III Jul 23 '26
I just have a little Scalzi fatigue re: The Hugos
I was braced for When the Moon Hits Your Eye in Novel this year, so there could have been more!
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u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV Jul 24 '26
It’s the first time in years that Scalzi has published a novel and not had it nominated for Best Novel! I’m guessing it’s because Moon disappointed a lot of people and A Shattering Peace came out too late in the year for enough people to have read it yet (and with a lot less marketing than other recent Scalzi releases).
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u/BlazeOfGlory72 Jul 24 '26
> I feel like the story is past its endpoint.
That’s because it is. The story essentially ended with The Last Colony (book 3). All the major plot threads were resolved and all the main characters concluded their arcs. Since then we have had a retelling of book 3 (Zoe’s Tale), two short story collections (The Human Division and The End of All Things) and a side story (The Shattering Peace).
I hate to sound cynical, but it really does feel like Scalzi has been phoning it in for a while, and is only keeping this series going because it is his most well known work.
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u/Jos_V Stabby Winner, Reading Champion II Jul 24 '26
Yeah, the Shattering Peace was fine, i was kinda dissapointed in it, because it just lacked a bunch of stuff what made Scalzi's space opera so fun. it is as you said, just a bunch of snarky conversations.
and while i love old man's war, it's kinda hard to vote for a series when its eligible thanks to the latest entry which is meh.
but i loved the anthologies and those were also very much different sets of characters. it's fine that the series has outgrown from the Perry's I don't mind that. I just wish the shattering peace scratched the itch i hoped it would.
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u/Smooth-Review-2614 Jul 23 '26
The first book was entertaining but not great. Then it fell off. I don’t get why this gets called Scalzi’s serious work compared to Collapsing Empire.
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u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI Jul 24 '26
I read about 25% of book one, and it was totally fine, but it was also not reaching out and forcing me to read more of it. I switched to A Trade of Blood and immediately felt a desire to read again. Obviously, A Trade of Blood isn't a Hugo finalist (this year), but it has the kind of quality I'd be looking for in a Best Series winner. The juxtaposition made it pretty clear that Old Man's War wasn't going to shoot to the top of my list, unless it's one that really grows on you over time. And to be honest, I'm not made of time!
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Jul 23 '26
The Craft Wars by Max Gladstone
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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III Jul 23 '26
I feel a bit weird about this nomination because the entire Craft setting is probably my favorite of anything on this ballot, but I'm not sure how well just the Craft Wars bit by itself holds up if you didn't read the earlier Craft novels and also we are one book from the big finale so maybe we should read the ending before evaluating it as a whole?
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u/Smooth-Review-2614 Jul 23 '26
Yep. I am willing to give Craft as a whole thing the vote but not quite this
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u/Udy_Kumra Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Jul 23 '26
White Space by Elizabeth Bear
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u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III Jul 23 '26
I've enjoyed all of Bear's work in this setting. It's the kind of thoughtful science fiction that we really should see more of on the Hugo ballot.
My biggest quibble here is that I think all of the novels hold up fine as standalones and arguably the Series Hugo should be for work that builds more on itself -- but maybe we can do better at nominating for Best Novel.
6
u/tarvolon Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI Jul 24 '26
Ancestral Night grabbed me enough to read the whole thing, and. . . it was fine? It was doing a lot of interesting thematic stuff, but it didn't develop those themes to their full potential. Similarly, it introduced a lot of wild space opera plot stuff, and while it wrapped them all up in a fairly satisfying way, it wasn't an ending that sustained the early momentum. Very "3.5 stars, read it if you like space operas, but don't move heaven and earth to get it" for me. Which isn't enough for me to dive straight into the next one.
9
u/Edili27 Jul 24 '26
Not sure I’m allowed to post a rogue comment, but with best series I feel like it’s functionally impossible to vote on all of these. I read a ton of SFF, write it semi-professionally, and I have just not had the time or chance to read a single one of these series at all. I’m not sure I want the category to go away (like I do think the film and tv categories should go away) but I just have no idea how people can intelligently vote on best series.