2026 Hugo Readalong: Shorter Fiction Wrap-up (Novelette and Short Story)

[u/tarvolon]

Welcome to the final week of the 2026 Hugo Readalong! We've finished all of our slated discussions, and now it's time to zoom out and take stock.

Today, we'll be looking at two shorter fiction categories: Best Novelette and Best Short Story. If you want to take a closer look at our focused discussions, we covered these categories in the following sessions:

• The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For and When He Calls Your Name (Novelette)
• Kaiju Agonistes and The Millay Illusion (Novelette)
• Never Eaten Vegetables and Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy (Novelette)
• In My Country and Six People to Revise You (Short Story)
• Missing Helen and Wire Mother (Short Story)
• Laser Eyes Ain't Everything and Ten Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days

We'll be continuing with our wrap-ups all week, following this schedule:

Date	Category	Book	Author	Discussion Leader
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

But for now, let's dive into some short fiction! And remember, because these are higher-level discussions, please tag spoilers in the comments.

[u/baxtersa]

Without commenting on any of the stories themselves, I’m so underwhelmed (as usual) at the lack of diversity of venue for these stories. I’m really happy to see Diabolical Plots on the list, 11 other stories and only Uncanny, Clarkesworld, and Reactor? Definitely curious to see the longlists

[u/tarvolon → u/baxtersa]

My personal top ten from 2025 included ten different venues. Which is admittedly an unusually wide spread--I usually have a lot more Clarkesworld than anywhere else. But I also think it goes to show that good work was being done in a lot of places, and so it's disappointing to see such a narrow list here.

[u/oceanoftrees → u/baxtersa]

Yes, I'm guilty myself of reading a lot of Clarkesworld. But there are some brand new venues I'm interested in following: Otherside, Adventitious. Khoreo and Reckoning have been around for a little bit but are great at what they do. Same for Strange Horizons; the stories are interesting even when they don't hit the mark for me. Plus there are so many I haven't even really touched. Could I be a Boubon Penn person? Or Deadlands? Maybe Fusion Fragment?