hi hi friends! i have officially submitted my hugo ballet! so i am here to compile all of my reviews for the six novels that were up for the best novel category this year! but i also did a post for best novella with reviews for all six in that category, too! i also really want to say that i wholeheartedly recommend becoming a member of the world science fiction society and being able to vote on these awards, especially if you are an sff reviewer! it has been such an amazing experience. also, it is so worth the money. $50 gets you a hugo awards voter packet that is filled with so many books, so many video game codes, so many shows and movies, and truly so much more. it is so worth it in every way, besides just letting your voice be heard within the community! the way that the hugo voting works, is that you give all the books a number rating from 6-1 in order of your favorites! so, i am going to review all of the nominees of this category â from least favorite, to favorite! (the last review is what my #1 favorite of the category is!)  #6 ËËË â ËËË The Incandescent by Emily Tesh it breaks my heart to report to you all that a sapphic dark academia, that was supposedly all about demons, was the biggest disappointment in my 2025/2026 hugo reading. this was so boring, and felt so out of touch, that if it wasnât for the first part of this reading like an enjoyable novella, i would have given it one star probably. dr walden, is the director of magic at a very prestigious magical boarding school, where she is also a very powerful invocation magician, where she is able to summon demons. demons are very attracted to magic, and a powerful wizard school is obviously going to lure them in, when there are so many people who they could take that magic from, and this is very much showcased in the first part of this book. after that? we get a weird storyline, where she proves that being rich and intelligent doesnât make you immune to mustache twirling villains, and she gets told she is privileged buy her marginalized friends, yet she constantly talks about that privilege, and how she was born and raised with the biggest silver spoon in her mouth, like it makes up for it. then proceeds to say outlandish things, like how 50k a year for a boarding school tuition is middle class. girl, what? and things like how her parents have been begging to give her money since they paid off the mortgage of her brotherâs home, even though she has enough savings for two years of not working. i am not sure how much more out of touch a book, that is constantly trying to check off privileges, could get. and to add a cherry on top, i also feel like she wasnât that great of a professor, especially with only four very gifted kids. and once again, where did the constant threat of demons go? or the start of discussions on if demons are people? this one really did feel bad to me, and it truly was also so ungodly boring, with such an abrupt ending. i feel like this book was trying to do something with higher education, and who gets the privilege of being able to experience it, while also not having to work or pay for that education themselves, but it just completely failed doing so for me. trigger + content warnings: possession, blood, self harm to get blood to cast magic, insects (maggots), pandemic mention, child abuse mention, misogyny, panic attacks, asthma attack (they were okay), grief, death, death of children, talk of death of parents, violence, battle, smoking/vaping, drinking, a hospital setting  #5 ËËË â ËËË Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky this was the last thing that i *had* to read for the hugos, and i feel like you should just very much take this three star rating and this entire mini review, with a grain of salt, because i would have never picked this book up if it wasnât before hugo voting. at the end of the day, i am a completionist through and through, but i think that i am very much doing this book a disservice, especially because i didnât think it was a bad book, it just wasnât a book that interested me. this is a standalone scifi first...