2025 Hugos There Best Fancast Voter Packet!
If you’re interested in checking out this year’s voter packet, you can download it below. The rest of this page is the text from the packet contents document included with the zip.
Hugos There has been around since 2017 and has, as of July 2023, produced episodes covering all of the winners of the Hugo (and Retro Hugo) Award for Best Novel. The podcast has now fully transitioned into Hugos There 2.0, with a new four-month cycle of (most of the time):
- Zoomed Out: Subgenre Spotlight
- Regular Episode (award-winner or nominee discussion)
- Zoomed Out: Author Deep Dive
- Seth’s Picks Episode (regular episode but not necessarily an award winner)
Seth is the one-man show behind the scenes, doing all the scheduling, recording, editing, and producing. (And doing a very poor job on social media.)
You can find the podcast at https://hugospodcast.com or the social media sites below:
https://bsky.app/profile/hugospodcast.com
https://www.instagram.com/hugospodcast
https://mastodon.social/@sethheasley
https://twitter.com/hugospodcast
2025 Hugo Packet Contents:
In the 2025 Hugo Packet you will find the following episodes (MP3s and transcripts included in the packet):
- Zoomed Out: Patricia McKillip, with Dr Audrey Isabel Taylor
- Zoomed Out: Speculative Fiction in Translation, with Rachel Cordasco
- Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank, with Mitch Wagner
- Declare, by Tim Powers, with Paul Williams
- Zoomed Out: Military SF, with William Bregnard
- Zoomed Out: Iain M. Banks, with Damo MacChoiligh
2024 State of the Podcast:
In 2024, the podcast produced 20 episodes, broken down into these categories:
- Normal Episodes (6): Seth + One Guest + One Book. Some of the books were award winning SFF books, some were just books Seth wanted to cover.
- Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank, with guest Mitch Wagner (Seth’s Picks)
- Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir, with guest Peter Kuskie (Hugo-nominated novel)
- A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle, with guest Mandy Self (Seth’s Picks / Newberry Medal-winning novel)
- Declare, by Tim Powers, with guest Paul Williams (World Fantasy Award-winning novel)
- Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry, with guest Amy Salley (Seth’s Picks / Pulitzer-winning novel)
- Blindness, by José Saramago (Seth’s Picks / Nobel laureate author)
- “Zoomed Out” episodes (6): Talking more broadly about authors or genres
- Patricia McKillip, Zoomed Out, with guest Dr. Audrey Isabel Taylor
- Urban Fantasy, Zoomed Out, with guest Katherine Heasley
- Iain M. Banks, Zoomed Out, with guest Damo MacChoilich
- Speculative Fiction in Translation, Zoomed Out, with guest Rachel Cordasco
- Jules Verne, Zoomed Out, with guests Emmanuel Dubois and Haley Zapal
- Military Science Fiction, Zoomed Out, with guest William Bregnard
- Interviews (4): Seth interviewing a guest about a project or recent experience, often touching on science fiction.
- “Oh, I have a new limp now!”, a conversation with Michael Gabriel about the World Marathon Challenge (seven continents, seven days, seven marathons).
- “Other people walk their dog, and I walk my book”, a conversation with JW Wartick about reading all the winners and nominees for the Hugo Award for Best Novel.
- “Why We Love Baseball,” a conversation with Joe Posnanski about his recent books covering the history of baseball and football.
- “We’re all Superman to somebody, sometime,” a conversation with Michael Gabriel about live-action Superman, especially CW’s Superman & Lois.
- Other Bonus Episodes (4):
- Favorite 2023 Movies, a conversation with Seth and his son, Ethan
- Oscars 2024 discussion with Seth, Peter Knoch, and Lori Anderson (from Hugo, Girl!)
- Aliens (1986 film) discussion panel, with Megan Cutter, Mandy Self, and Luke Elliott
- Vernor Vinge Tribute, a panel discussion about Vernor Vinge with Olav Rokne, Rich Horton, Russ Newcomer, and Trish E. Matson