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It’s the Hugo shortlist time of year! I’m doing my part (a very small part) by hosting some of my Internet Friends to discuss the 2026 finalists for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story! This was a super quick edit, so it’s perhaps not quite a tight or clean as a typical episode. But it’s always a good experience to talk through the nominees with a bunch of friends.
The stories, in the order in which we cover them:
- “10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days” by Samantha Mills (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 63)
- “In My Country” by Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld, Issue 223)
- “Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything” by Effie Seiberg (Diabolical Plots, May 16, 2025)
- “Missing Helen” by Tia Tashiro (Clarkesworld, Issue 226)
- “Six People to Revise You” by J.R. Dawson (Uncanny Magazine, Issue 62)
- “Wire Mother” by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld, Issue 229)
And here’s where you can find my guests:
- Lisa: blusky @lisajune
- Sarah: mindly.social/configures (mastodon)
- Lori & Amy: @hugogirlpodcast
- Ivor: @tearsofthetinman
- JW: https://eclectictheist.wordpress.com/
I always like to read the nominees every year before I listen to the podcast which are always excellent. I finally finished the nominees and here is my ranking:
1. Wire Mother- this story is so excellent I can’t believe Naomi Krutzer didn’t write it. It’s a completely believable future technology with a very interesting protagonist.
The scene where her friend attempts to rape the girl because the AI near-sentients say no when they don’t mean it was really impressively written. There’s a Ted Chiang story Life Cycle of Software Objects that this reminded me of
Moreover they really nailed the ending – which is in contrast to some of the other nominees in this group- I didn’t see it coming, this story is a masterpiece. The author of Why Don’t We kill the kid in the Omelas Hole is 2 for 2 in my book and should have two Hugos.
2. Missing Helen- I really like this one too, a moving character study, I really related to Helen, growing up poor I never felt secure until I had saved close to 8 figures. I think the author overdid the Helen of Troy stuff but that’s a minor quibble. A distant second place for me.
3. 6 People to Revive you- this story was rivaling my top choices for a while, I found the protagonists interactions with the other characters to be fascinating and being rather self-absorbed myself I really related to them also.However I had two problems. 1. I needed to know what the procedure was she was going to have. Maybe the author would say they wanted to leave it up to our imagination but I think it’s more likely they just didn’t come up with an explanation. 2. I didn’t like the ‘learn to love yourself ending’ which I found sappy. Maybe it’s just me, I prefer downer endings like in Wire Mother.
4. Laser eyes- this started out to be a very intriguing story with a new twist on handicapped lives, but again I really was disappointed by the ending.
5. In my country – this was certainly unique and intriguing but just too metaphorical and too vague for me, it seemed like a writer’s exercise where the author had the point that he didn’t didn’t like explaining stories because it would ruin reader’s perceptions of what the stories were about. I also thought the son’s stories were kind of lame, after a while I just grew frustrated with not knowing what was going on in the society and for me it smacked of the Twilight Zone episode It’s a Good life where characters got wicked off to the cornfields.
6. 10 Visions of the future – this was slight for me, it just jumped around without developing the ideas, and as I read the I’m glad we’re in it together ending, I threw up my hands and said Give me a Break.
So now I can listen to the discussion and find out how wrong I am!
A great discussion as always, I wish you had done panels for the novellas and novelettes.
The only change I would make after listening to the pod would be switching 6 people and Missing Helen.
A great discussion as always, I wish you had done panels for the novellas and novelettes.
The only change I would make after listening to the pod would be switching 6 people and Missing Helen.
The actor Ivor is thinking I is Kirk Douglas.