Ranking the 2025 Hugo nominees plus 4 more of the best sci-fi and fantasy books of the year!

In addition to ranking the six nominees, we also talk about four more amazing books that deserve to be in contention for the best speculative fiction novels of the year.

• Join the Hugonauts book club on discord
• Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video

This episode is sponsored by Doppelgänger: An Orphan, A Prodigy, and a Murder by Chip Walter. A computer scientist awakens in a robotic body—next to his own murdered corpse, with only 72 hours to stop a conspiracy that threatens the human race. William Shatner calls it “quite a ride.” Learn more at chipwalter.com/

If you want to jump around, here are the timestamps for all the books we talked about: 

• 00:00 Intro
• 1:26 Episode Sponsor - Doppelgänger by Chip Walter
• 2:03 6 - A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
• 4:58 5 - The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
• 7:51 4 - Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell
• 9:12 3 - Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• 12:49 - Four more great books that deserved a nomination
• 22:36 2 - Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• 27:15 1 - The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett