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- Sinners was a scifi movie...? About vampires in the past...?! Wild. Ditto for Claire Oscura: Expedition 33, which I thought was high fantasy / steampunk at most.
*EDIT:* It appears I'm just being silly, and the Hugos include fantasy. Ironically, the biggest fantasy series of our time by far has won 3 times in Novella form and once in TV form, but never the novels!
by bbor - You're not the only one to be taken aback by that. Yes, the Hugos do fantasy, but I'm not sure I would have even thought to categorize Sinners as fantasy.
I mean, yes, it has vampires. Was From Dusk till Dawn fantasy?
But as a sister comment suggests, categorization is never easy, and probably just reinforced personal biases. (See Old Town Road being reminded from Billboard's country music list.)
by SamBam - What is the biggest fantasy series of our time?by ycombinete
- The difference between science fiction and fantasy was always only a tenuous distinction imposed by the few nerds who cared a little too much.
As we age out of being culturally relevant, and newer (likely less literate) generations take over the definitions will change, and perhaps should.
To me only hard science fiction will ever count, but I recognize that I'm in the minority there and also don't want to scare away the three remaining readers through gatekeeping.
- Disappointed to see I already read the Hugo winner for best novel - The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow.
It is a worthy winner in my opinion. Fantasy with a sci-fi element along with a story which takes some untangling. Five stars from me :-)
by nickcw - Drive-by recommendation, not having read The Everlasting yet: The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez.by js2
- Sinners was very cool but I'm surprised to find it as Hugo winner.by fsloth
- With the exception of that really cool scene in the middle, I found Sinners boring and forgettable.by glimshe
- Taking about scifi, if you guys haven't watched the tv show SILO yet, I'd highly recommend it. Everyone I've recommended it to so far has been thoroughly impressed.by busymom0
- One of the best adaptations of a series to TV, up there with The Expanse and the like. I read the books after season 1, and still enjoy the show very much. They've taken some adaptation liberties, but they're fully supported by Hugh Howey and they make a lot of sense.
- these look like the books you see on goodreads choice awards
for some reason, i find that very off putting
by mike_tyson - Clair Obscur is going to be game of the year every year for the next decade.by b473a
- Which is too bad, because Blue Prince is the better game. :)
I'm playing through Clair Obscur now. It's above average for aaa stuff. But there are way too many cut scenes, and dodge/parry mechanics continue to be tedious. And the story is fine, but isn't really grabbing me. Sigh.
Blue Prince, on the other hand, is quite probably the best puzzle game I have ever played. My partner and I worked on it for months, and have a 50+ page Google doc of notes.
by sdenton4 - Clair Obscur has great art (including music) but isn't a greater game underneath it. It's good but not exceptional. I can see the appeal for final fantasy fans, but I was underwhelmed.
Someone else mentions Blue Prince here. I think that's a much better game relatively speaking, even if not having Clair Obscur's exceptional art.
by glimshe - I'll eat my hat if we still talk about Clair Obscur in the next decade, like we might still be talking about Dark Souls (2011), for example, to this day.
It is a good game in an era where big name studios only care to invest in live-service games, and even indies are starting to rehash the same tropes over and over. It is not a ground-breaking cornerstone of the arts, just an isle of respite among the greed; any food tastes good when you're starving.
by sph - Just listened to The River Has Roots - very short and good adaptation IMHO, it has a bit of singing integral to plot and that is one thing I have trouble translating to the sounds in my head when reading paper books so it’s a big plus for me.by stevenwoo
- The one that caught me off guard was Old Man's War by John Scalzi as best series.
> The Hugo Award for Best Series is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published in or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The award is available for series of science fiction or fantasy stories consisting of at least 3 published works totaling at least 240,000 words, with at least one work released or translated into English during the previous calendar year. A losing finalist becomes eligible again with the publication of at least two new works totaling at least 240,000 words.
And now, checking on it... The Shattering Peace was released in September of 2025.
I guess I've got another item for my reading list (currently going through the classics of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser... I wonder if that will ever be eligible for a retro Hugo Award for series).
by shagie - Color me surprised. The first book was the only one I got through. Scalzi's characterizations in that one are singular, in that all of his characters think and talk like exactly the same snark-spewing geeky dude. Even the very few women.
I should look into the sequel, I'd be happy for him if he stretched himself after the first one.
by mpalmer - Holy crap, I haven't thought of Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser in well north of 50 years... thanks for the nostalgiagasm.by barries11
- Where do you find reasonably priced copies of those Fritz Lieber works? My library only has stuff that fits into short story collections and omnibuses. I fondly remember reading a couple of these obtained from Half Price Books way back when and never getting to the end of series due to demise of local used book stores.by stevenwoo
- Allow me to make a small recommendation for the "best related work": Ada Palmer's 'Inventing the Renaissance.'
It's a fantastic work of complex history, told with the tools of science fiction and fantasy writing. But it remains a high quality academic work: the tools are used to unravel the telling of a gay and complicated topic, but you still get the vastness.
If you like ACOUP, it should be right up your alley.
by sdenton4 - I was really put off by the Terra Ignota series. I struggled through it, but her writing really didn't gel with me. I've been resisting reading "Inventing the renaissance" because of that, though it does come highly recommended.
I found it very USian [0] - obsessed with religion (and the overt assumption that emperors are a good thing was unsettling). And I also found her position that all the best of human thought lay in the past (the greek classics and the renaissance specifically in this case) deeply at odds with my worldview.
[0] I have noticed that US writers tend to feature religion prominently in their writing (e.g. Brandon Sanderson, not that this stops me from enjoying his writing, which I do). I read a new writer and make a bet whether they're USian after a couple of chapters based on their attitude to religion, and I've been mostly right.