Ranking the 2025 Hugo nominees plus 4 more of the best sci-fi and fantasy books of the year! — Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time

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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.

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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