The Multiversal Reading Room

The 2025 Hugo, Lodestar, and Astounding Awards Winners are as follows

Best Novel: The Tainted Cup, Robert Jackson Bennett

Best Novella: The Tusks of Extinction, Ray Nayler

Best Novelette:"The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”, Naomi Kritzer

Best Short Story: “Stitched to Skin Like Family Is”, Nghi Vo

Best Series: Between Earth and Sky, Rebecca Roanhorse

Best Graphic Story or Comic: Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way, written by Ryan North, art by Chris Fenoglio

Best Related Work: Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right, Jordan S. Carroll

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Dune: Part Two, screenplay by Denis Villeneuve & Jon Spaihts, directed by Denis Villeneuve

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Star Trek: Lower Decks: “The New Next Generation”, created and written by Mike McMahan, based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry, directed by Megan Lloyd

Best Game or Interactive Work: Caves of Qud, co-creators Brian Bucklew & Jason Grinblat; contributors Nick DeCapua, Corey Frang, Craig Hamilton, Autumn McDonell, Bastia Rosen, Caelyn Sandel, Samuel Wilson (Freehold Games); sound design A Shell in the Pit

Best Editor, Short Form:Neil Clarke

Best Editor, Long Form: Diana M. Pho

Best Professional Artist: Alyssa Winans

Best Semiprozine: Uncanny, publishers and editors-in-chief Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas; managing editor Monte Lin; poetry editor Betsy Aoki, podcast producers Erika Ensign & Steven Schapansky

Best Fanzine: Black Nerd Problems, editors William Evans & Omar Holmon

Best Fancast: Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones, presented by Emily Tesh & Rebecca Fraimow

Best Fan Writer: Abigail Nussbaum

Best Fan Artist: Sara Felix

Best Poem: “A War of Words”, Marie Brennan

Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book: Sheine Lende, Darcie Little Badger

Astounding Award for Best New Writer: Moniquill Blackgoose

Jim Baen's version of a single perfect issue of Baen-era Galaxy.

Galaxy: The Best of My Years by Jim Baen

will feature an idealistic would-be knight, an idealistic but extremely cynical town watch member, a 600-year-old wood elf who has a little magic and is terrible keen on progress as it applies to firearms, and an artisan who adheres to most dwarven stereotypes but is in fact a short human.

The knight is the only one who can read, and the elf is their best medic, in the sense they have a 50% chance of binding wounds, rather than under 40%.

After one session:

The knight is a killing machine, with poor social graces in his current context. Well, that isn't quite true: he knows courtly manners. He just doesn't think they apply in the Empire and is very irritated that the peasants keep making eye contact.

The artisan is a relentless engine of effort, quite good at hitting things with a hammer but not so good at dodging. However, unlike the knight, he didn't stay in melee range to get bit.

The elf has almost supernatural reflexes and situational awareness and is a crack shot... but the dice were not on their side.

The town watchman is oddly crap in combat to the point they wanted to sell their sword for something where if they missed, at least they weren't next to whatever they missed. They are, however, keen-eyed and socially adept.

Amusingly enough, had the elf examined the adorable girl who accosted them, their tiny knack for magic would have revealed the revenant was somehow magical... but they were the one person who didn't side-eye the dead girl as she led them into an ambush.

In Women of Futures Past, Rusch quotes Willis:

"The field didn't just have women writers--it had really good women writers. These were wonderful stories, and I don't believe they were overlooked at the time, because when I read them, they were all in Year's Best collections."

Rusch speculates that Willis is referencing Merril's Best S-F. However, Rusch says she only did a spot check. I reread the whole of Merril's Best S-F in 2023. Her anthologies were mostly stories by men.

OK, so maybe it was one of the other Best SF series around back then? But I checked Bleiler and Dikty, Harrison & Aldiss, and Wollheim & Carr and it's not them.

Was there another 1950s-1960s Best SF series?

Or was Willis thinking of a magazine-specific annual like Analog 1?

Not literally Analog 1, obs. But something like it from another magazine.

My guess, having checked the early years, is Willis was reading The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction. Specifically, Boucher's run.

(Guess two would have been something edited by Goldsmith but she does not appear to have edited anthologies)

A zeppelin-full of digital graphic albums featuring Studio Foglio's Girl Genius, the "gaslamp fantasy" webcomic of adventure, romance, and mad science.

Bundle of Holding: Girl Genius (from 2020)



Even more Girl Genius, plus Buck Godot, Zap Gun for Hire.

Bundle of Holding: Girl Genius 2 (from 2023)

Bathed in unquenchable fire, Ruri struggles to maintain her grade point average.

RuriDragon, volume 6 by Masaoki Shindo

Ironsworn, Starforged, and Sundered Isles, tabletop roleplaying games of perilous fantasy, space opera, and seafaring adventure by Tomkin Press.

Bundle of Holding: Ironsworn-Starforged

The winners are:

Best Novel: The Siege of Burning Grass, Premee Mohamed, Solaris
Best YA Novel: Heavenly Tyrant, Xiran Jay Zhao, Tundra Books
Best Novelette/Novella: The Butcher of the Forest, Premee Mohamed, Tordotcom
Best Short Story: “Blood and Desert Dreams“, Y.M. Pang, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 408
Best Graphic Novel: Star Trek Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way, Ryan North, art by Chris Fenoglio, IDW Publishing
Best Poem/Song “Cthulhu on the Shores of Osaka“, Y.M. Pang, Invitation: A One-shot Anthology of Speculative Fiction
Best Related Work: Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Volume Two
Stephen Kotowych, editor, Ansible Press
Best Cover Art/Interior Illustration: Augur Magazine, Issue 7.1, cover art, Martine Nguyen
Best Fan Writing and Publication: SF&F Book Reviews, Robert Runté, Ottawa Review of Books
Best Fan Related Work: murmurstations, Sonia Urlando, Augur Society, podcast

A book I'm thinking of having play an important role in the campaign is Heinrich and Moritz Tod's Morally Uplifting Tales for the Edification of Recalcitrant Children, the Tods being the Old World analog of the Brothers Grimm. Uplifting Tales is an important cultural artifact and also the sort of book you'd read to kids at bed time if you wanted them to cry themselves to sleep.

Not every gamer finds joy in wildly complicated, esoteric, hard-to-learn rules...

Five User-Friendly Rulesets for Tabletop Roleplaying Games