Canadian Amal El-Mohtar & American Max Gladstone win Hugo Award for novella This Is How You Lose the Time War
CBC Books | | Posted: August 4, 2020 5:05 PM | Last Updated: August 4, 2020
Canadian science fiction writer Amal El-Mohtar won the Hugo Award for best novella alongside her American co-author Max Gladstone for their book This Is How You Lose the Time War.
The Hugo Awards are an annual event celebrating science fiction and fantasy writing from around the world. They are considered to be one of the biggest honours for science fiction writing in the world.
The winners were announced online on July 30 as part of CoNZealand, the 78th World Science Fiction Convention.
This Is How You Lose the Time War is about two time-travelling agents from warring factions who begin a clandestine correspondence. They're each determined to make sure their side has the best hope for the future. But when they fall in love, their secret may have deadly consequences.
"The book is divided into letters, but also the situations in which letters are received. Max wrote all of one character and I wrote all of the other character. One of us would be writing the letter and, at the same time, the other person was writing the situation in which the letter was received," El-Mohtar told CBC Books in an interview in 2019. We would discuss the situation [beforehand], but the letter was a total surprise both to us."
American science fiction writer Arkady Martine won the best novel category for A Memory Called Empire.
A Memory Called Empire is set in an alternate universe, where a new ambassador arrives to the multi-system she is set to work for, only to discover her predecessor has died suddenly — it might not have been an accident. And the new ambassador might be next. She needs to figure out what is happening, and why, before her own life, and life in the system as they know it, is over.
American writer N.K. Jemisin won best novelette for Emergency Skin.
Jemisin is also the author of the Broken Earth trilogy. She won the Hugo Award for best novel three years in a row, in 2016, 2017, and 2018, for the three books in the trilogy: The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky.
You can see a full list of winners below.
- Best novel: A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
- Best novella:This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
- Best novelette: Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin
- Best short story: As the Last I May Know by S.L. Huang
- Best series: The Expanse by James S. A. Corey
- Best related work: 2019 John W. Campbell Award Acceptance Speech by Jeannette Ng
- Best graphic story or comic: LaGuardia, written by Nnedi Okorafor, art by Tana Ford, colours by James Devlin
- Best dramatic presentation, long form: Good Omens, written by Neil Gaiman, directed by Douglas Mackinnon
- Best dramatic presentation, short form: The Good Place episode The Answer, written by Daniel Schofield, directed by Valeria Migliassi Collins
- Best editor, short form: Ellen Datlow
- Best editor, long form: Navah Wolfe
- Best professional artist: John Picacio
- Best semiprozine: Uncanny Magazine
- Best fanzine: The Book Smugglers
- Best fancast: Our Opinions Are Correct
- Best fan writer: Bogi Takács
- Best fan artist: Elise Matthesen
Two awards which are not Hugo Awards, but are administered by the organization are the Lodestar Award for best young adult book and the Astounding Award for best new writer.
American writer Naomi Kritzer won the Lodestar Award for Catfishing on CatNet
Chinese American writer R.F. Kuang won the Astounding Award.