Living Canon

Hugo Awards 2017: Complete list of winners

The 2017 Hugo Awards celebrated some of science fiction and fantasy’s most imaginative voices, with winners that reflected the genre’s growing diversity and willingness to experiment with form. N. K. Jemisin claimed the Best Novel award for The Obelisk Gate, the second book in her Broken Earth trilogy, continuing her groundbreaking exploration of systemic oppression through epic world-building. Meanwhile, Marjorie Liu’s Monstress, Volume 1: Awakening took Best Graphic Story, marking a significant moment for comics within the Hugo Awards and showcasing the visual storytelling possibilities that the category has come to celebrate.

The novelette and novella categories proved equally compelling that year. Ursula Vernon’s “The Tomato Thief” earned Best Novelette honors with its blend of quiet character work and speculative wonder, while Seanan McGuire’s Every Heart a Doorway claimed Best Novella with a haunting story about characters returning from magical worlds to an ordinary one. Rounding out the major categories, Amal El-Mohtar’s “Seasons of Glass and Iron” won Best Short Story, a tale that reimagines fairy tale tropes with lyrical prose and feminist themes.

These victories represented the Hugo Awards’ continued evolution as a democratic award voted on by convention members and supporting members worldwide. The winners demonstrated that the ceremony’s audience was drawn to narratives centering marginalized perspectives and experimental storytelling, even as the awards themselves remained at the center of fan engagement and industry recognition.

Best Graphic Story

Best Novel

Best Novelette

  • The Tomato Thief by Ursula Vernon

Best Novella

Best Short Story