Locus Awards 2026: Complete list of winners

The 2026 Locus Awards have arrived, and this year’s winners underscore the remarkable vitality of speculative fiction across every category. The Locus Awards, which have served as the field’s most prestigious reader-voted honors since 1978, crowned an impressive slate of champions that reflects both the ambitions of established authors and the brilliant debuts reshaping the genre. Nnedi Okorafor’s Death of the Author claimed the Best Science Fiction Novel prize, cementing the award’s tradition of recognizing works that interrogate the very nature of storytelling, while Alix E. Harrow’s The Everlasting secured Best Fantasy Novel with a tale that clearly captivated the Locus readership.

What makes 2026’s Locus Awards particularly striking is the prominence given to debut and emerging talent. Natalia Theodoridou’s Sour Cherry, a first novel that earned her the Best First Novel award, joins a lineage of celebrated debuts that have used the Locus Awards as a launching pad for remarkable careers. Meanwhile, Yoon Ha Lee’s Starstrike won the Best Young Adult Book category, signaling how young adult science fiction and fantasy continues to push formal and thematic boundaries. Together, these winners paint a portrait of a genre simultaneously honoring its most accomplished voices and eagerly embracing the next generation of imaginative storytellers.

Below, discover the complete breakdown of this year’s most celebrated works across science fiction, fantasy, and beyond:

Best Fantasy Novel

• The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow

Best First Novel

• Sour Cherry by Natalia Theodoridou

Best Science Fiction Novel

• Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

Best Young Adult Book

• Starstrike by Yoon Ha Lee