Hugo Awards 2026: Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

This is a semiautobiographical science fiction novel: the main character is clearly based on Nnedi Okorafor herself. She is someone who doesn't normally write science fiction, but after she's fired from her job as a creative writing adjunct, she writes a science fiction novel that becomes a major bestseller and a movie... but then struggles to write a second novel or deal with what success might be. A lot of the novel focuses on her family dynamics. The main sf elements is that she also has a physical disability; after the success of her book, she obtains access to an advanced mobility device, a set of artificial legs she can essentially control with her mind.

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

Originally published: 2025
Acquired and read: April 2026

For the most part, it's fine. Nnedi Okorafor has never been a favorite of mine; I've largely given up on her work, as whatever she's doing just doesn't seem to work for me despite the widespread acclaim she gets. I liked the family dynamics. I've seen a lot of online complaints about those, but they rang totally true for me in all their messiness and complications. On the other hand, I thought the stuff about the main character's failure and success didn't always ring true. As someone who is an English professor myself... no one would ever fire an adjunct in the middle of the semester, no matter how many students complained about them! Getting someone to take over a class mid-semester is a huge pain; the only thing you would ever fire an adjunct for is sexual misconduct or just not showing up! On the flip side, do successful authors really get mobbed everywhere? They're not movie stars. (A lot of this felt like wish fulfillment, to be honest.)

What sank the book for me, though, are the excerpts from the main character's supposedly bestselling, highly acclaimed novel, Rusted Robots. I hated these. It takes a lot of confidence and skill to include a novel-within-a-novel and claim it's highly regarded... and while Okorafor might have the confidence, I didn't think she had the skill. The excerpts  were twee and obnoxious and I refuse to believe anything like this would ever become a bestselling highly regarded book. The whole book depends on you believing this! Unfortunately, in a world where Becky Chambers's Monk and Robot is apparently popular, perhaps it is plausible, but to be honest, I refuse to believe we live in that world either.

Hugo Awards 2026: The Space Cat by Nnedi Okorafor and Tana Ford

The Space Cat

Published: 2025
Acquired: April 2026
Read: May 2026

Written by Nnedi Okorafor
Art by Tana Ford

This is the first finalist I've read thus far for the 2026 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story or Comic. Though it is intended to recognize the best sf&f comic of the previous year, I often find this category pretty idiosyncratic: while I think categories like Best Novel do a fairly good job of scooping up the wider sf&f community's preferred novels, even when I personally don't enjoy them, the Hugo electorate consumes a very odd and specific subset of comic books. It very clearly prioritizes comics work by people who have previously won Hugo Awards for prose fiction. Case in point: Nnedi Okorafor, who won Best Novella for Binti in 2016 and the Lodestar Award for Akata Warrior in 2018, and has subsequently been a finalist for some very mediocre work like Black Panther: Long Live the King in 2019.

The Space Cat is definitely better than Long Live the King, but I'm doubtful this children's graphic novel would ever have appeared on someone's list of the best sf&f comics of 2025 otherwise. It's science fiction, but based on Okorafor's real life: the main character is Okorafor's actual cat, Periwinkle, and both Okorafor and her daughter appear in the comic. But in the comic, Periwinkle is from space and regularly returns to space on various adventures; when the family goes to Nigeria on a work trip, Periwinkle must help the local animals band together against an alien invasion that no one else has noticed.

Space Cat no talk good!

It's not great but I did enjoy Space Cat. This is the fourth comic illustrated by Tana Ford that I've read (two of the others were also written by Okorafor; she also illustrated an issue of the Star Trek ongoing Boldly Go that I haven't gotten around to reviewing yet), but this is the best of them; she does a great job capturing the animals. Her Periwinkle is lively and expressive and has a strong sense of character. The story is simple but cute (if a bit padded, even at its short 150ish pages), though I didn't care for the pidgin dialogue style Okorafor gives the animals. The insight into Nigerian culture is interesting—I had no idea cats were seen as cursed! I thought the way the things cats do (e.g., attack your new houseplant) are reinterpreted as purposeful actions humans don't understand.

Maybe this is why our cat eats
our plants while we're sleeping!

So far Space Cat is the only Best Graphic Story finalist I've read, but I'd be surprised if it ends up at the top of my ballot. However, I'd also be quite surprised if it ended up at the bottom; usually there's something genuinely dreadful to be found on it. But I did loan it to my seven-year-old, who immediately asked when the sequel was coming out, so clearly a hit with the target audience. 

Shuri: A Friend in Need and Other Stories by Nnedi Okorafor, Rachael Stott, et al.

The second half of the Shuri series continues the story of what Shuri is up to on Earth, acting as Black Panther while T'Challa is missing in space. First there's a two-issue fill-in by Vita Ayala and Paul Davidson about Shuri going to New York City tracking down black holes, where she ends up working alongside the Miles Morales Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel. I was a little skeptical of this going in, to be honest, but I ended up enjoying it a fair amount. Ayala (mostly) has a good command of Ms. Marvel, and the story does some interesting, nuanced things that stop it from being just another generic superhero punch-up. (I did find it weird that Kamala said she was a science person, though.)

from Shuri #9

The last three issues bring back series writer Nnedi Okorafor, alongside a new artist, Rachael Stott, to wrap up the series's various ongoing threads. Stott was one of the regular artists on Titan's Doctor Who work, where she did great stuff particularly on their twelfth Doctor series, and I was glad to see her making the jump to one of the "Big Two" publishers here.

I did think that the three issues here struggled a bit to get everything together; in particular, Shuri's friendship with the mysterious anonymous hacker Muti ultimately seems pretty underdeveloped. Yes, Muti plays a role in wrapping up the ongoing crisis with the music-loving black-hole-generating space bug that threatens to eat Wakanda's memories, but I felt like there was more to do here in terms of characterization with the idea that Shuri's only real friend was someone she never saw or met! In the end, it feels like Okorafor bit off slightly more ideas than than she could chew in a ten-issue miniseries; Wakanda's growing connection to other African nations is just a random bit of flavor rather than something dealt with substantively.

from Shuri #7

It does have some good touches; I liked the inclusion of a made-up piece of Wakandan dance music, and I was pleasantly surprised that the story ended with Shuri still having access to the powers of ancient Wakanda memory, since I figured the point of the series was to remove them to more closely align the comics version of the character with the film version.

So ultimately I found the first half of this series stronger than the second... but it is definitely the best showing from Okorafor on a Black Panther-adjacent comic and, other than Rise of the Black Panther, probably the best Black Panther comic of the whole "Coates era."

Issues #6-10 of Shuri originally appeared from May to September 2019. The stories were written by Vita Ayala (#6-7) and Nnedi Okorafor (#8-10), illustrated by Paul Davidson (#6-7) and Rachael Stott (#8-10), colored by Triona Farrell (#6-7) and Carlos Lopez (#8-10), lettered by Joe Sabino, and edited by Wil Moss.

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE 

Shuri: "Gone" and Other Stories by Nnedi Okorafor and Leonardo Romero

In parallel to Ta-Nehisi Coates and Daniel Acuña's story about T'Challa in space, Marvel released a series about what Shuri was doing back on Earth, written by Nnedi Okorafor with art by Leonardo Romero. I think Shuri is the first time there were multiple Black Panther–themed ongoings even if it only lasted ten issues; here, I am going to cover the first five because there's a natural break point at the end.

I haven't been very into Nnedi Okorafor's previous Black Panther comics (Long Live the King and Wakanda Forever), but I found this worked a lot better for me—perhaps because it's about a young woman trying to find her place in the world, and much of Okorafor's prose work is YA. The story (surprisingly to me) provides a little more context for what's been going on in The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda, as it opens with T'Challa and Manifold (now Shuri's boyfriend) going on a space mission through a wormhole in a ship of Shuri's design... and not returning. 

from Shuri #1

Shuri has to step up as the handler of crises in Wakanda, while she tries to keep her brother's disappearance secret, and deal with her insecurities about replacing T'Challa. Last time she was Black Panther, after all, she died. Also, the powers she got during Coates's first run are on the blink, meaning she needs to rely more on her gadgets. This is pretty clearly to align the comics character with her film counterpart, but I don't mind, as I never really got what Coates was going for with the new Shuri anyway!

Anyway, I enjoyed this. It's not great comics, but it made for a solid five days of reading. Okorafor has a lot of moving parts, which is nice; her previous two stories were probably too straightforward. There's Shuri's adventures, of course, but also her mother's creation of a group of woman to advise her, T'Challa's secret creation of a pan-African council, Shuri's loss of her powers, her online-only relationship with a mysterious hacker from one of Wakanda's "mute zones." There are lots of idea being thrown about, and they overlap and interact in interesting ways.

from Shuri #1

I particularly liked the illustrations by Leonardo Romero, which are well-matched by the coloring from Jordie Bellaire. I apparently previously encountered Romero's work as an illustrator on Titan's Doctor Who comics featuring the tenth and eleventh Doctors; I don't really remember it, but I did once write, "Something about Leonardo Romero's art turned me off; not enough expression in it, I think. Looks like he drew it with a computer. (I mean, I know probably everyone here drew with a computer-- but I don't like it when the inking is all the same thickness.)" Well, maybe he got better in the two years between The Endless Song and this, or maybe he just vibed better with this series, because overall, I enjoyed his style here. It reminds me of the work of Javier Pulido: on the cartoony end, but with solidity. Bellaire compliments it with flat colors instead of shading, which to be honest, I tend to like better! Sometimes I think Romero struggles with clarity in action, but overall, I think his approach really makes this book pop.

Oh, and in perhaps a first for the Coates era... not a single fill-in on art! Not even an ink assist. 

from Shuri #3

The best issue of the five here is the third. At the end of the second, Shuri attempts to astral project herself into space to find out what happened to her brother. The cliffhanger ending is that instead of returning to her own body, she finds herself in that of Groot from The Guardians of the Galaxy: "I am Shuri!" In the third, she must work together with Rocket Raccoon to battle an alien insect; Rocket can understand all of her "I am Shuri" just as well as he usually does "I am Groot." It's fun and funny. (Though it did stretch credulity for me that Rocket Raccoon would somehow know who Shuri is.) I think if the series can keep this up (like a lot of series about mid-tier character, there are a lot of guest characters: Iron Man in #5, and the teaser for #6 promises Miles Morales), it will be solid, and perhaps one of the best contributions yet in the Coates era.

Issues #1-5 of Shuri originally appeared from December 2018 to April 2019. The stories were written by Nnedi Okorafor, illustrated by Leonardo Romero, colored by Jordie Bellaire, lettered by Joe Sabino, and edited by Wil Moss.

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE 

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever by Nnedi Okorafor, Alberto Alburquerque, et al.

Today, I'm reviewing two comics that both feature elements of Black Panther crossing over with the wider Marvel universe. The first is an issue of Marvel Super Hero Adventures where Spider-Man meets Black Panther, "Spider-Man and the Stolen Vibranium." This is a kid-focused comic that begins with a frame: here a regular-looking Spider-Man captures a diamond thief, who Spider-Man tells the story to, which is rendered in a less naturalistic style.

from Marvel Super Hero Adventures:
Spider-Man and the Stolen Vibranium #1

In this story, the Black Panther—who doesn't seem to have met Spider-Man before—whisks Spider-Man away to Wakanda to obtain his help when Doctor Octopus invades the country seeking vibranium to incorporate into his technology. It's pretty simple stuff; Black Panther originally wants a divide-and-conquer approach, but Spider-Man points out that each brings their own knowledge to the table—Spider-Man knows how the Octobots work, Black Panther understands vibranium—and thus they need to work together. It's perfectly fine. 

Probably the high point was when my four-year-old, who's currently obsessed with Spidey and His Amazing Friends on Disney Plus, saw me reading it, and I explained what was going on to him. Black Panther is a recurring character on that show, but Kid Two didn't know that he was a king and was pretty excited to learn this.

from Avengers: Wakanda Forever #1

Similarly, the next storyline, Wakanda Forever, begins with Spider-Man. Wakanda Forever is a three-part storyline focusing on the Dora Milaje, who need to chase down one of their own, Malice, who went bad during Priest's run and who popped up in New York City in Black Panther Annual #1. In the first issue, Spider-Man helps the Dora Milaje deal with Malice and recovering some Wakandan technology from the Titanic; in the second, the Dora Milaje team up with the X-Man when Malice attacks Storm at a grocery story; and in the third, some of the Avengers turn up to a big battle with Malice in New York City.

I felt like this series was a big missed opportunity. The Dora Milaje—in the comics anyway—are a fascinating institution. In theory, they're all potential wives for T'Challa, but he chose to have them trained as warriors to serve him. But even still, they were not allowed to talk to people other than him. The whole reason Malice went bad is that she loved T'Challa but would never actually be allowed to marry him. But by the present day of the comic, the Dora Milaje are very different; they have the freedom to speak to anyone, and even be involved in romantic relationships. How might someone who devoted her life to a set of strictures that were ultimately lifted feel about that? How do the new-era Dora Milaje feel about this woman who came up through a much different system than them?

from X-Men: Wakanda Forever #1

None of this is explored; Malice is a pretty generic villain who went bad for pretty vague reasons in this story. What's gained and lost as traditions are modernized is something the story doesn't do anything with. We don't really learn anything about the three main Dora Milaje here, Okoye, Aneka, and Ayo, who may as well be anybody for all they demonstrate in terms of distinctive personalities.

The first chapter and some of the second are illustrated by Alberto Alburquerque, who does reasonably good work, as does Ray Anthony-Height, also on the second. But I thought Oleg Okuney's work on chapter 3 was pretty ugly.

Marvel Super Hero Adventures: Spider-Man and the Stolen Vibranium originally appeared in one issue (June 2018). The story was written by Jim McCann, illustrated by Dario Brizuela, lettered by Joe Caramagna, and edited by Sarah Brunstad. It was reprinted in Marvel Super Hero Adventures: To Wakanda and Beyond (2018), which was edited by Jennifer Grünwald.

Wakanda Forever originally appeared in Amazing Spider-Man: Wakanda Forever #1, X-Men: Wakanda Forever #1, and Avengers: Wakanda Forever #1 (Aug.-Oct. 2018). The story was written by Nnedi Okorafor; penciled by Alberto Alburquerque (chapters 1-2), Ray Anthony-Height (2), and Oleg Okunev (3); inked by Anthony-Height (chapter 2), Alburquerque (1-2), Juan Vlasco (2), Keith Champagne (2), and Oleg Okunev (3); colored by Erick Arciniega; lettered by Joe Sabino; and edited by Wil Moss.

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

Black Panther: Long Live the King by Nnedi Okorafor, André Lima Araújo, et al.

Long Live the King is another miniseries that ran alongside Ta-Nehisi Coates's main Black Panther ongoing; similar to World of Wakanda, it tells smaller stories, though T'Challa is the protagonist in most of these, unlike the ones in World. I had actually read it before, as it was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story back in 2019.

from Black Panther: Long Live the King #2

There are three stories here; the first, by Nnedi Okorafor and André Lima Araújo, appears in issues #1, 2, and, oddly, 5, and is about T'Challa investigating a monster that's causing earthquakes in Wakanda. It didn't really hang together for me; everyone acts like T'Challa is crazy when he says he can see a monster but no one else can. Like, c'mon, you guys live in the Marvel universe, stuff like this happens all the time! The story tries to explore a subgroups of Wakandans who live without technology, but doesn't really go anywhere interesting with that, and I found making a new character an old childhood friend of T'Challa was not actually an effective way to get me to care. I also don't care for how recent Black Panther comics have watered down Christopher Priest's Hatute Zeraze from feared Wakandan secret police to generic guards. (I feel like the rough edges of his conception of Wakanda are being sanded off.) I often find Okorador's dialogue stilted in her novels, and that's true of her comics as well. Araújo's artwork is technically competent but rarely interesting to look at.

from Black Panther: Long Live the King #3

The second story, by Aaron Covington and Mario Del Pennino, appears in issues #3-4. I just reread my notes on it and I still don't remember what it's about, except it once again depends on a previously unmentioned childhood friend of T'Challa's to generate drama, so... 

The last story, by Nnedi Okorafor and Tana Ford, I remember confused me when I read it originally because it takes place in an alternate universe, but the trade paperback it was collected in completely failed to mention that. Thankfully, reading in single issues, you get an explanatory text page that does give some context for why the Black Panther is suddenly a wheelchair-using Nigerian woman bonded to the Venom symbiote... but not why anyone might think this worth telling stories about. 

Back when I read these for the Hugos, I ranked them below No Award. I stand by that. This is generic superhero stuff, not the best of the genre or the character. Presumably churned out to make sure there was lots of Black Panther content on the shelves when the film was released.

from Black Panther: The Sound and the Fury #1

That's probably also true of Black Panther: The Sound and the Fury, a one-shot about T'Challa battling Klaw. It's written by Ralph Macchio, who previously wrote Black Panther way back in 1982... and if you told me this was an inventory script hanging out in his drawer since 1982, I would believe you. Macchio was a prolific comics writer back in the 1980s, and his style doesn't seem to have moved on since then. Overly wordy, very simple characterization. Actually, that's not fair to the actual comics of the 1980s, which were usually better than this. If this was a new story put out to tie into the film, I'm not sure what anyone involved was thinking.

Black Panther: Long Live the King originally appeared in six issues (Feb.-Apr. 2018). The stories were written by Nnedi Okorafor (#1-2, 5-6) and Aaron Covington (#3-4); illustrated by André Lima Araújo (#1-2, 5), Mario Del Pennino (#3-4), and Tana Ford (#6); inked by Terry Pallot & Scott Hanna (#6); colored by Chris O'Halloran (#1-5) and Ian Herring & Irma Kniivila (#6); lettered by Richard Starkings (#4) and Jimmy Betancourt (#1-6); and edited by Devin Lewis.

"The Sound and the Fury!" originally appeared in issue #1 of Black Panther: The Sound and the Fury (Apr. 2018). The story was written by Ralph Macchio, illustrated by Andrea Di Vito, colored by Laura Villari, lettered by Travis Lanham, and edited by Mark Basso.

ACCESS AN INDEX OF ALL POSTS IN THIS SERIES HERE

Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor

The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu

My wife was into Nnedi Okorafor before, as the hipsters say, she was cool, and thus she owns a first printing of the first edition of The Shadow Speaker, one of her earliest novels, from 2007. (It's about to be rereleased along with a sequel.) I borrowed it from her earlier this year and gave it a read.

Published: 2007
Read: February 2024

I think I am coming to realize that Okorafor just doesn't work for me as much as I want her to. I have read the three Binti books, the three Akata books, some of her comics, and just none of it clicks. (Except for the second Akata book, which I liked.) Most of her books are ambling, with character just kind of moving from place to place without any kind of clear throughline from an emotional or plot standpoint. This is more of that. It clearly works for lots of people, but I think this might be it for me and Okorafor.

Hugos 2023: Akata Woman by Nnedi Okorafor

Akata Woman by Nnedi Okorafor

Originally published: 2022
Read: July 2023

Akata Woman is the third book in Nnedi Okorafor's "Nsibidi Scripts" YA fantasy series, and the second to be a finalist for the Hugo-adjacent Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book (in fact, the second book won the first award). I thought the first book was just okay, but found the second much more enjoyable.

Unfortunately, I thought this was back to the level of the first one. The cast of characters, protagonist Sunny aside, seemed largely interchangeable to me, and the plot never really took off. Basically, Sunny and her friends go to a place, it gets described, then they go to a different place, repeat until suddenly the book comes to an end. An okay travelogue, but it did little for me.

Hugos 2020: LaGuardia by Nnedi Okorafor and Tana Ford

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2019 (contents: 2018-19)
Borrowed from my wife 
Read May 2020

LaGuardia: A Very Modern Story of Immigration

​

Writer: Nnedi Okorafor

Artist: Tana Ford
Colorist: James Devlin
Letterer: Sal Cipriano

I moderately enjoyed this, which places it in the upper tier of Okorafor books I've read. It's an obvious riff on Trump-era immigration politics, where it's aliens who have trouble immigrating into a xenophobic United States. I think a good sfnal take on a contemporary issue will make you think about it in a new way; this, however, didn't really make me realize anything that I didn't already know. It's fun, but ultimately shallow. I felt it suffered because the character work seemed very rush-- key emotional truths about the characters are just kind of tossed off, and as a result, the ending doesn't land with the punch that it wants to. I had sort of a mixed reaction to Tana Ford's art, which I realized when I read the backmatter might be down to the inking (which she does herself) and/or the coloring (by James Devlin). I found her pencils more expressive and organic.

My 2019 Hugo Awards Ballot: Visual Categories

These are my ballots for Dublin 2019: An Irish Worldcon, with commentary, in the two Hugo categories for "Dramatic Presentations" and the "Best Graphic Story" category (i.e., comic books). I'll start with the story I ranked the lowest and move upwards. Links are to longer reviews when I have written such a thing, or where the story is freely and legally available on the Internet.

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)

6. Avengers: Infinity War, written by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeeley, directed by Anthony Russo & Joe Russo

Going into this film, I was convinced it was going to be terrible and there was no way they were going to pull it off. That they did pull it off is a testament to the skill of everyone involved, but I still don't think it's particularly great. Parts of it are clever and exceptional, but parts of it are bloated with spectacle. Characters have to make dumb choices a little too often to make the story work.

5. A Quiet Place, screenplay by Bryan Woods & Scott Beck and John Krasinski, directed by John Krasinski

A postapocalyptic horror thriller where people must make as little sound as possible: this was intense and well constructed. I think probably it was a better film than Sorry to Bother You or Black Panther. That I don't want to rank it higher than them reveals, I think, how voting in the Hugos is not just about quality, but about the best in a genre. It might be a better film than Sorry to Bother You but I don't think it's a better sf/f film. I told this to Hayley and she objected it was totally an sf premise, and she's right... but the movie isn't interested in doing sf things with that premise, it's interested in doing horror things. (I thought there were some pretty implausible parts of the premise, actually.) Those aren't mutually exclusive, of course, but the film definitely emphasize scares over, say, worldbuilding, and it's hard for me to point at A Quiet Place and say it's the best that sf on film has to offer even if it is very good.

4. Sorry to Bother You, written and directed by Boots Riley

If this whole film had been like its first two thirds, this would be hovering a little higher, probably just below Annihilation. It starts out a funny, dark comedy about a black guy trying to make it as telemarketer; once he learns how to adopt a "white voice" he's suddenly the superstar, right as his telemarketing workplace is unionizing. The scenes especially where he is initiated as a "power caller" are amazing. But if it had all been like its first two thirds, it wouldn't have been sfnal, not really, even if it does seem to take place about five minutes into the future. The last third gets strange, partially in ways that I liked, and that continue the satire of the beginning, but partially in ways that kind of make it feel like the film is floundering and doesn't know how to resolve. Great acting, great music, great visual gimmicks. Definitely more ambitious than Black Panther, but not as consistent in realizing its ambitions.

3. Black Panther, written by Ryan Coogler & Joe Robert Cole, directed by Ryan Coogler

I admired this film more than I loved it. Great cast, good worldbuilding, but ultimately it's a Marvel superhero film by the numbers. Which is an achievement in its own way, but I felt that like many Marvel movies, it tries to raise issues of complexity without dealing with their complexity. No one in Wakanda actually seems tempted by Killmonger's plan, which makes it all a little too easy for Black Panther to win everybody back; he himself doesn't feel like he quite goes low enough to ultimately be reborn.

2. Annihilation, written and directed by Alex Garland

This film was really captivating, making you feel strange and tense. Like Arrival on the 2017 ballot, this seems like the kind of thing the Hugos should be rewarding. Great music, great direction, one of Natalie Portman's greatest performances, astounding visuals, great sfnal ideas. I like stories that point at how big the universe is, and how unfriendly it is, and this definitely does that. Every time you think you have the lay of the land, the movie changes tack, up to the strangely beautiful ending. I feel sad this had to come out the same year as Into the Spider-Verse, as I would have ranked it #1 on, say, 2018's ballot.

1. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; screenplay by Phil Lord & Rodney Rothman; directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, & Rodney Rothman

I expected that I would like this; I did not expect that I would rank it so high. Funny, moving, clever, dramatic, it plays with superhero spectacle and interpersonal drama with equal astuteness, knowing how to mix them. Definitely the best Spider-Man film since Spider-Man 2; probably the best Spider-Man film of them all. If every superhero film was this good, the saturation of the genre would be worth it. Some Marvel movies feel manufactured (I enjoyed Captain Marvel, for example, but it's very Marvelly), but this one feels real. Plus it's just gorgeous, using the animation medium to its utmost, especially during the final battle. And the jokes. Oh the jokes! Honestly this is better than a Spider-Man cartoon movie had any right to be.

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)

6. The Good Place, Chapter 31: "Jeremy Bearimy," written by Megan Amram, directed by Trent O'Donnell

Sometimes you can drop into a serialized show and figure out why you should care, and you do care. Sometimes you drop into a serialized show, however, and bunch of characters who were dead last time you saw them now live in Australia, and you spend the whole episode wondering what's going on. Lots of people go around doing things I didn't care about; the title of the episode comes from a joke I thought was vaguely amusing, but has nothing to do with anything.

5. Doctor Who 11x03: "Rosa," written by Malorie Blackman & Chris Chibnall, directed by Mark Tonderai

This episode-- Doctor Who Discovers Rosa Parks-- had its good and even great moments, but didn't come together. Like too many episodes of series 11, there are weird jumps in the story, bits that seem important but ultimately fizzle out. The Doctor feels curiously impotent, and there are spots where that's a feature, but too often it's a bug. I'm not surprised this was a finalist, though; it feels like the Doctor Who equivalent of Oscar-bait. (I nominated "It Takes You Away" personally, but I'm not surprised that didn't make the finalists list.)

4. The Expanse 3x13: "Abbadon's Gate," written by Daniel Abraham & Ty Franck and Naren Shankar, directed by Simon Cellan Jones

I was an avid viewer of The Expanse, but not long after I started watching season 3, I got busy somehow and fell away after just one episode, so I had to skip over eleven episodes to watch this and vote! But I figured it would be okay because between then and now, I'd read the book this season was based on. It kind of was. There are a number of characters in the show who are not in this particular book, and as a season finale of a serialized show, its pay-offs are mostly action/plot, and not emotional, which was the strength of book three. Plus, some aspects seemed overly compressed, especially the fall-out after the climax (book one got fifteen episodes, but book three only seven!). I enjoyed it fine, and could imagine myself enjoying it more if I rewatched it in context, though, and there were no glaring incompetencies as there sometimes were in "Rosa," so I gave it the edge.

3. The Good Place, Chapter 36: "Janet(s)," written by Josh Siegal & Dylan Morgan, directed by Morgan Sackett

This is the best episode of The Good Place of the four I've seen. I laughed at multiple jokes (I think for the first time), and it has an inventive premise: because the four main human characters have all been hidden inside the artificial construct Janet, the actress who plays Janet must play all four of them. (Most of the regular cast is barely in the episode.) She completely nails it, capturing their mannerisms and ways of speaking (without doing impressions) so well you kind of forget they're not being played by their normal actors. All that, plus a genuinely fun visit by Janet and Michael to Accounting, where the morality points people earn during their lives are reckoned. This is the first Good Place ep I've seen to actually make me want to watch the show. Thus, I could imagine myself wanting to rewatch it in a way that's not true of "Rosa," so I ranked it higher.

2. Doctor Who 11x06: "Demons of the Punjab," written by Vinay Patel, directed by Jamie Childs

I enjoyed this more than "Rosa": it's another "worthy" Doctor Who episode, this one is Doctor Who Discovers the Partition of India. It has nice human moments, and its lack of a real villain saves it from some of the problems that plagued a lot of other series 11 episodes. The thirteenth Doctor is at her best when being empathetic and enthusiastic, and this one did a great job with that.

1. Dirty Computer: An Emotion Picture by Janelle Monáe, directed by Andrew Donoho & Chuck Lightning, written by Chuck Lightning

I actually nominated this; it's a series of music videos from a concept album packaged into an overall narrative. Set in a dystopian future, Jane 57821 is captured by the government for being "dirty" (i.e., noncompliant), and we see her memories as they are "cleansed." It's visually amazing and inventive, and resonates with the contemporary moment metaphorically. It's unlike anything else on this shortlist, or unlike anything else I can remember, and that seems like the kind of thing worth awarding. (Incidentally, fact fans, this is one of three Dramatic Presentation finalists this year to star Tessa Thompson. She plays a very different character each time!)

Best Graphic Story

7. Monstress: Haven, script by Marjorie M. Liu, art by Sana Takeda

I liked the first volume of this series a lot, but with each successive volume, I enjoy it less. I'm happy other people are into it, and it seems a worthy finalist (and of course it's won the last two years), but it's hard for me to rank it remotely high.

6. Black Panther: Long Live the King; scripts by Nnedi Okorafor & Aaron Covington; art by André Lima Araújo, Mario Del Pennino, and Tana Ford, Terry Pallot, & Scott Hanna

Three standalone stories in the world of Black Panther: a three-issue one where he investigates the cause of an earthquake/blackout and runs into an old childhood friend, a two-issue one where he seeks out the leader of a dangerous cult and runs into an old childhood friend, and and one-issue one about a Venomized Black Panther who chases down robbers and runs into an old childhood friend. Apparently there is only one way to generate character drama. The first two stories are okay but unremarkable superhero adventures. Good concepts, but largely nothing is done with them except for fight sequences, and the art looks good but struggles to communicate action. The third I had to stop reading halfway through because I didn't understand where an interim Black Panther who was a wheelchair-using Nigerian girl carrying the Venom symbiote fit into things; I googled and discovered the whole story takes place in an alternate universe, which the comic book collection itself completely fails to mention. Anyway, last story aside, I understood what was happening so I ranked it above Monstress.

5. No Award

I don't feel like the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story is for merely competent superhero comics (even within the superhero genre, there is definitely better than Black Panther), so this seems like the kind of circumstance in which one ought to deploy No Award.

4. Abbott, script by Saldin Ahmed, art by Sami Kivelä

This was a fun comic book: a black journalist in Detroit in 1972 discovers that dark occult forces are at work, and only she can put the pieces together to stop them. It was fun, but not great, I think because honestly the supernatural stuff feels like a distraction because it's all kind of generic. I'd rather be reading a comic about a hard-nosed bisexual reporter investigating police corruption in Detroit, which seems much more unique than a comic about a woman encountering dark supernatural forces. Though of course then it couldn't be a Hugo finalist. Anyway, great art, strong dialogue and sense of character. Ahmed is clearly a rising star in comics.

3. Paper Girls 4, script by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Cliff Chiang

I felt this volume of Paper Girls was weaker than the volumes of Paper Girls on either side of it, but a weak volume of Paper Girls is still a comic book worth awarding. Vaughan and Chiang consistently do some of their best work here, month in, month out.

2. Saga, Volume 9, art by Fiona Staples, script by Brian K. Vaughan

Saga is always quality, and though I found aspects of volume 8 on the weaker side, volume 9 bounced back nicely, with some good character and thematic resolution. For me, Saga is slightly better than Paper Girls-- I think Vaughan has more to say in Saga-- so an above-average Saga wins out over a below-average Paper Girls even though they're both great comics.

1. On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden 

Even though I really like both Paper Girls and Saga, I can't say I was excited to have them ranked up top. I feel like awards, especially genre awards, need to recognize works that are pushing forward. But Saga already won in 2013 for volume 1, and was a finalist in 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2018, while Paper Girls hasn't won yet but was a finalist in 2017 and 2018 already. All of my lower ranked placings also feel kind of recycled (Monstress already won in 2017 and 2018, even). But On a Sunbeam, which I read last, delighted and moved me. Walden takes the boarding-school story and the group-of-disparate-people-have-to-work-as-a-team-in-space story and makes something new in putting them together. Add a beautiful romance and even more beautiful art, and you have something quite amazing, something that even though it has many familiar elements, feels utterly unlike anything else I've read (except for maybe Moto Hagio). Great stuff, and quite obviously the most deserving of the award by far.

Overall Thoughts

Long-Form Dramatic Presentation was probably the strongest of these three categories, where I'd be reasonably happy if anything in my top five won. I appreciate how the Hugos always cause me to seek out a few non-franchise films I might not have gotten around to in a long time, if ever, otherwise. I don't think the eventual winner is as clear-cut as in some other years: Annihilation is my guess, but on the other hand, I feel like everyone who sees Into the Spider-Verse is taken by it. Short Form was kind of a muddle, but then it always is; even the stronger stuff here didn't blow me away. My guess is that the inexplicable and inscrutable love of the Hugo electorate for The Good Place causes "Janet(s)" to win. I really wish there was a more diverse pool of tv finalists, though; we supposedly live in the Golden Age of it after all!

Similarly, I wish Graphic Story was more diverse; as my comments on On a Sunbeam point to, there's been a lot of repetition in this category in just the three years I've been voting. I kind of have a feeling Monstress will threepeat, but I have no idea why people keep voting for it. I guess at least Schlock Mercenary no longer makes the ballot.

Review: Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor

Trade paperback, 208 pages
Published 2018
Borrowed from my wife
Read November 2018

Binti: The Night Masquerade
by Nnedi Okorafor

The first two Binti books didn't do a ton for me, but there seemed little reason not to read the third given it's only 200 pages and my wife already owned it. I actually think this was my least favorite Binti book yet, with the most muddled emotional throughline, an overly meandering plot, and too much happenstance. If you described these books to me, I would anticipate loving them, but for whatever reason, they just failed to grab me. Learning to appreciate diversity both in the world and in the self at space school seems like a great premise, but the books never adequately sell their protagonist. I do think it was a mistake to not have a book about Binti actually at space school; her return to school here rings hollow because we've never actually seen her there! There should have been a story between Binti and Home, and then Home and The Night Masquerade should have been a single, more focused book.

Hugos 2018: Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor

Hardcover, 477 pages
Published 2017
Borrowed from my wife
Read June 2018

Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor

I found Akata Warrior more enjoyable and better put together than Akata Witch. Whereas Akata Witch felt like a series of incidents loosely strung together with a climax tacked on, Akata Warrior had drive and focus: incidents led to each other in a pretty clear and straightforward way. Sunny needs to help her brother, which leads to a punishment, which leads to a vision, and so on. I also think her character had a more clear throughline as well, in terms of (much like in the Binti books) finding her place in a society she doesn't quite fit into thanks to both time spent away from it and physical uniqueness and special abilities.

There's a lot of nice moments and good character touches here. I liked the expanded focus on Sunny's relationships with her family (who felt very one-dimensional in Akata Witch), especially her brother, who runs afoul of confraternity at university and ends up being partially initiated into the world of the magical Leopard People as a result. I also enjoyed the flying giant rat, the strange language of the book Sunny attempts to read, the tangled relationships among the kids, and more. After the first book, I was skeptical about the second, but I would definitely read a third.

Hugos 2018 [Prelude]: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

Yet another Bernice Summerfield review from me: worms eating books in Matthew Sweet's The Diet of Worms.

Trade paperback, 349 pages
Published 2017 (originally 2011)
Borrowed from my wife
Read June 2018

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

This is sort of a classic "young wizard" story, where a kid discovers they're magic and gets trained. In fact, it reminded me of nothing so much as the first Young Wizards book by Diane Duane, So You Want to Be a Wizard, as I think it basically follows the same template, though I'm sure there are older antecedents. (Indeed, The Dark Is Rising springs to mind.)

It's an okay example of the genre. There are a lot of individual moments that are nice, but the book as a whole feels pretty aimless. The protagonist, Sunny, has an apocalyptic vision early on, but it pretty much has nothing to with anything. (Which makes it pretty baffling that the book's UK edition was titled What Sunny Saw in the Flames.) Halfway through, the kids are told they have to hunt down a serial killer, but they don't actually do this until about forty pages before the book ends, which means the whole thing goes easily and predictably even if they are in mortal peril. (I feel bad constantly comparing Akata Witch to Young Wizards, but compare to the harrowing confrontation with the Lone Power at the climax of So You Want to Be a Wizard.)

I did enjoy the worldbuilding a lot (I like the idea of money you get when you have a genuine educational experience), and I suspect if I were closer to the target age, I'd've got more out of it, but as an adult reader, I've read more satisfying and interesting pieces of YA fiction.

Hugos 2018: Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor

Trade paperback, 164 pages
Published 2017
Borrowed from my wife
Read May 2018

Binti: Home
by Nnedi Okorafor

The sequel to Binti is really the first half of a larger story. The first half of Home itself is about Binti's return to her home after a year at space university, her friend who is also a warrior alien jellyfish in tow. It's kind of your normal thing in a story of this sort: she's changed both physically and emotionally, so has her family, and resentment simmers on every side. Then in the second half, she participates in a coming-of-age ritual of her people, and soon discovers she's even more special than the first book made her seem. Then things end on a cliffhanger, so I guess I'll need to pick up Binti: The Night Masquerade.

It's all right. Like with the first volume, it some times feels contrived. The family stuff is well done, if a bit clichéd. Clichés are often true, of course, but I rarely felt things rose to that level. To be honest, I wish we'd had a book of her actually at space university before we got a book of her coming back home. The second half has a lot of exposition about Binti's hidden heritage; I reserve judgment on this until I see how it plays out in Night Masquerade, but that leaves me without much to say about this volume in itself.

Hugos 2018 [Prelude]: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Trade paperback, 90 pages
Published 2015
Borrowed from my wife
Read May 2018

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Nnedi Okorafor is one of my wife's favorite writers, so I was glad that the Hugo Awards finally gave me the impetus to sit down with the Binti series (book two of three is a finalist for Best Novella this year). The first book is pretty simple: Binti leaves her people to go to space university. But on her way there, her ship is attacked by evil aliens, and only she is left alive. I liked the premise of the story, and the milieu is well-constructed-- the Himba and Khoush are two distinct human ethnic groups with their own distinct culture and politics, not all subsumed together as "humans" in the future. I love stories of people going to multiplanetary space universities, and Binti ending up on her own among hostile aliens is a great set-up.

But I did find the way the story wound down a bit lacking. Binti does some brave things, which I like, but also two highly convenient things save her, which I liked less. A great premise, but only an okay story. Further adventures in this world could have great promise, though. I've already started the sequel, Home, so I'll see what I think of them soon enough.