An Overview of the 2026 Best Related Work Finalists in the Context of The Theory of Related-ivity

Time for the Hugo finalist hot takes, so here is a structural assessment of this year's Best Related Work finalists within the context of my study The Theory of Related-ivity: A History and Analysis of the Best Relate Work Hugo Category. (I won’t be updating the data in the study with this data, since the study is focused on nomination dynamics, for which we really need the full long list. But I may append these comments as a footnote or something.)

The 6 finalists and available nomination data (with thanks to File770) are:

BEST RELATED WORK

1488 nominating ballots (all categories). 479 ballots cast for 250 Best Related nominees. Finalists range 31-70.

• Colourfields: Writing About Writing About Science Fiction by Paul Kincaid (Briardene Books)
• Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer (University of Chicago Press US, Head of Zeus UK)
• Last War in Albion: “The Cuddled Little Vice (Sandman)” by Elizabeth Sandifer (Eruditorum Press)
• Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler by Susana M. Morris (Amistad)
• “Ragnarök vs the Long Night”by Ashaya and Aziz (History of Westeros Podcast, August 10, 2025) 
• The Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom, maintained by Renay (Google Spreadsheet)

Ballot Stats

Total nominating ballots remain relatively stable, when specific motivations for higher numbers in particular years are accounted for. Ballots with Best Related nominations are similarly stable with the same caveat. Maximum nominations to final has always been a highly variable number, but there is nothing unusual about this year. Similarly, the threshold to final, while a bit more stable than the maximum, has no surprise and the percentage of category ballots needed to final is solidly within recent trends. The number of distinct works is also solidly within recent trends and the relationship of distinct works to number of ballots matches recent “typical” years (that is, years that did not have high nomination numbers due to specific circumstances).

While I haven’t pulled up documentary evidence for author gender (and so haven’t identified anyone outside the binary), an impressionistic assessment is that 2026 follows the overall trend in skewing solidly toward authors perceived as female-identified. (I hope that's sufficiently qualified to avoid offense.)

Data Coding

The media and content categories that I would tentatively assign to these works are:

• Colorfields -- Media=Book, Media Supercategory=Text, Content Categor(ies)=Criticism, Content Supercategory=Analysis, Topic=Science Fiction (general)
• Inventing the Renaissance -- Media=Book, Media Supercategory=Text, Content Categor(ies)=History, Content Supercategory=Information
• Last War in Albion -- Media=Blog/Essay, Media Supercategory=Text, Content Categor(ies)=Criticism/History, Content Supercategory=Analysis, Topic=Graphic/Sandman (other topics appear in the essay series, but I’m basing this on this one essay)
• Positive Obsession -- Media=Book, Media Supercategory=Text, Content Categor(ies)=Biography, Content Supercategory=People, Topic=Octavia Butler
• “Ragnarök vs the Long Night” -- Media=Podcast, Media Supercategory=Audio/Video, Content Categor(ies)=Criticism/Review??, Content Supercategory=Analysis, Topic=A Song of Ice and Fire/Norse Mythology/Game of Thrones? (if it addresses the tv series not just the books)
• The Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom -- Media=Website, Media Supercategory=Other, Content Categor(ies)=Reference, Content Supercategory=Information, Topic=Awards

Distribution Trends

So for Media overall that’s:

• 3 Book (50%)
• 1 Blog/Essay (17%)
• 1 Podcast (17%)
• 1 Website (17%)

With the supercategories:

• 4 Text (67%)
• 1 Audio/Video (17%)
• 1 Other (17%)

For Content (which may have multiple assigned):

• 3 Criticism (50%)
• 2 History (33%)
• 1 each Biography, Reference and maybe Review (17% each)

With the Content supercategories :

• 3 Analysis (50%)
• 2 Information (33%)
• 1 People (17%)

I won’t analyze Topics as the data can only be anecdotal.

How does this compare to recent trends? Comparing specifically to Finalists within the Related Work era, books dominate, as expected, and are comparable to the 68% overall for the era. The other 3 media types are drawn from the 4 most common media types, skipping over Video to include Podcast. So from the point of view of current trends, the Media types are fairly typical, but see the discussion on Podcasts below.

For Content (keeping in mind that I’m comparing this data only to the Related Work era, rather than the dataset as a whole), the Finalists fall in the top 3 supercategories. In the full dataset, People are more frequent than Information, but within the scope of the small numbers, this distribution can be considered typical. In the Related Work era, the most common 5 Categories in order of frequency are: Biography/Criticism/Essays (tie), History, Reviews. This closely matches this year’s finalists, the only divergence being a lack of Essays and the presence of Reference.

Additional Observations

“Ragnarök vs the Long Night” is a single episode of a podcast generally about the Westeros universe. Would the show as a whole have been eligible for Best Fancast? (It clearly meets the standard for number of episodes released.) Although their website indicates a number of ways the show is being monetized, there’s no easy way to determine if it crosses the threshold for being considered semi-pro or professional (which would make it ineligible under Fancast). And, of course, there’s no way of discovering at this point in time whether it actually received nominations under Fancast. Prior administrative precedent suggests that without any nominations in a potentially alternate category, there isn’t a mechanism for nomination-shifting.

The last time a Podcast was a Finalist was in 2014 at the end of the Writing Excuses run. In the last decade, the only two podcasts on the long lists have both been clearly professional projects and were nominated for the show as a whole, not for a specific episode. So this nomination is slightly anomalous within the context of precedent. On the other hand, it aligns with the typical pattern for video critical works, which usually have only a single episode nominated even when part of a regular show.

A number of nominees have appeared previously. Paul Kincaid has been author/editor/contributor to 4 previous nominations (2 Finalists, 1 Long List, 1 on an extended listing of nominees). His work has fallen in the categories of Criticism, History, and Biography. Renay’s Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom was on the Long List in 2021 but has never been a Finalist before. No other authors of this year’s finalists have been nominated in Best Related previously, although Ada Palmer has been nominated for her fiction and was the Astounding Award winner in 2017.

Congratulations to all the Finalists (and to the Long List nominees that we won't know about for half a year yet)!