It's a fantastic work of complex history, told with the tools of science fiction and fantasy writing. But it remains a high quality academic work: the tools are used to unravel the telling of a gay and complicated topic, but you still get the vastness.
If you like ACOUP, it should be right up your alley.
> The Hugo Award for Best Series is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published in or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The award is available for series of science fiction or fantasy stories consisting of at least 3 published works totaling at least 240,000 words, with at least one work released or translated into English during the previous calendar year. A losing finalist becomes eligible again with the publication of at least two new works totaling at least 240,000 words.
And now, checking on it... The Shattering Peace was released in September of 2025.
I guess I've got another item for my reading list (currently going through the classics of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser... I wonder if that will ever be eligible for a retro Hugo Award for series).
I'm playing through Clair Obscur now. It's above average for aaa stuff. But there are way too many cut scenes, and dodge/parry mechanics continue to be tedious. And the story is fine, but isn't really grabbing me. Sigh.
Blue Prince, on the other hand, is quite probably the best puzzle game I have ever played. My partner and I worked on it for months, and have a 50+ page Google doc of notes.
The joke side quests work in your standard RPG because they take themselves less seriously. Your character is wielding an eight foot sword, the mage companion is a talking cat, and your boots are haunted by a long-dead Egyptian prince. Sure, go nuts if you want to play the mini-game at the circus belly-dancing competition to win the golden hat.
Clair Obscur starts in such a bleak, breathing world that the characters not treating the situation deadly serious breaks my connection to the world, so I start to focus more on the mechanical annoyances.
That sounds more like a part time job than a game. I'm curious if you play it for the mental challenge? I feel challenged enough at $dayjob that all I want from games is mindless relaxation.
Blue Prince is an example of what fills are calling 'notebook games' -- instead of giving you lots of qol stuff, you just use a notebook to keep notes. The act of writing and arranging your notes is actually quite immersive. It's also fun!
Blue Prince has layers of puzzles and story... It's pretty reasonable to play to the credits, and not get into the depths of the post credits game; it's a very reasonable cutoff point for non-sickos.
First, it's a really compelling roguelite puzzler where you explore and understand the house and it's mechanics. The puzzles are mostly small and straightforward (but not easy!). You can probably win this without taking notes. I found this part compelling and delightful.
Then it's something else where you learn about the world. The puzzles are more complicated and need notebooks and notes to keep the loose threads tracked. This part for me became a slog by the end and I finished mostly to say that I had.
Then its a third thing for sickos.
Someone else mentions Blue Prince here. I think that's a much better game relatively speaking, even if not having Clair Obscur's exceptional art.
It is a worthy winner in my opinion. Fantasy with a sci-fi element along with a story which takes some untangling. Five stars from me :-)
*EDIT:* It appears I'm just being silly, and the Hugos include fantasy. Ironically, the biggest fantasy series of our time by far has won 3 times in Novella form and once in TV form, but never the novels!
As we age out of being culturally relevant, and newer (likely less literate) generations take over the definitions will change, and perhaps should.
To me only hard science fiction will ever count, but I recognize that I'm in the minority there and also don't want to scare away the three remaining readers through gatekeeping.
GoT is undoubtedly more complex, interesting world, but it never had a generation of children reading the midnight book release. That the author actually penned the series finale is also worth something.
I mean, yes, it has vampires. Was From Dusk till Dawn fantasy?
But as a sister comment suggests, categorization is never easy, and probably just reinforced personal biases. (See Old Town Road being reminded from Billboard's country music list.)
Fantasy gets applied to the work as a whole, to its dominant tone and structure, not to one element. A work of fantasy usually has other elements that show it to be such. Is there world-building? Is it a quest or a hero story? Is there some kind of lore that grounds the whole universe? Not all of those are necessary, but usually you can clearly define the whole work holistically as Fantasy.
From Dusk till Dawn in particular is a straight crime thriller that turns into a horror movie.
Ok, I got nerd-sniped into trying to define Fantasy after saying I wouldn't.
And Star Trek.
I will die on the hill that Star Trek is just as much space fantasy as Star Wars.