Hugo Award Winners for Best Novelette

The Hugo Award for Best Novelette is given annually to the best work for fiction between 7,500 to 17,500 words. This category of Hugo has a fairly fractured history. First awarded in 1956, it was handed out every year that fiction awards were given until 1959, although in 1958 it was merged with the Best Novel category for unexplained reasons. The category went dormant for nearly a decade before being handed out for three years starting in 1967. The award disappeared again until 1973, and has been on the Hugo ballot every year thereafter.

Clicking on the year will take you to a page listing all of the nominees for the Hugo Award for that year. Five novelettes have been awarded "Retro Hugos", and are listed here in red, with the year the award was actually given noted in parenthesis.

1939: Rule 18 by Clifford D. Simak (awarded in 2014)

1941: The Roads Must Roll by Robert A. Heinlein (awarded in 2016) (reviewed in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume I, 1929-1964)

1943: Foundation by Isaac Asimov (awarded in 2018)

1944: Mimsy Were the Borogoves by C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner (awarded in 2019)

1945: City by Clifford D. Simak (awarded in 2020) (reviewed as part of the fix up novel City)

1946: First Contact by Murray Leinster (awarded in 1996) (reviewed in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume I, 1929-1964)

1951: The Little Black Bag by Cyril M. Kornbluth (awarded in 2001) (reviewed in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume I, 1929-1964)

1954: Earthman, Come Home by James Blish (awarded in 2004)

1955: The Darfsteller by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (reviewed in The Hugo Winners, Volume 1)

1956: Exploration Team by Murray Leinster (reviewed in The Hugo Winners, Volume 1)

1958: The Big Time by Fritz Leiber¹

1959: The Big Front Yard by Clifford D. Simak (reviewed in The Hugo Winners, Volume 1)

1967: The Last Castle by Jack Vance

1968: Gonna Roll the Bones by Fritz Leiber (reviewed in More Stories from the Hugo Winners, Volume II)

1969: The Sharing of Flesh by Poul Anderson (reviewed in More Stories from the Hugo Winners, Volume II)

1973: Goat Song by Poul Anderson (reviewed in The Hugo Winners: Volume 3, Book 2)

1974: The Deathbird by Harlan Ellison (reviewed in The Hugo Winners: Volume 3, Book 2)

1975: Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W by Harlan Ellison (reviewed in The Hugo Winners: Volume 3, Book 2)

1976: The Borderland of Sol by Larry Niven
1977: The Bicentennial Man by Isaac Asimov
1978: Eyes of Amber by Joan D. Vinge
1979: Hunter's Moon by Poul Anderson
1980: Sandkings by George R.R. Martin
1981: The Cloak and the Staff by Gordon R. Dickson
1982: Unicorn Variation by Roger Zelazny
1983: Fire Watch by Connie Willis
1984: Blood Music by Greg Bear
1985: Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler
1986: Paladin of the Lost Hour by Harlan Ellison
1987: Permafrost by Roger Zelazny
1988: Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight by Ursula K. Le Guin
1989: Schrödinger's Kitten by George Alec Effinger
1990: Enter a Solider. Later: Enter Another by Robert Silverberg
1991: The Manamouki by Mike Resnick
1992: Gold by Isaac Asimov
1993: The Nutcracker Coup by Janet Kagan
1994: Georgia on My Mind by Charles Sheffield
1995: The Martian Child by David Gerrold
1996: Think Like a Dinosaur by James Patrick Kelly
1997: Bicycle Repairman by Bruce Sterling
1998: We Will Drink a Fish Together . . . by Bill Johnson
1999: Taklamakan by Bruce Sterling
2000: 10¹⁶ to 1 by James Patrick Kelly
2001: Millennium Babies by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
2002: Hell Is the Absence of God by Ted Chiang
2003: Slow Life by Michael Swanwick
2004: Legions in Time by Michael Swanwick
2005: The Faery Handbag by Kelly Link
2006: Two Hearts by Peter S. Beagle
2007: The Djinn's Wife by Ian McDonald
2008: The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chiang
2009: Shoggoths in Bloom by Elizabeth Bear
2010: The Island by Peter Watts

2011: The Emperor of Mars by Allen M. Steele (reviewed in Asimov's Science Fiction: Vol. 34, No. 6 (June 2010))

2012: Six Months, Three Days by Charlie Jane Anders
2013: The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi by Pat Cadigan

2014: The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal (reviewed in 2014 Hugo Voting - Best Novelette)

2015: The Day the World Turned Upside Down by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (translated by Lia Belt) (reviewed in 2015 Hugo Voting - Best Novelette)

2016: Folding Beijing by Hao Jingfang, translated by Ken Liu

2017: The Tomato Thief by Ursula Vernon (reviewed in 2017 WSFA Small Press Award Voting)

2018: The Secret Life of Bots by Suzanne Palmer (reviewed in 2018 WSFA Small Press Award Voting)

2019: If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again by Zen Cho

2020: Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin

¹ In 1958, the Best Novel and Best Novelette categories were merged together to form the "Best Novel or Novelette" category. Fritz Leiber's short novel The Big Time won that year, and as a result, the book is placed on both the "Best Novel" and "Best Novelette" winner lists. The amalgamation of the two categories was abandoned after 1958, and The Big Time remains the only Hugo winning work to hold this odd position of being on two different lists of honorees.

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