2026 Hugo Readalong: Care for Lightning, The Mourning Robot, and The World to Come
Welcome to the 2026 Hugo Readalong! Today, we're discussing Care for Lightning, The Mourning Robot, and The World to Come by Mari Ness, Angela Liu, and Jennifer Hudak, respectively, which are finalists for Best Poem. Everyone is welcome in the discussion, whether or not you've participated or you plan to participate in other discussions. I'll include some prompts in top-level comments--feel free to respond to these or add your own.
There may not be much you can use today for Bingo, but these aren't going to take much time out of your day, either, so you should still have all kinds of time to read whichever Bingo square you're working towards. If you are doing an unofficial card of short works or even entirely of speculative poetry, the poems could count for these squares
Care for Lightning: r/Fantasy Book Club or Readalong Book
The Mourning Robot: Non-Human Protagonist, Author of Color, r/Fantasy Book Club or Readalong Book
The World to Come: The Afterlife, r/Fantasy Book Club or Readalong Book
Another quick note: Strange Horizons has the following content warnings: >!Body transformation, Death/dying!<.
For more information on the Readalong, check out our full schedule post, or see our upcoming schedule here:
| Date | Category | Book | Author | Discussion Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday, May 25 | No Session | U.S. Holiday | Enjoy a Break | See You Thursday |
| Thursday, May 28 | Novel | Shroud | Adrian Tchaikovsky | u/fuckit_sowhat |
| Monday, June 1 | Novella | The Summer War | Naomi Novik | u/sarahlynngrey |
| Thursday, June 4 | Short Story | Missing Helen and Wire Mother | Tia Tashiro and Isabel J. Kim | u/oceanoftrees |