Hugo Novels 5/6: The Raven Scholar
Jul. 3rd, 2026 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aseThe Raven Scholar (Antonia Hodgson) (2026): In audiobook, narrated by Daphne Kuma. Twenty-four hours of audiobook.
The bulk of the novel focuses on the Trial Festivals, used to decide who will be Emperor (or Empress) of Orrun for the next eight to twenty-four years, and most of that is Neema Kraa's experience of the Festival. Do the Trials or the Festival go as planned? Ha ha. Do we see political machinations? Oh do we ever. Semi-drifty third person, which is the only excuse for Part One having a completely different protagonist than Parts Two through Eight. Eight is a number of significance, representing the Eight Guardians who, according to prophecy, saved Orrun seven times and will return once more to destroy it. Which is why there are eight sections to the novel, presumably, and eight times ten chapters, and I am getting Steven Brust vibes that I am 99% certain were not intended.
I am petty, and so I start with: was Yana fridged? Her death motivates her brother to Do Stuff, which meets the lowest bar of the trope requirement. The counter is that Yana's death motivates a lot of other stuff that happens in the story, like Cain and Neema's eight year (ha. Ha.) romantic hiatus and Benna's overwrought revenge plan, and whatever Shal's problems are.
"Overwrought" applies to a lot of Raven, in my mind. "The Emperor is actually his brother! No, the Emperor is actually the man who murdered him!" There's a limit to how many plot twists I can take, especially when I'm not convinced by the characterization. Neema didn't know Emperor Bersun, fine, she wouldn't know to respond to a character shift. Would inflexible, order-loving Vabras really think sliding a fake Bersun onto the throne would be less chaotic than doing a proper replacement? Would Yasilia and Andren be so ruthless with the lives of their children? I'd buy that if there had been callouts about the Five Families treating their family members as property, but we don't see that, we see Tala and Sunur doting on their daughter. It's not enough to make a plot that coordinates with characterization and themes, someone wants to be able to crank to eleven.
Speaking of Yasilia, I could do an entire thing about the Dragons and pain and magic, and how the Dragon Trial is basically "let's use prophetic magic as a guide to our actions" (a dumb choice), but I think books two and three might do it for me.
I could also start pulling apart the worldbuilding's "ancient magic, ancient disaster"; or how the novel retracts evil intentions several times We get Cain not-an-assassin (in a reveal so out of character with things like death by evil forest that I still think we're due a revelation that Cain provided a version of the truth right up there with "he did murder your father, from a certain point of view"), Benna ("I wasn't really trying to kill Neema, just get her super high! Sorry, sorry."), and Ruko "murdering" a servant (reveal A: the servant was a spy, reveal B: a spy who was a fellow student and was placed by Ruko's evil mentor so she could make Ruko kill him, evil Sith style).
The novel is ambitious in length. Is it ambitious in other ways? Does it execute on its ambitions?
If Hodgson is going for "fat fantasy epic tropes", there's a number in play. I'm tempted to namecheck romantasy, since Neema and Cain spend a lot of page count Not Dating in an inevitable decline toward getting back together. I'm also tempted to namecheck YA for the emotional intensity and everyone bouncing around with limitless energy (and never a word about waking up the day after heavy physical exertion to an entirely new and different set of muscle aches); I thought the audiobook narration was hamming up the performance, but no, the italicization and Big Weird Raven Voice are written out, with endnotes.
I go back and forth on Neema. Often she reads like a flavor of academically gifted, socially inept person I recognize from real life, but that sort of personality doesn't tend to do well with being the center of a major institution. If we get Neema being absolutely terrible at leading resistance to Emperor Andrien, I think that would be great. I'm not sure that's Hodgson's plan.
cahn hit on a good point when she said, "I think [The Raven Scholar is] the kind of book that is super entertaining but it's very interesting to discuss its flaws (whereas for The Everlasting I found it more interesting to discuss why it was compelling)." It's easy to talk about how a book didn't work, I think, so talking about why a book does work, discovering how it rewards the reader's attention and investment, is more exciting to me right now.
This year's novel nominees represent a strong crop! Looking at the 2025 list, most of the nominated works from '26 beat out the '25 list, in my opinion.
I feel like Death of the Author was written for litfic / speculative fiction crossover, and executed really well on that goal. The Incandescent is delightful and ambitious, but, perhaps, could have used more beefing-up of the romance, which is not my usual assessment. The Everlasting is one big pile of tropes all for me, the temptation to give extra points for catering to me especially is very, very high. The Raven Scholar has tropes, but not mine, so it's easier for me to look at how the story works as a story. A Drop of Corruption is probably the most classic Hugo nominee, other than the Tchaikovsky. I think it's solid fiction, and very entertaining, but it doesn't have the flair that Author achieves. Call it Author > Everlasting > Drop > Incandescent > Scholar, and I'll probably switch the middle three around several times before committing to a final order.
The bulk of the novel focuses on the Trial Festivals, used to decide who will be Emperor (or Empress) of Orrun for the next eight to twenty-four years, and most of that is Neema Kraa's experience of the Festival. Do the Trials or the Festival go as planned? Ha ha. Do we see political machinations? Oh do we ever. Semi-drifty third person, which is the only excuse for Part One having a completely different protagonist than Parts Two through Eight. Eight is a number of significance, representing the Eight Guardians who, according to prophecy, saved Orrun seven times and will return once more to destroy it. Which is why there are eight sections to the novel, presumably, and eight times ten chapters, and I am getting Steven Brust vibes that I am 99% certain were not intended.
I am petty, and so I start with: was Yana fridged? Her death motivates her brother to Do Stuff, which meets the lowest bar of the trope requirement. The counter is that Yana's death motivates a lot of other stuff that happens in the story, like Cain and Neema's eight year (ha. Ha.) romantic hiatus and Benna's overwrought revenge plan, and whatever Shal's problems are.
"Overwrought" applies to a lot of Raven, in my mind. "The Emperor is actually his brother! No, the Emperor is actually the man who murdered him!" There's a limit to how many plot twists I can take, especially when I'm not convinced by the characterization. Neema didn't know Emperor Bersun, fine, she wouldn't know to respond to a character shift. Would inflexible, order-loving Vabras really think sliding a fake Bersun onto the throne would be less chaotic than doing a proper replacement? Would Yasilia and Andren be so ruthless with the lives of their children? I'd buy that if there had been callouts about the Five Families treating their family members as property, but we don't see that, we see Tala and Sunur doting on their daughter. It's not enough to make a plot that coordinates with characterization and themes, someone wants to be able to crank to eleven.
Speaking of Yasilia, I could do an entire thing about the Dragons and pain and magic, and how the Dragon Trial is basically "let's use prophetic magic as a guide to our actions" (a dumb choice), but I think books two and three might do it for me.
I could also start pulling apart the worldbuilding's "ancient magic, ancient disaster"; or how the novel retracts evil intentions several times We get Cain not-an-assassin (in a reveal so out of character with things like death by evil forest that I still think we're due a revelation that Cain provided a version of the truth right up there with "he did murder your father, from a certain point of view"), Benna ("I wasn't really trying to kill Neema, just get her super high! Sorry, sorry."), and Ruko "murdering" a servant (reveal A: the servant was a spy, reveal B: a spy who was a fellow student and was placed by Ruko's evil mentor so she could make Ruko kill him, evil Sith style).
The novel is ambitious in length. Is it ambitious in other ways? Does it execute on its ambitions?
If Hodgson is going for "fat fantasy epic tropes", there's a number in play. I'm tempted to namecheck romantasy, since Neema and Cain spend a lot of page count Not Dating in an inevitable decline toward getting back together. I'm also tempted to namecheck YA for the emotional intensity and everyone bouncing around with limitless energy (and never a word about waking up the day after heavy physical exertion to an entirely new and different set of muscle aches); I thought the audiobook narration was hamming up the performance, but no, the italicization and Big Weird Raven Voice are written out, with endnotes.
I go back and forth on Neema. Often she reads like a flavor of academically gifted, socially inept person I recognize from real life, but that sort of personality doesn't tend to do well with being the center of a major institution. If we get Neema being absolutely terrible at leading resistance to Emperor Andrien, I think that would be great. I'm not sure that's Hodgson's plan.
cahn hit on a good point when she said, "I think [The Raven Scholar is] the kind of book that is super entertaining but it's very interesting to discuss its flaws (whereas for The Everlasting I found it more interesting to discuss why it was compelling)." It's easy to talk about how a book didn't work, I think, so talking about why a book does work, discovering how it rewards the reader's attention and investment, is more exciting to me right now. This year's novel nominees represent a strong crop! Looking at the 2025 list, most of the nominated works from '26 beat out the '25 list, in my opinion.
I feel like Death of the Author was written for litfic / speculative fiction crossover, and executed really well on that goal. The Incandescent is delightful and ambitious, but, perhaps, could have used more beefing-up of the romance, which is not my usual assessment. The Everlasting is one big pile of tropes all for me, the temptation to give extra points for catering to me especially is very, very high. The Raven Scholar has tropes, but not mine, so it's easier for me to look at how the story works as a story. A Drop of Corruption is probably the most classic Hugo nominee, other than the Tchaikovsky. I think it's solid fiction, and very entertaining, but it doesn't have the flair that Author achieves. Call it Author > Everlasting > Drop > Incandescent > Scholar, and I'll probably switch the middle three around several times before committing to a final order.
(no subject)
Date: 2026-07-06 05:38 am (UTC)Hee! I skimmed past this :)
I am petty, and so I start with: was Yana fridged?
Hmm. Is it called fridging if the male character kills the female one? I sort of feel like fridging implies more pathos to me than "yeah I condemned you to death," lol.
Often she reads like a flavor of academically gifted, socially inept person I recognize from real life, but that sort of personality doesn't tend to do well with being the center of a major institution.
Hmm. Yeah, the thing is, she reads like the flavor of that person in their early 20s, who is not thrust into a situation where learning social skills is somewhat required. Neema as she's described should either really know at least a little better by this time, or she should more consistently fail!
Anyway -- yeah, I think the 2026 novel nominees are significantly stronger than the 2025 list. And more importantly, I actually found them all fun to read (well, I haven't read the Tchaikovsky, but I might).
I totally agree about Author! With Incandescent I don't so much wish for more romance as just... feeling like Tesh doesn't do endings well. I just have a hard time rating Everlasting very high because it just kind of falls down for me with worldbuilding and characterization (of anyone but the mains), even though if it were on AO3 I'd probably write a long gushing comment on it :D
(no subject)
Date: 2026-07-06 06:09 am (UTC)Per TV Tropes: "When a female character is hurt, killed, maimed, assaulted, or otherwise traumatized in order to motivate a male character or move their plot forward." The trope name came from a Green Lantern comic where the protagonist came home to find his dead girlfriend stuffed in the fridge, murder and fridge arrangement courtesy the villain of the week / comic run. I could be argued out of this one because it's not just Ruko who is propelled into Plot Adventures by Yana's death, it's also Shal, Benna, and maybe Neema as well.
Re: Neema: she's a brilliant choice if you're the evil shadow-emperor who doesn't want a strong High Scholar. How much of her lack of adult development can I chalk up to not!Bersun manipulating her toward unhealthy stagnancy? ...based on Cain and some of the other characters, not much.
Anyway -- yeah, I think the 2026 novel nominees are significantly stronger than the 2025 list. And more importantly, I actually found them all fun to read (well, I haven't read the Tchaikovsky, but I might).
Ha. Report back if you do.
I found everything but The Raven Scholar good reading, and even Raven is okay reading. I just would have preferred if everyone involved acted like 30something budding leaders in their fields, instead of college kids arranging the fraternity / sorority end of year party-slash-leadership-votes.
I just have a hard time rating Everlasting very high because it just kind of falls down for me with worldbuilding and characterization (of anyone but the mains), even though if it were on AO3 I'd probably write a long gushing comment on it :D
:-D
Yes, I'd agree The Everlasting only does one thing, but it does that one thing (time travel adventures) right to my taste. I probably should knock it down the list a bit, but there's still time to shuffle everyone around and maybe re-read a bit. But first, novelettes and short stories.
(no subject)
Date: 2026-07-15 04:41 am (UTC)This would have been nice!
Yes, I'd agree The Everlasting only does one thing, but it does that one thing (time travel adventures) right to my taste. I probably should knock it down the list a bit, but there's still time to shuffle everyone around and maybe re-read a bit. But first, novelettes and short stories.
Hee, let me know if thinking about it changes your mind at all! Looking forward to novelettes and short stories (though I will say there was nothing that really knocked my socks off).