Coverage · award

Retro Hugo Award - Best Novel

Hugo Awards voted decades later by Worldcon members, for years when none was given. Covers 1939 to 1954. Every shortlisted book is here: 43 books, 8 of them winners.

Winners and shortlisted books, by year

  • Carson of Venus — Edgar Rice Burroughs (1939)
  • Galactic Patrol — Edward E. Smith (1939)
  • Out of the Silent Planet — C. S. Lewis (1939)
  • The Legion of Time — Jack Williamson (1939)
  • The Sword in the Stone — T. H. White (1939) · winner
  • Gray Lensman — Edward E. Smith (1941)
  • Kallocain — Karin Boye (1941)
  • Slan — A. E. van Vogt (1941) · winner
  • The Ill-Made Knight — T. H. White (1941)
  • The Reign of Wizardry — Jack Williamson (1941)
  • Beyond This Horizon — Robert A. Heinlein (1943) · winner
  • Darkness and the Light — Olaf Stapledon (1943)
  • Donovan's Brain — Curt Siodmak (1943)
  • Islandia — Austin Tappan Wright (1943)
  • Second Stage Lensmen — Edward E. Smith (1943)
  • The Uninvited — Dorothy Macardle (1943)
  • Conjure Wife — Fritz Leiber (1944) · winner
  • Das Glasperlenspiel — Hermann Hesse (1944)
  • Earth's Last Citadel — C. L. Moore, Henry Kuttner (1944)
  • Gather, Darkness! — Fritz Leiber (1944)
  • Perelandra — C. S. Lewis (1944)
  • The Weapon Makers — A. E. van Vogt (1944)
  • Land of Terror — Edgar Rice Burroughs (1945)
  • Shadow Over Mars — Leigh Brackett (1945) · winner
  • Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord — Olaf Stapledon (1945)
  • The Golden Fleece — Robert Graves (1945)
  • The Wind on the Moon — Eric Linklater (1945)
  • The Winged Man — A. E. van Vogt, E. Mayne Hull (1945)
  • Destiny Times Three — Fritz Leiber (1946)
  • Red Sun of Danger — Edmond Hamilton, Ray Bradbury, William Morrison (1946)
  • That Hideous Strength — C. S. Lewis (1946)
  • The Mule — Isaac Asimov (1946) · winner
  • The World of Null-A — A. E. van Vogt (1946)
  • Farmer in the Sky — Robert A. Heinlein (1951) · winner
  • First Lensman — Edward E. Smith (1951)
  • Pebble in the Sky — Isaac Asimov (1951)
  • The Dying Earth — Jack Vance (1951)
  • The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — C. S. Lewis (1951)
  • Childhood's End — Arthur C. Clarke (1954)
  • Fahrenheit 451 — Ray Bradbury (1954) · winner
  • Mission of Gravity — Hal Clement (1954)
  • More Than Human — Theodore Sturgeon (1954)
  • The Caves of Steel — Isaac Asimov (1954)