2025 Dragon Award finalists

Awards are complicated things: the science fiction and fantasy scene has an overabundance of them, with a ton aimed at honoring the best works in fairly small categories. Aside from the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards, it's sometimes hard to get an idea of what fandom is enjoying or collectively putting out as the best works of the year.

That's okay: it's a challenge that in and of itself helps show that "fandom" isn't one population, but a scattered collection of a whole bunch of fans. While the Hugo and Nebula Awards are still the gold standard when it comes to honoring the past year's excellence in publishing, I've been finding that the Dragon Awards, put out by the folks running DragonCon, seems to align with my particular style of SF/F fandom: not entirely the old-school Fandom-with-a-capital-F scene, but also not entirely the more modern multimedia fandoms.

The awards were founded in 2016, and after some growing pains, they seem to have figured themselves out as they enter their ninth year: a solid roundup of science fiction, fantasy, horror, YA comics, games, literature, movies, and television shows. The awards are voted on by attendees and the general public, and while there were a lot of folks who were initially worried that they'd be used by fandom's more right-wing members to push their own books, they've turned out to be a pretty inclusive and far-reaching selection, which I think is a really good thing to see.

Here are the winners from last year.

DragonCon has announced the finalists for this year's awards (eligible works go to ones published starting last fall to this summer), and voting is now open: you can go register to vote here. The winners will be announced at this year's DragonCon, which will be held between August 28th through September 1st in Atlanta, Georgia.

Here are this year's finalists:

Best Science Fiction Novel

• Alliance Unbound by C .J. Cherryh, Jane S. Fancher
• The Mercy of Gods by James S. A. Corey
• Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer
• Extremophile by Ian Green
• Nether Station by Kevin J. Anderson
• The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear
• This Inevitable Ruin by Matt Dinniman

Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal)

• The Last Shield by Cameron Johnston
• The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness
• Shadow of the Smoking Mountain by Howard Andrew Jones
• Heart of the Mountain by Larry Correia
• The Devils by Joe Abercrombie
• Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan

Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel

• Sunrise of the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
• Labyrinth Arcanist by Shami Stovall
• Friends Indeed by David Weber, Jane Lindskold
• Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White
• Among Serpents by Marc J Gregson
• Rest in Peaches by Alex Brown

Best Alternate History Novel

• 1635: The Weaver’s Code by Eric Flint, Jody Lynn Nye
• 1919: The Romanov Rising by Tom Kratman, Kacey Ezell, Justin Watson
• To Turn the Tide by S.M. Stirling
• The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal
• Gangster by Dan Willis
• Gold, Gangs, and Glory by Laurence Dahners

Best Horror Novel

• Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle
• The Vengeful Dead by Darcy Coates
• It Will Only Hurt for a Moment by Delilah S. Dawson
• Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes
• The Wilding by Ian McDonald
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

Best Illustrative Book Cover

• The Icarus Coda by Dave Seeley
• Flames of Gold by Jeff Brown
• Rise From Ruin by Pierluigi Abbondanza
• Wind and Truth by Michael Whelan
• Blood of Her Father by Sam Kennedy
• Mountain of Fire by Kurt Miller

Best Comic Book / Graphic Novel

• Absolute Batman by Scott Snyder, Nick Dragotta
• Absolute Superman by Jason Aaron, Rafa Sandoval
• Daredevil: Cold Day In Hell by Charles Soule, Steve McNiven
• Transformers Volume 3 by Daniel Warren Johnson, Jorge Corona
• Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 2 by Jonathan Hickman, Marco Checchetto
• Ultimate Wolverine by Christopher Condon, Alessandro Cappuccio

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series, TV or Internet

• Murderbot, Apple TV+
• Severance, Apple TV+
• Wheel of Time, Amazon Prime
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Amazon Prime
• Silo, Apple TV+
• Andor, Disney+

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie

• Sinners by Ryan Coogler
• Thunderbolts* by Jake Schreier
• Wicked by Jon M. Chu
• How to Train Your Dragon by Dean DeBlois
• Deadpool & Wolverine by Shawn Levy
• Alien: Romulus by Fede Álvarez

Best Digital Game

• Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Kojima Productions
• Split Fiction, Hazelight Studios
• Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Ubisoft Quebec
• Elden Ring Nightreign, FromSoftware
• Monster Hunter Wilds, Capcom
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Warhorse Studios

Best Tabletop Game

• Arcs, Leder Games
• Magic the Gathering: Bloomburrow, Wizards of the Coast
• Magic the Gathering: Final Fantasy, Wizards of the Coast
• Heat: Tunnel Vision, Days of Wonder
• Splendor: The Silk Road, Space Cowboys
• Disney Lorcana: Archazia’s Island, Ravensburger