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Never Eaten Vegetables
2026 Hugo Awards Voter Packet edition.
39 pages, ebook
Published May 6, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
June 28, 2026
Eventually very good, but a little too late
The finalists for the 2026 Best Novelette Hugo Award are:
★★★★☆ Kaiju Agonistes by Scott Lynch
★★★☆☆ Never Eaten Vegetables by H.H. Pak
★★★★☆ Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy, by Martha Wells
☆☆☆☆☆ The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For by Cameron Reed
☆☆☆☆☆ The Millay Illusion by Sarah Pinsker
★★★★☆ When He Calls Your Name by Catherynne M. Valente
H.H. Pak's Never Eaten Vegetables is a story about an interstellar generation ship whose people face a terrible dilemma. It was published in Clarkesworld Issue 220. Here is a direct link.
The ship is NEV-476, originally meant to stand for "Natal Embryonic Vessel-476". Its cargo is ten thousand fertilized embryos held in stasis. They are to be released from stasis and grow to become babies when the ship arrives at its destination. There's a malfunction, and things become very, very difficult. As a consequence, the ship refuses the name "Natal Embryonic Vessel" and instead says its name is "Never Eaten Vegetables."
The story, as I eventually understood it, was a good one, even a very good one. The problem, though -- the reason for my lackluster rating, was that it took me a long time to understand what the Hell was going on and who these people were. I mean, I get the impulse to set up and preserve the mystery. In fact, I usually expect Speculative Fiction to be confusing, and am disappointed if I understand fully on the first read. But in this case the mystery was so successfully opaqued for so long that I spent about half my reading time completely baffled.
All does eventually become clear. I will probably re-read, and I expect I'll enjoy it more on the second reading. But right now, after just one reading, I am more annoyed than amused. You might call my three-star rating unfair. Indeed, *I* might call it unfair. But I'm sticking with it for now.
Blog review.
The finalists for the 2026 Best Novelette Hugo Award are:
★★★★☆ Kaiju Agonistes by Scott Lynch
★★★☆☆ Never Eaten Vegetables by H.H. Pak
★★★★☆ Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy, by Martha Wells
☆☆☆☆☆ The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For by Cameron Reed
☆☆☆☆☆ The Millay Illusion by Sarah Pinsker
★★★★☆ When He Calls Your Name by Catherynne M. Valente
H.H. Pak's Never Eaten Vegetables is a story about an interstellar generation ship whose people face a terrible dilemma. It was published in Clarkesworld Issue 220. Here is a direct link.
The ship is NEV-476, originally meant to stand for "Natal Embryonic Vessel-476". Its cargo is ten thousand fertilized embryos held in stasis. They are to be released from stasis and grow to become babies when the ship arrives at its destination. There's a malfunction, and things become very, very difficult. As a consequence, the ship refuses the name "Natal Embryonic Vessel" and instead says its name is "Never Eaten Vegetables."
The story, as I eventually understood it, was a good one, even a very good one. The problem, though -- the reason for my lackluster rating, was that it took me a long time to understand what the Hell was going on and who these people were. I mean, I get the impulse to set up and preserve the mystery. In fact, I usually expect Speculative Fiction to be confusing, and am disappointed if I understand fully on the first read. But in this case the mystery was so successfully opaqued for so long that I spent about half my reading time completely baffled.
All does eventually become clear. I will probably re-read, and I expect I'll enjoy it more on the second reading. But right now, after just one reading, I am more annoyed than amused. You might call my three-star rating unfair. Indeed, *I* might call it unfair. But I'm sticking with it for now.
Blog review.
July 6, 2026
This is a short story that carries an enormous amount of worldbuilding and implied interiority you don't fully grasp until the final pages. NEV is both the spaceship itself and the AI administrator running it. When a batch of embryos is mistakenly triggered out of stasis decades before arrival -- a fault later revealed to be a hardware failure imposed on her by the corporation, not an error of her own making -- NEV chooses not to flush them, but to protect and raise them instead. The ship becomes a parent, tearing herself apart, literally, to feed and hold and name them.
That choice is what she's tried for. And it's what makes the ending land so hard: after everything NEV does to keep them alive, it's the corporation that decides, on arrival, which of the surviving children are "worth" keeping — euthanizing the ones with physical or cognitive differences the moment she's no longer the one in control. NEV's defiance was never really the threat to the mission. The mission was always going to do this. She just delayed it, and loved them in the meantime.
What I love most is how thoroughly the story inverts the usual AI narrative. This isn't "humans as batteries" (The Matrix) or "humans as means to corporate ends" (this year's novel nominee Shroud covers similar territory). Here, the machine is the one that chooses humanity when the humans in charge didn't — and the story is honest about the fact that her choice couldn't fully protect them from the system she was still, ultimately, property of.
Four stars: it's the kind of story that lingers and rewards a reread, and at a tight 39 pages, it's short enough that you can afford to read it more than once.
Read it here: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/pak_...
Original URL: https://www.livegreenwearblack.com/20...
That choice is what she's tried for. And it's what makes the ending land so hard: after everything NEV does to keep them alive, it's the corporation that decides, on arrival, which of the surviving children are "worth" keeping — euthanizing the ones with physical or cognitive differences the moment she's no longer the one in control. NEV's defiance was never really the threat to the mission. The mission was always going to do this. She just delayed it, and loved them in the meantime.
What I love most is how thoroughly the story inverts the usual AI narrative. This isn't "humans as batteries" (The Matrix) or "humans as means to corporate ends" (this year's novel nominee Shroud covers similar territory). Here, the machine is the one that chooses humanity when the humans in charge didn't — and the story is honest about the fact that her choice couldn't fully protect them from the system she was still, ultimately, property of.
Four stars: it's the kind of story that lingers and rewards a reread, and at a tight 39 pages, it's short enough that you can afford to read it more than once.
Read it here: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/pak_...
Original URL: https://www.livegreenwearblack.com/20...
July 11, 2026
2026 Hugo Award finalist - Best Novelette
NEV-476 (originally short for “Natal Embryonic Vessel,” later renaming itself “Never Eaten Vegetables”) is a colony ship carrying ten thousand embryos to a distant planet where they are meant to be incubated, raised, educated, and prepared to build a new settlement. A catastrophic malfunction leaves about 500 survivors to establish the colony. Because of this disaster, NEV is put on trial and scheduled to be shut down. One survivor, Luwa, begins investigating what happened and comes to believe that NEV may have made its devastating choice out of care rather than negligence.
The story has a strong central ethical dilemma: why does NEV choose one group of embryos over another? But the story doesn’t fully resolve what caused the crisis. As a result, the story has good emotional force, but the impact of the conclusion is less satisfying than it could be. Perhaps it is an excerpt from a novel.
NEV-476 (originally short for “Natal Embryonic Vessel,” later renaming itself “Never Eaten Vegetables”) is a colony ship carrying ten thousand embryos to a distant planet where they are meant to be incubated, raised, educated, and prepared to build a new settlement. A catastrophic malfunction leaves about 500 survivors to establish the colony. Because of this disaster, NEV is put on trial and scheduled to be shut down. One survivor, Luwa, begins investigating what happened and comes to believe that NEV may have made its devastating choice out of care rather than negligence.
The story has a strong central ethical dilemma: why does NEV choose one group of embryos over another? But the story doesn’t fully resolve what caused the crisis. As a result, the story has good emotional force, but the impact of the conclusion is less satisfying than it could be. Perhaps it is an excerpt from a novel.
June 7, 2026
This review is for Never Eaten Vegetables by H.H. Pak (goodreads often groups together stories that appears in anthologies).
Every year I read all the finalists of the most prestigious science fiction awards (at least in the English speaking world): the Hugo awards. This story is a finalist in the Novelette category. I had not previously read anything by this author, hence I was looking forward to discovering something new. I was not disappointed.
In Never Eaten Vegetables, H.H. Pak transforms a classic generation-ship premise into an intimate and deeply moving story about responsibility, identity, and what it means to care for a future you may never see. When an interstellar mission encounters an unexpected crisis, difficult choices ripple across generations, leaving behind mysteries that refuse to stay buried.
Blending sharp social commentary with genuine emotional depth, Pak explores motherhood, personhood, and the tension between corporate priorities and human needs through the eyes of unforgettable characters—some human, some not entirely so. Thoughtful, poignant, and surprisingly hopeful, this is science fiction that asks difficult questions while never losing sight of the people at its heart.
This story turned out one of my favorite in this category, and I recommend it to everyone.
Every year I read all the finalists of the most prestigious science fiction awards (at least in the English speaking world): the Hugo awards. This story is a finalist in the Novelette category. I had not previously read anything by this author, hence I was looking forward to discovering something new. I was not disappointed.
In Never Eaten Vegetables, H.H. Pak transforms a classic generation-ship premise into an intimate and deeply moving story about responsibility, identity, and what it means to care for a future you may never see. When an interstellar mission encounters an unexpected crisis, difficult choices ripple across generations, leaving behind mysteries that refuse to stay buried.
Blending sharp social commentary with genuine emotional depth, Pak explores motherhood, personhood, and the tension between corporate priorities and human needs through the eyes of unforgettable characters—some human, some not entirely so. Thoughtful, poignant, and surprisingly hopeful, this is science fiction that asks difficult questions while never losing sight of the people at its heart.
This story turned out one of my favorite in this category, and I recommend it to everyone.
May 29, 2026
This story is absolutely crushing, a story that will make you curl your toes in anxiety as you pour through it. I cried twice and had chills when I reached the end. A fantastic, heartbreaking, lovely, human piece of fiction. I loved it.
June 10, 2026
This was really really good. It made me cry. It was good science fiction.
July 18, 2026
Thought provoking and horribly sad (almost emotionally manipulative), but didn't quite work for me in solving itself so neatly.
June 9, 2026
There’s two linked mysteries at the heart of this story, and the problem is neither of them gets a satisfactory resolution. One is, when face with a practical application of the philosophical trolly problem, why an AI made the choice it did. The other is what caused the scenario that created the trolly problem. The story spend most of its word count worldbuilding, which is really good, and setting up the two mysteries, but then it ends abruptly. One mystery is dealt with in a couple of paragraphs on practically the last page which presents conclusions derived from a load of things that happen off-page, and the other mystery gets hints, but is left unanswered. The hints aren’t even sufficient to justify calling the resolution ambiguous. There is barely a plot, but what little of it there is comes from the actions of the characters, which are consistent with how they’ve been characterised. More than anything, though, the plot just seems to be driven by the protagonist’s need to have a parental figure.
July 9, 2026
Notes taken from my review column of all the nominees for Hugo Awards 2026: Best Novelette.
I wanted to like this novelette but I've started to get genuinely irritated by Artificial Intelligence that is only ever as smart as the moral of the story needs them to be. And while I could buy into the idea of the ship lacking failsafes for the entirely commonplace (and completely unsurprising) reason that it did, I was far too skeptical of the entire premise of the colony. Sending thousands of babies into space to be cared for solely by robots and holograms, are you for real? It's a dumb plan. Plus, I didn't even know what the point of all the arguments over "what constitutes a life?" counted for given what the robots did to babies they didn't find up to par. If you know you're going to be utilitarian about it, why bother bringing in philosophers at all?
I wanted to like this novelette but I've started to get genuinely irritated by Artificial Intelligence that is only ever as smart as the moral of the story needs them to be. And while I could buy into the idea of the ship lacking failsafes for the entirely commonplace (and completely unsurprising) reason that it did, I was far too skeptical of the entire premise of the colony. Sending thousands of babies into space to be cared for solely by robots and holograms, are you for real? It's a dumb plan. Plus, I didn't even know what the point of all the arguments over "what constitutes a life?" counted for given what the robots did to babies they didn't find up to par. If you know you're going to be utilitarian about it, why bother bringing in philosophers at all?
June 23, 2026
In the future, colony ships are sent out with human embryos and are responsible for incubating, raising, and educating them just in time to colonize the destination planet. Something goes wrong on one of these ships, a batch of embryos are incubated too early, and it results in a bunch of embryos having to be ejected and a very small colony. The AI is put on trial.
One of the survivors, now an adult, investigates what happened and comes to believe the AI is getting a raw deal and did what it did out of some form of love and care and comes to its legal defense.
I think there was more going on here; once again, the audiobook format may have betrayed the story, and I might have spaced out at the exact moment that something was said that would make it all fit together. But it felt like it was saying something important about compassion, and it felt right.
One of the survivors, now an adult, investigates what happened and comes to believe the AI is getting a raw deal and did what it did out of some form of love and care and comes to its legal defense.
I think there was more going on here; once again, the audiobook format may have betrayed the story, and I might have spaced out at the exact moment that something was said that would make it all fit together. But it felt like it was saying something important about compassion, and it felt right.
May 17, 2026
Ok, this is going to be a little involved.
I wanted to vote this story higher, because in many ways it IS a well crafted story, & very moving.
I just have to down vote it though, because the moral of the story is completely the wrong lesson, as well as improbability... I have a hard time seeing even a human administrator making the decision that the AI in this story made, much less an AI, which is supposed to be intelligence making decisions using REASON WITHOUT EMOTIONAL CONNECTION.
But as I said, I doubt even a human could decide to lose/kill 95 others in order to save 4. That's amazingly, stupidly the wrong choice, and overshadows all the attempts at feel-good connections with the 4 afterwards.
I wanted to vote this story higher, because in many ways it IS a well crafted story, & very moving.
I just have to down vote it though, because the moral of the story is completely the wrong lesson, as well as improbability... I have a hard time seeing even a human administrator making the decision that the AI in this story made, much less an AI, which is supposed to be intelligence making decisions using REASON WITHOUT EMOTIONAL CONNECTION.
But as I said, I doubt even a human could decide to lose/kill 95 others in order to save 4. That's amazingly, stupidly the wrong choice, and overshadows all the attempts at feel-good connections with the 4 afterwards.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 6, 2026
A colony ship carries ten thousand people to settle and begin trade on a distant moon. Under the eye of the ship’s AI, 95% of them die, leaving 500 to settle, people, and produce goods on the moon. Because of this horrible accident, the AI, named NEV, as in Never Eaten Vegetables, is set to be shut down. One settler, Luwa, tries to uncover what really happened that caused the AI to allow them to die. This is a graphic, intense, and heartbreaking story. I had to shake this one off before moving on to the next one.
Come visit my blog for reviews of all the novelette nominees…
It Started With The Hugos
Come visit my blog for reviews of all the novelette nominees…
It Started With The Hugos
May 16, 2026
Sweet story about a corporate spaceship, Never Eaten Vegetables, carrying human embryos in stasis to colonize a new world. Never Eaten Vegetables has a Prime Directive: protect the embryos. She also, like many of us, has a cluster of programs she can't intellectually access that nonetheless has a profound influence on her.
She has to make hard decisions when some of those embryos start prematurely developing. She gets most of those where they are going alive, but at great cost to the corporation.
This story is about debt, moral obligations, corporate accounting, and justice. With a frog.
She has to make hard decisions when some of those embryos start prematurely developing. She gets most of those where they are going alive, but at great cost to the corporation.
This story is about debt, moral obligations, corporate accounting, and justice. With a frog.
June 19, 2026
I read this for the Astounding Award for 2026.
The writing is lovely. The structure did not quite work for me. I found the shifts in time and perspective to be occasionally jarring (the first introduction to Luwa was particularly nebulous, although that may be attributable to the format of the work in the packet.
I enjoyed Pak's exploration of the themes of corporate accountability, exploitation, and autonomy for artificial intelligence. However, the idea of the trial with the NEV as defendant also didn't quite work for me, and I wish we had had a longer introduction to the information Luwa presents at trial, instead of having it read into evidence.
All the same, I enjoyed the story and H.H. Pak's writing.
The writing is lovely. The structure did not quite work for me. I found the shifts in time and perspective to be occasionally jarring (the first introduction to Luwa was particularly nebulous, although that may be attributable to the format of the work in the packet.
I enjoyed Pak's exploration of the themes of corporate accountability, exploitation, and autonomy for artificial intelligence. However, the idea of the trial with the NEV as defendant also didn't quite work for me, and I wish we had had a longer introduction to the information Luwa presents at trial, instead of having it read into evidence.
All the same, I enjoyed the story and H.H. Pak's writing.
June 20, 2026
So here is how things go.... in reading the Hugo Nominees for this year, I started this novelette, but didn't get into it, and read some others.
I started it again, and didn't get into it, and then didn't read for a week.
Then, I read the only remaining novelette nominee. I pondered not reading this one and moving on my list. A quick google showed that multiple people rated this the highest of the novelettes.
I decided to make one more attempt...
...
..
.
and now I *sigh* and go "Yep, this story deserves to be at the top of the novelette list this year", rate it number one on my ballot and come in here to give it five stars.
I started it again, and didn't get into it, and then didn't read for a week.
Then, I read the only remaining novelette nominee. I pondered not reading this one and moving on my list. A quick google showed that multiple people rated this the highest of the novelettes.
I decided to make one more attempt...
...
..
.
and now I *sigh* and go "Yep, this story deserves to be at the top of the novelette list this year", rate it number one on my ballot and come in here to give it five stars.
July 15, 2026
Read for the 2026 Hugos
It was a challenge to wrap my head around the world-building at the beginning of this story. But it gradually came together and became less confusing. I did figure out the rules of the world and what was actually going on. And then the story delivered a few impressive emotional gut-punches. Did NEV do the right thing? The wrong thing? Could it know the difference? Things to think about there.
In short, it starts weird and confusing, but then sticks the landing really well.
It was a challenge to wrap my head around the world-building at the beginning of this story. But it gradually came together and became less confusing. I did figure out the rules of the world and what was actually going on. And then the story delivered a few impressive emotional gut-punches. Did NEV do the right thing? The wrong thing? Could it know the difference? Things to think about there.
In short, it starts weird and confusing, but then sticks the landing really well.
June 3, 2026
I loved this tight little story. It keeps you guessing throughout as it jumps back and forth in time, and the suspense leading up to the ending is heart pounding. I found the central human character extremely well-drawn and sympathetic, and the AI characters are some of the best I’ve seen. I fell in love with Never Eaten Vegetables and her quirky personality, but most of all the humanity that the AI develops, despite some truly awful examples set by the humans in charge.
June 4, 2026
The title, Never Eaten Vegetables, gives no clue whatsoever to how engaging, how human, how devastating a story this is. I think as a mother you can’t help but cry. Very well written, spare yet profound. There are only two real characters, a human and an AI, but each will stay with me for a long time.
July 16, 2026
Read for 2026 Hugos.
An interesting bit of colony fiction, showing the points of view of the colony administrator and of the ship bringing the colonist embryos to a new planet. Unfortunately, it takes a bit too long to come to the understanding of what's going, which misses some of the nuance encoded in the first parts of the novella.
An interesting bit of colony fiction, showing the points of view of the colony administrator and of the ship bringing the colonist embryos to a new planet. Unfortunately, it takes a bit too long to come to the understanding of what's going, which misses some of the nuance encoded in the first parts of the novella.
June 3, 2026
This sci-fi story, about a generation ship and the terrible choice its AI must make when things go wrong, could serve as the basis for a legal brief. It raises so many interesting questions: corporate culpability for individual actions, obedience vs. initiative, the needs of the many and the needs of the few. That it does so with a solid hook, an interesting twist, and a satisfying resolution is all the better. H.H. Pak is an exciting new talent.
July 2, 2026
A truly remarkable story, told in two time periods, about how a world gets colonized and the hard choices an AI has to make to ensure it happens. It reminded me of the best of the Susan Calvin stories. I liked it a lot.
July 13, 2026
Read for the Hugo Awards.
A ship transporting embryos to a new planet malfunctions and must decide what to do when part of its cargo suddenly develops in transit.
I found it thought-provoking, but I wasn't a fan of the writing style.
2 out of 5 stars.
A ship transporting embryos to a new planet malfunctions and must decide what to do when part of its cargo suddenly develops in transit.
I found it thought-provoking, but I wasn't a fan of the writing style.
2 out of 5 stars.
May 11, 2026
3.5 stars
May 16, 2026
A short, feel-good story with hints of Asimov's Foundation
May 25, 2026
3.5 stars
June 6, 2026
Bittersweet, merging biology, politics, philosophy, and most importantly, motherhood. So wistfully beautiful.
June 8, 2026
My notes for Hugo voting: Even semi-sentient AI's need guidance when coding goes wrong. Both heartbreaking and heartwarming. Interesting look at generational ships. Loved the frog.
June 8, 2026
I loved this SF novelette about a colony ship, the hard choices the ship had to make, and the consequences for the colony. I liked unraveling the mystery.
June 22, 2026
Banger of a story.
June 28, 2026
From the point of view of sentient ships and the adult children it saved. It became more interesting as I read and I loved the outcome
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