Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

Is it just me or authors/publishers are getting uh, for lack of a better word, stingy of sharing the full works in the Hugo packet during the last few years?

I just checked the 2026 one and hooboy so many excerpts only. I seem to remember those golden days when even editors shared many of the books they edited.

You win some you lose some -- since last year some authors/publishers have begun offering audio versions of the voters packet submissions, which is really great and helpful.

There are always publishers who tend not to offer full versions of works for the voters packet. Orbit is one of them. This year it's Del Rey, which didn't offer full versions of any of their nominated works - A Drop of Corruption, The Summer War, Emily Wilde series, and for the Auroras, The Bewitching.

I think that maybe it depends more on the authors or their publishers. I just checked Robert Jackson Bennett: in 2025 he had The Tainted Cup only a pdf (no epub/audio) with large 'do not distribute' watermark on each page. In 2026 his A Drop of Corruption is also only pdf again and not a full book.

Bennett has been quite generous with ARCs so I do not have problems with him/publisher.

I guess I am also fine if an author only provided one format of file - though once there is this best related work finalist whose pdf format is simply unreadable despite reformattng - but my biggest gripe is the excerpt only, or in some cases, nothing at all lol

And that pesky Netgalley links (only) submission - well okay Bennett did this too *sigh -- learned that I should not download if I can't guarantee a time to read those since if I end up not reading they will ruin my Netgalley score,

Kalin wrote: "There are always publishers who tend not to offer full versions of works for the voters packet. Orbit is one of them. This year it's Del Rey, which didn't offer full versions of any of their nominated works - A Drop of Corruption, The Summer War, Emily Wilde series, and for the Auroras, The Bewitching.

..."

Del Rey, if I catch you!!!

Orbit too. I really want to read Greenteeth, but nope.