The Theory of Related-ivity: A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category

The Best Related Work Hugo Award category has seen significant variation in interpretation. It has gone through three major administrative definitions: Best Non-Fiction Book, Best Related Book, and Best Related Work. Within each of these eras, the nominating body has explored and expanded the parameters of those definitions. As a result, the category has both reflected and shaped changing understandings of what it means to be “related” to the field of speculative fiction and to be a “work.” This study explores both the history of the structural definitions of the Best Related Work category and the various categories it has intersected with and overlapped, plus the actual behavior of Hugo nominators with respect to the category: what and who gets nominated, and how those patterns have changed over time. The author, Heather Rose Jones, was co-author with Camestros Felapton of Charting the Cliff: An Investigation Into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics, a Best Related Work Hugo finalist in 2025.