Road to the Hugos 2025: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
Article by Jordan S.
Welcome to Road to the Hugos 2025, the column where Kaiju & Gnome read each of the books up for best novel and give their thoughts on what their chances will be to take home that coveted rocket ship. Today Gnome (Jordan) will give his thoughts on Robert Jackson Bennett’s The Tainted Cup.
I have lots of authors that I read and reread frequently but very few that I would consider ‘favorites.’ If someone were to ask me to list my top five favorite authors, I would probably struggle beyond three and only those three would be on the list year-after-year if someone kept asking me that question. The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett was a book by one my top three authors and evoked the writing of a second, and thus, The Tainted Cup is very much a “Jordan Book.”
I first read a Robert Jackson Bennett book during the summer of 2019 and then proceeded to read his others in quick succession. The City of Stairs was like reading a fantasy version of one of the non-Bourne Robert Ludlum books which I always liked more than the Bourne books. The City of Blades took that step further and has cemented itself in my mind as the perfect ‘middle book' in a trilogy, something that is so often a weak point in a trilogy but Bennett nailed it in a way that I still think is unrivaled. The City of Miracles is my favorite finale ever and the climax of it is one of the only moments in literature that I know will make me weep every time. After the Divine Cities trilogy, I started reading the Founders trilogy as they came out and while they weren’t on the level of that earlier trilogy, I loved them too.
I was excited when Robert Jackson Bennett posted on Twitter at some point that his next book was going to be more like Knives Out and a murder mystery. I texted Ed who probably was a bit more even headed about it but I was excited. Later, in social media post, Bennett name dropped another top three Jordan Author Rex Stout. The hype could no longer be contained.
Rex Stout, for the uninitiated, is the creator of my favorite detective in the annals of the genre; Nero Wolfe. Nero Wolfe is a brilliant detective the likes of which Holmes and Poirot are probably jealous of. Unfortunately, the worst thing in the world he could imagine is having to leave his home and his orchids and hobnob with the unseemly masses of the world beyond his brownstone. Instead of venturing out, he sends out his assistant Archie Goodwin whose deft memory and keen eye for detail help him report back to Wolfe all the particulars of a crime. Wolfe then brings all the suspects to his parlor and reveals, using the information compiled by Goodwin, who committed the crime. It’s a brilliant formula and Wolfe/Goodwin are some of my favorite fictional characters of all time.
These two very separate threads are tied beautifully together by Bennett in the form of Ana and Din, the main characters of The Tainted Cup. Ana is the master detective who in this case rarely leaves her tower and always is wearing a blindfold for reasons that aren’t fully explained in this book. Din, playing the role of Archie Goodwin, is her eyes and ears and observes the crime scene using his unique semi-magical observation powers.
As I said in the first paragraph, this book is very much a “Jordan Book.”
The most amazing thing about this book is how well it accomplishes the dual task of being both a fantasy book and a mystery book. These are two very different genres that require different things from the story and from readers. Most significantly, a recurring adage of detective fiction writers is that there can’t be any supernatural forces behind the murder and if it’s suggested that there are, well, that needs to be a red herring. As you can probably see, this is a stark contrast to fantasy, even more so epic fantasy, where magical and sorcerous powers are the norm. Mystery fiction is supposed to be read in a way that the reader might hope that they can solve the mystery for themselves, epic fantasy bucks against this by the sheer necessity of needing to be both epic and fantastical.
It’s a complicated needle to thread and Bennett pulls it off marvelously. There is magic (of a weird epic biopunk-ey variety) but Bennett gives us the rules for that pretty quickly and holds fast and true to them. In effect, Bennett holds to his own rules so tightly that he normalizes how his magic functions and doesn’t violate that long held adage of detective fiction. I think it’s a sign for the deftness at which Bennett does this that his book was nominated for an Edgar award, the mystery fiction equivalent of the Hugo.
However, this isn’t only a detective story. Bennett has crafted a truly brilliant fantasy world that I absolutely loved. . It’s not of the European style world that for such a long time has been the normative setting in mainstream fantasy fiction. It is far more grimy and musty than is the norm. It’s also, similar to the Divine Cities and The Founders trilogies, not only an epic fantasy book. This book is also a brilliant biopunk story while also playing with the kaiju genre in some really cool ways. Honestly, it was a breath of fresh air and one of my favorite books of last year.
That all being said: Will this win the Hugo for Best Novel?
Honestly, probably not. It’s a fantastic book and is utterly deserving of the win, but I think there’s something missing from it in terms of its “Hugo-ey-ness.” There’s been a lot of ink spilled over the years talking about how the Hugos are essentially the Oscars of science fiction and fantasy literature and like there is Oscarbait, there are also books that feel more like Hugobait and ones that feel less like that. The Tainted Cup, of the three books I’m reading for this column, has the least Hugobait vibes. .
For one, it’s fantasy. Looking at the Hugo Awards since 2000, there have been fifteen science fiction books that have won the Best Novel Hugo and ten fantasy books. (There was also Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen's Union and that’s alternative history and probably more science fiction than fantasy, but it was unclear to me since I hadn’t ever read it, let me know in the comments if you’ve got an opinion)
Over the year, some have suggested that there’s a strong anti-Fantasy bias to the Hugos and that feels less important looking at these numbers, but also of the ten fantasy books three of them were all in one series by N.K. Jemison and those are also the only “epic fantasy” of the books that won. All but one of the other fantasy books took place on fantasy versions of Earth and the other book was Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher which was more of a dark fairytale than necessarily epic fantasy.
It’s also weird. As I’ve mentioned above, it doesn’t stick to one genre and bounces between genres enthusiastically. My feeling is that most Hugos best novels are safer than this one and don’t tip their toes in so many ponds and ones that are so wildly different. As brilliant as this book is, I'm not sure its unique brand of “epic fantasy/biopunk/kaiju detective fiction” is what the Hugos are ever really looking for. Ultimately, I hope I’m wrong. Of the three books I read for this column, this is the one I most want to win. It’s the most perfect embodiment of a “Jordan Book” I’ve ever come across and I will throw a party if it wins. I’m just not sure a “Jordan Book” is what makes for a “Hugo’s Book.”