Size / / /

After the speculation, the shortlist:

Greg Bear, Hull Zero Three (Gollancz) (review by Finn Dempster)

Drew Magary, The End Specialist (Harper Voyager)

China Miéville, Embassytown (Macmillan) (review by John Clute)

Jane Rogers, The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press) (review by Niall Harrison)

Charles Stross, Rule 34 (Orbit) (review by Alexandra Pierce)

Sheri S.Tepper, The Waters Rising (Gollancz)

I've only read Mieville and Rogers, which you would think might not leave me with much to say, but let's see how we go. What sort of list do we have? Four men, two women (but I think four female protagonists, two male); three Americans, three Brits; four genre-published (five if you count Magary, which I've seen shelved all over the place); one small press-published; two set out in space, four on Earth; two newcomers (Magary and Rogers) with four previous nominees.

One overlap with the BSFA shortlist (Mieville) and two with the Kitschies (Mieville and Rogers), which raises the question of omissions. I imagine most people will point first to the exclusion of Christopher Priest's The Islanders, which I still haven't read; for me the disappointment centres around Lavie Tidhar's Osama and Adam Roberts' By Light Alone, the absence of which strikes me as rather wrongheaded. Martin Lewis notes that Nicholas Whyte correctly predicted four of the novels based on the popularity of the novels as ranked by Goodreads and Librarything, and it has the feel of a playing-to-the-heartland shortlist. My own guess only picked out two of the eventual shortlist (Stross and Mieville) despite guessing that this was the direction this year's list would go; my wishful thinking shortlist didn't hit any.

Prejudicially, this makes it a disappointing shortlist for me, which may seem like I'm trying to have it both ways. I asked for the award to tell me a different story about last year than the one I'd already heard, and it has; but at the same time, this doesn't look like a list that captures what I think is interesting about where sf is now, it doesn't feel essential. (David Hebblethwaite is similarly underwhelmed.) I'm trying hard to reserve judgement, but I was distinctly unimpressed by the last Tepper to be listed, I've only heard mixed things about Bear, Magary and Stross, and though I enjoyed both the Mieville and the Rogers, after the fact I don't admire either so much that I would find their omission inexplicable. And while SFX has installed Mieville as the front runner, and he does look like the heavyweight in the room, I'd feel uneasy if Embassytown took the prize, both for reasons of merit -- it may or may not be the best book on this list, but it's quite a long way from being the best sf novel I read last year -- and for reasons of perception. If the award goes to the same writer for a fourth time in just over a decade, that makes the field look thin, except to those who know the field, who might start to think the award is becoming myopic.

(This is of course a year to year judgement: Zoo City's win last year felt like a choice that refreshed the award; to an extent a win for Rogers this year could have the same effect, proving that the Clarke is actually still willing to look outside the confines of genre for its winners. At the moment I think that's the outcome I hope for. But on with the reading!)



Niall Harrison is an independent critic based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. He is a former editor of Strange Horizons, and his writing has also appeared in The New York Review of Science FictionFoundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, The Los Angeles Review of Books and others. He has been a judge for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and a Guest of Honor at the 2023 British National Science Fiction Convention. His collection All These Worlds: Reviews and Essays is available from Briardene Books.
Current Issue
18 Mar 2024

Strange Horizons
We are very happy to welcome Dante Luiz as a new fiction editor on the team! Dante is a Ignyte Award winning author, and has been with Strange Horizons working as an Art Director for the past several years. We’re stoked to bring him on to the fiction side and have him bring his wonderful insight and skill to the fiction team.
Day in and day out, the rough waters of the Pacific slam themselves against the protrusion of sandstone the locals refer to as Morro Rock. White streaks of bird shit bleed down the rock, a testament to the rare birds of prey that nest in its pocked face overlooking the bay.
in my defence, juggling biological and artificial, i tripped over my shoelace, and spilled my lungs empty of the innocence that was, before guilt.
the birds, / who carry with them / the many names of the dead
Wednesday: Overlap: The Lives of a Former Time Jumper by N. Joseph Glass 
Issue 11 Mar 2024
Issue 4 Mar 2024
Issue 26 Feb 2024
Issue 19 Feb 2024
Issue 12 Feb 2024
Issue 5 Feb 2024
Issue 29 Jan 2024
Issue 15 Jan 2024
Issue 8 Jan 2024
Issue 1 Jan 2024
Load More
%d bloggers like this: