The annual Arthur C. Clarke Award celebrates the best sci-fi novels and this year’s shortlist for the 36th Arthur C. Clarke Award have been announced!
The award was originally established by a generous grant from Sir Arthur C. Clarke with the aim of promoting science fiction in Britain, and is currently administered by the Serendip Foundation, a voluntary organisation created to oversee the on-going delivery and development of the award.
This year’s shortlist is –
- Deep Wheel Orcadia – Harry Josephine Giles (Picador)
- Klara and the Sun – Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber & Faber)
- A Desolation Called Peace – Arkady Martine (Tor UK)
- A River Called Time – Courttia Newland (Canongate)
- Wergen: The Alien Love War – Mercurio D. Rivera (NewCon Press)
- Skyward Inn – Aliya Whiteley (Solaris)
“I always view the shortlist as a snapshot of the richness and variety of the genre – space operas and dystopias, debutants and veterans, page turners that you can swallow whole and books that make you want to linger on every sentence,” said Chair of Judges, Dr Andrew M. Butler. “We’re slowly seeing a wider range of authors getting published in the British sf market, so we get to see a wider range of ways of reimagining the world. If science fiction is a toolbox, then we need to keep our tools sharp by approaching the material from different angles.
“The judges also come to science fiction from different angles. We have reviewers, academics, archivists and more, but above all they are enthusiastic readers and fans who have the mammoth task of whittling over hundred submissions down to exactly six titles. There was passion and intelligence and emotion in abundance. I’m proud of how they were able to challenge and still respect each other and produce the shortlist we’re celebrating today. And they get to have the debates all over again, as they choose the single best science fiction novel of the year.”
The winner will receive a trophy in the form of a commemorative engraved bookend and prize money to the value of £2022.00; a tradition that sees the annual prize money rise incrementally by year from the year 2001 in memory of Sir Arthur C. Clarke.
This year’s winner will be announced on 26th Oct 2022 at an award ceremony hosted by the Science Museum, London, in partnership with their exhibition Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination.
“It’s really exciting to bring the Clarke Award back to the Science Museum as our landmark new science fiction exhibition prepares to launch,” added Dr Glyn Morgan, Lead curator for the Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination exhibition It feels like the genre is more relevant now than ever. Not only are the issues it grapples with routinely the topic of headlines and popular discussion, but the modern genre is also more energetic and vibrant with a diverse and more representative range of writers. Today could be science fiction’s most important era as it equips our global culture not only with blockbusters and bestsellers, but also with the tools to imagine the future and choose a path for ourselves, our societies and our world.”
The judging panel for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2022 are:
- Phoenix Alexander and Dr Nicole Devarenne for the Science Fiction Foundation
- Crispin Black and Stark Holborn for the British Science Fiction Association
- Nick Hubble for the SCI-FI-LONDON film festival
This Arthur C. Clarke Award winner will be announced on 26 Oct 2022 at the Science Museum, London.
