After a lot of deliberation, the six books and their authors shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2009, the main UK prize for science fiction literature, have been announced.
The six shortlisted books are:
Song of Time: Ian R. MacLeod – PS Publishing
The Quiet War: Paul McAuley – Gollancz
House of Suns: Alastair Reynolds – Gollancz
Anathem: Neal Stephenson – Atlantic
The Margarets: Sherri S. Tepper – Gollancz
Martin Martin’s on the Other Side: Mark Wernham – Jonathan Cape
Speaking on behalf of the judging committee, Chair of the Judges Paul Billinger commented, “It was a long and intense meeting to decide this year’s shortlist, with passionate debate from all of the judges. Although at times it seemed almost impossible, they eventually concluded that these six books were the ones that demonstrated to them what was best about the science fiction novels published in 2008.”
Tom Hunter, administrator for the Arthur C. Clarke Award added, “Speculation and active debate have always surrounded the announcement of the award shortlist, and earlier this year we took the unprecedented step of releasing the full long list of eligible submitted works from which this final shortlist was decided. Our aim was to highlight the strength and diversity of current science fiction publishing and to show the awesome task that faces our judging panel every year. I think they’ve risen to this challenge admirably and I’m greatly looking forward to the full range of reactions and conversations to come and, of course, to finding out the eventual winner at the end of April.”
A prize of £2009 will be awarded to the winner along with a commemorative engraved bookend.
The annual award is presented for the best science fiction novel of the year, and selected from a list of novels whose UK first edition was published in the previous calendar year.
The judging panel for the 2009 Arthur C. Clarke Award are Chris Hill and Ruth O’Reilly for the British Science Fiction Association, Robert Hanks and Rhiannon Lassiter for the Science Fiction Foundation and Pauline Morgan for the science fiction news website SFCrowsnest.com. Paul Billinger represents the Arthur C. Clarke Award as the Chair of Judges.
The winner will be announced on Wednesday 29th April at an invitation-only award ceremony held on the opening night of the SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival.