The Arthur C. Clarke Award, made up of judges from the British Science Fiction Association, the Science Fiction Foundation, and the Sci-Fi-London film festival, has announced this year’s finalists for the 35th annual award.
Here’s the full list of this year’s finalists:
- The Infinite by Patience Agbabi (Canongate)
- The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez (Titan)
- Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang, translated by Ken Liu (Head of Zeus)
- Edge of Heaven by R.B. Kelly (Newcon Press)
- The Animals in that Country by Laura Jean McKay (Scribe)
- Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes (Orbit)
Dr. Andrew M. Butler, the award’s Chair of Judges, noted that as in prior years, there was a considerable struggle to get the list down to six, and pointed out that for the first time ever, the list was made up entirely of debut novels.
The award is handed out annually to a book published in the UK in the prior year. This year, the award’s judges (which included Stewart Hotston, Alasdair Stuart, Phoenix Alexander, Nicole Devarenne, Nick Hubble, and Butler), received 105 books from 41 different publishers. (You can see the full list of books considered here.) This year’s winner will be revealed later in the year.
