Each year, the Arthur C. Clarke Award is given to the best science fiction novel that has its first UK publication in the previous year. This year, the award’s four judges read more than 100 books submitted by more than 39 publishers and independent authors in order to arrive at the six-book shortlist.
The 2022 Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlisted novels are:
- Deep Wheel Orcadia by Harry Josephine Giles
- Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
- A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine
- A River Called Time by Courtitia Newland
- Wergen: The Alien Love War by Mercurio D. Rivera
- Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley
Dr. Andrew M. Butler, the chair of the judges, said, “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. We’re slowly seeing a wider range of authors getting published in the British science fiction 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 award has a different set of judges every year; judges are nominated by the British Science Fiction Association, the Science Fiction Foundation, and the Sci-Fi-London Film Festival, all of which support the Clarke Award. This year’s judges are Phoenix Alexander and Dr. Nicole Devarenne for the Science Fiction Foundation; Crispin Black and Stark Holborn for the British Science Fiction Association; and Nick Hubble for the SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival.
The winner—who receives a bookend-shaped trophy and a prize of £2022—will be announced on October 26th at an award ceremony hosted by London’s Science Museum.
Congratulations to the authors!
