The 2012 Arthur C. Clarke Award—including the £2012 prize—will be handed out on 2 May as part of the Sci-Fi-London Film Festival.
The short-listed books for this year’s award are:
Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear (Gollancz)
The End Specialist by Drew Magary (Harper Voyager)
Embassytown by China Miéville (Macmillan)
The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers (Sandstone Press)
Rule 34 by Charles Stross (Orbit)
The Waters Rising by Sheri S.Tepper (Gollancz)
Most of the nominees have been on the ballot before: Magary and Rogers are the only first-time nominees this year. This is Miéville’s fifth time as a Clarke finalist, Tepper’s fourth, Bear’s third, and Stross’s second. Miéville, however, is the only one on this year’s shortlist to have won the award previously: he won in 2001 (Perdido Street Station), 2005 (Iron Council), and 2010 (The City & the City).
The annual award is “presented for the best science fiction novel of the year, and selected from a shortlist of novels whose UK first edition was published in the previous calendar year.” It was originally established by a grant from Sir Arthur C. Clarke with the aim of promoting science fiction in Britain.
The winner is judged by a jury panel and selected from the shortlist of six eligible novels. The panel of judges is made up of a voluntary body of distinguished writers, critics, and fans with the panel line-up changing every year.
Award Director Tom Hunter said: “The definition of science fiction is many different things to different people. It can be a vision of the future, a reflection of our contemporary concerns and technological advances, a vast galaxy-spanning exploration or an alternate history of worlds that might have been.
“Every year the judges for the Clarke Award are tasked first to make their definition of science fiction, and then to define those books they think best showcase the genre. The task of turning sixty books into a shortlist of just six is no simple task, and I hope science fiction readers everywhere will appreciate both the challenge of making the selection and also the challenge any shortlist can make to our preconceived notions of the SF genre having any one simple definition.
“The Clarke Award shortlist this year is, in my opinion, a greatly exciting selection, and one that follows behind two equally exciting prizes I always watch with great interest; the British Science Fiction Association Awards and the Kitschies. Three genre prizes with different backgrounds and different approaches, but when read together can offer a deeply encouraging indication of both the strength and breadth of science fiction literature today.”