I'm not going to repeat the list, nor am I going to turn it into one of those "memes" - you know the sort, the titles you've read in bold, those on the TBR pile in italics. I will point out that, of the list, I’ve read Matter, Iain Banks (blogged about it here); Kéthani, Eric Brown; Template, Matthew Hughes (reviewed it for Interzone 218); The Night Sessions, Ken MacLeod (blogged about it here); Debatable Space, Philip Palmer; and House of Suns Alastair Reynolds. Sitting on my book shelves and waiting to be read are The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness; Going Under, Justina Robson; Halting State, Charles Stross; Necropath, Eric Brown; and Omega, Christopher Evans.
What I thought might prove an interesting exercise would be to try and predict the short list. That's six from the forty-six on the long list. And here are my guesses...
- The Heritage, Will Ashon
- Blonde Roots, Bernadine Evaristo
- The Gone-Away World, Nick Harkaway
- The Quiet War, Paul McAuley
- The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness
- Anathem, Neal Stephenson
I've not chosen these titles because they're the ones that would make my own personal short list. I've picked them because they're the ones I think the judges will choose - based on reviews I've read of the books, comments on various blogs and sites, my general feeling of each book's reception, and previous short lists for the Arthur C Clarke Award.
We'll find out how close I was in about a month's time...
EDIT: by "long list", I mean the list of books submitted by the publishers for consideration. These are not novels the Award jury has chosen.
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