Friday 13 February 2009

Guessing Games

Niall Harrison on Torque Control has posted the long list for this year's Arthur C Clark Award. It's the first time they've done this. I think it's a good idea.

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...


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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