2011 Arthur C Clarke Award Submissions

I am the bearer of exciting news today.

Firstly, I bring you tidings of fifty-four novels, the eligible submissions for this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Secondly, as has been the case for the last two years, the submissions list comes with a contest. For the last few years, here at Torque Control, the contest has been informal, a lively round of guessing the longlist from their miniaturised covers.

This year, the competition is rather more, well, competitive: guess the shortlist, before it is released this coming Friday. The lucky winner will receive copies of *all* the shortlisted novels, plus NewCon press’s forthcoming short story collection, Fables from the Fountain, published in honor of the 25th anniverary of the Clarke Awards! For full details – and to enter the contest – see the separate contest details post.

The Clarke award doesn’t have a longlist as such; what follows is a list of the 54 eligible novels, submitted by 22 different publishers and imprints, one of the highest submissions rates the Clarke award has had. From these the jurors pick the shortlist and, once they have all read them again, they will choose the winner in time for the prize to be announced on Wednesday, 27 April at SciFi London.

Submissions include two past winners (Tricia Sullivan and China Miéville), 11 previously-shortlisted authors (Stephen Baxter, Ian McDonald, Alastair Reynolds, Adam Roberts, Chris Wooding, Iain M. Banks, Ken MacLeod, Charles Stross, Peter F. Hamilton, William Gibson and James Lovegrove), and one past judge (Francis Spufford). To add to the statistics collection, the list below is sorted by publisher.

And here is this year’s eligible submissions list:

Black Hand Gang by Pat Kelleher (Abaddon Books)
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes (Angry Robot)
Generosity by Richard Powers (Atlantic Books)
Declare by Tim Powers (Corvus)
Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (Corvus)
Holy Machine by Chris Beckett (Corvus)
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu (Corvus)
On the Third Day by Rhys Thomas (Doubleday)
Salvage by Robert Edric (Doubleday)
Bring Home the Stars by Jennifer Kirk (DS Press)
Sylvow by Douglas Thompson (Eibonvale Press)
Red Plenty by Francis Spufford (Faber & Faber)
The Birth of Love by Joanna Kavenna (Faber & Faber)
Paradise by Glenn Myers (Fizz Books)
A Matter of Blood by Sarah Pinborough (Gollancz)
Above the Snowline by Steph Swainston (Gollancz)
Absorption by John Meaney (Gollancz)
Eve: The Burning Life by Hjalti Danielsson (Gollancz)
Guardians of Paradise by Jaine Fenn (Gollancz)
New Model Army by Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
Stone Spring by Stephen Baxter (Gollancz)
Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz)
The Black Lung Captain by Chris Wooding (Gollancz)
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald (Gollancz)
The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi (Gollancz)
The Silent Land by Graham Joyce (Gollancz)
Veteran by Gavin G Smith (Gollancz)
Watch by Robert J Sawyer (Gollancz)
Zendegi by Greg Egan (Gollancz)
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart (Granta)
For the Win by Cory Doctorow (Harper Voyager)
Things We Didn’t See Coming by Steve Amsterdam (Harvill Secker)
C by Tom McCarthy (Jonathan Cape)
Feed by Mira Grant (Orbit)
Lightborn by Tricia Sullivan (Orbit)
Surface Detail by Iain M Banks (Orbit)
The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross (Orbit)
The Restoration Game by Ken MacLeod (Orbit)
The Unit by Terry DeHart (Orbit)
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (Orbit)
Version 43 by Philip Palmer (Orbit)
The Passage by Justin Cronin (Orion Books)
Blood and Iron by Tony Ballantyne (Pan Macmillan)
Empire of Light by Gary Gibson (Pan Macmillan)
Kraken by China Miéville (Pan Macmillan)
The Evolutionary Void by Peter F. Hamilton (Pan Macmillan)
The Reapers Are The Angels by Alden Bell (Pan Macmillan)
The Technician by Neal Asher (Pan Macmillan)
Zero History by William Gibson (Penguin)
Pornogram by Osric Allen (Robert Temple)
The Meat Tree by Gwyneth Lewis (Seren)
The Age of Zeus by James Lovegrove (Solaris)
The Noise Within by Ian Whates (Solaris)
Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness (Walker Books)

So, what do you think of this year’s submissions?

If you’d like to guess and potentially win the award’s shortlist this year, see the contest details post. (Entries must be received by the end of this Wednesday, so submit your guess sooner than later!) Guesses posted in the comments to this post may make good conversation fodder, but won’t be eligible entries for the contest.