Tomorrow's worlds ... The planetary system around the sun-like star HD 10180. Photograph: L Calcada/AP
Reinforcing science fiction's image as a boys club the UK's most prestigious prize for the genre, the Arthur C Clarke award, has announced an all-male shortlist – for only the second time in its history.
The six books in the running for the Arthur C Clarke – a mix of titles by major SF writers Kim Stanley Robinson and Ken MacLeod with lesser known debuts – follow an all-male shortlist for the reader-decided British Science Fiction Association prize, which was won earlier this week by Adam Roberts for Jack Glass.
Roberts failed to make the cut for the Clarke award, however, pushed out by Robinson's story of an inhabited solar system 300 years in the future, 2312, Scottish award-winner MacLeod's dystopian vision of a London where genetic defects can be wiped from unborn children, Intrusion, and Nick Harkaway's acclaimed Angelmaker, a whirlwind race to save the world from a 1950s doomsday machine. Canadian author Adrian Barnes, published by tiny press Bluemoose, is in the running for Nod, in which humanity's sudden inability to sleep has devastating consequences, Chris Beckett for Dark Eden, where the incestuous descendants of two stranded astronauts try to make a life for themselves on a far flung planet, and Peter Heller for the post-apocalyptic The Dog Stars, set in a world destroyed by the flu pandemic.
"This is a fascinating and complex shortlist that demands repeated attention and thoughtful interpretation. Shortlisting six books from a potential list of 82 eligible submissions is no easy task by any critical standard," said the prize's director Tom Hunter.
Hunter said he was "very conscious" of the prize's male line-up, and pointed to the fact that four of the award's five judges were female – Juliet E McKenna, Ruth O'Reilly, Nickianne Moody and Liz Williams. He also highlighted that both 2012 and 2011's Clarke awards were won by female authors – Lauren Beukes for Zoo City, and Jane Rogers for The Testament of Jessie Lamb – and that of the 82 books submitted for the award, just 16 were written by women, and one by a woman and man team.
"We are all aware of the issues and broader conversations in the industry about gender parity, but when you look at the books coming in and the strength of the authors, all the judges were operating from the point of picking the best books," said Hunter. "That has to be made their priority, rather than selecting on gender."
The Clarke award was established in 1987 following a grant from Clarke himself, and the only other time it has had an all-male shortlist was in 1988. Female authors to miss out on this year's shortlist include Mira Grant – who, under her two writing names, was nominated for five Hugos at the weekend – Sarah Pinborough, Cherie Priest and G Willow Wilson. But major male names also failed to make the running: former winner China Miéville, Alastair Reynolds, M John Harrison, John Scalzi and Iain M Banks.
"It's a great shortlist," said Hunter of the books selected. "I think it's really strong, interesting and challenging. I really like it."
But Niall Harrison, editor-in-chief of speculative fiction magazine Strange Horizons, said the all-male line-up was "frustrating", adding that "you couldn't ask for a much clearer illustration of the strengths and weaknesses of SF publishing in the UK," where science fiction by women has mostly been found in young adult and mainstream imprints, rather than adult genre publishers. "The shortlist includes stylistically and conceptually ambitious science fiction well worth reading; but it's frustrating that the judges had to make their selections from such a homogeneous pool of authors," said Harrison.
But Harrison felt that things were "looking up in 2013, thanks to newer imprints like Del Rey UK and Jo Fletcher Books, bringing in writers like Karen Lord, Stephanie Saulter, Kameron Hurley and EJ Swift".
The winner of this year's Clarke award will be announced on 1 May, when he will take home a cheque for £2,013.
The shortlist for the Arthur C Clarke award:
Nod by Adrian Barnes (Bluemoose)
Dark Eden by Chris Beckett (Corvus)
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway (William Heinemann)
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller ((Headline)
Intrusion by Ken MacLeod (Orbit)
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
The six books in the running for the Arthur C Clarke – a mix of titles by major SF writers Kim Stanley Robinson and Ken MacLeod with lesser known debuts – follow an all-male shortlist for the reader-decided British Science Fiction Association prize, which was won earlier this week by Adam Roberts for Jack Glass.
Roberts failed to make the cut for the Clarke award, however, pushed out by Robinson's story of an inhabited solar system 300 years in the future, 2312, Scottish award-winner MacLeod's dystopian vision of a London where genetic defects can be wiped from unborn children, Intrusion, and Nick Harkaway's acclaimed Angelmaker, a whirlwind race to save the world from a 1950s doomsday machine. Canadian author Adrian Barnes, published by tiny press Bluemoose, is in the running for Nod, in which humanity's sudden inability to sleep has devastating consequences, Chris Beckett for Dark Eden, where the incestuous descendants of two stranded astronauts try to make a life for themselves on a far flung planet, and Peter Heller for the post-apocalyptic The Dog Stars, set in a world destroyed by the flu pandemic.
"This is a fascinating and complex shortlist that demands repeated attention and thoughtful interpretation. Shortlisting six books from a potential list of 82 eligible submissions is no easy task by any critical standard," said the prize's director Tom Hunter.
Hunter said he was "very conscious" of the prize's male line-up, and pointed to the fact that four of the award's five judges were female – Juliet E McKenna, Ruth O'Reilly, Nickianne Moody and Liz Williams. He also highlighted that both 2012 and 2011's Clarke awards were won by female authors – Lauren Beukes for Zoo City, and Jane Rogers for The Testament of Jessie Lamb – and that of the 82 books submitted for the award, just 16 were written by women, and one by a woman and man team.
"We are all aware of the issues and broader conversations in the industry about gender parity, but when you look at the books coming in and the strength of the authors, all the judges were operating from the point of picking the best books," said Hunter. "That has to be made their priority, rather than selecting on gender."
The Clarke award was established in 1987 following a grant from Clarke himself, and the only other time it has had an all-male shortlist was in 1988. Female authors to miss out on this year's shortlist include Mira Grant – who, under her two writing names, was nominated for five Hugos at the weekend – Sarah Pinborough, Cherie Priest and G Willow Wilson. But major male names also failed to make the running: former winner China Miéville, Alastair Reynolds, M John Harrison, John Scalzi and Iain M Banks.
"It's a great shortlist," said Hunter of the books selected. "I think it's really strong, interesting and challenging. I really like it."
But Niall Harrison, editor-in-chief of speculative fiction magazine Strange Horizons, said the all-male line-up was "frustrating", adding that "you couldn't ask for a much clearer illustration of the strengths and weaknesses of SF publishing in the UK," where science fiction by women has mostly been found in young adult and mainstream imprints, rather than adult genre publishers. "The shortlist includes stylistically and conceptually ambitious science fiction well worth reading; but it's frustrating that the judges had to make their selections from such a homogeneous pool of authors," said Harrison.
But Harrison felt that things were "looking up in 2013, thanks to newer imprints like Del Rey UK and Jo Fletcher Books, bringing in writers like Karen Lord, Stephanie Saulter, Kameron Hurley and EJ Swift".
The winner of this year's Clarke award will be announced on 1 May, when he will take home a cheque for £2,013.
The shortlist for the Arthur C Clarke award:
Nod by Adrian Barnes (Bluemoose)
Dark Eden by Chris Beckett (Corvus)
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway (William Heinemann)
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller ((Headline)
Intrusion by Ken MacLeod (Orbit)
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
No comments:
Post a Comment