Blog: I Read The Arthur C Clarke Award Shortlist

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For the past several years I have taken great delight in trying to read the full Arthur C Clark Award shortlist. I first did it as a way to read some NEW Science Fiction (i.e. not just the next book by the same people as before OR something designated A Classic) and this worked out SO WELL that I have done it every year since, including THIS year.

For LO! for I think the first time ever I have managed to read ALL of them, all the way through, and also done so BEFORE the final award is announced. This is a PRETTY GOOD result for me, as in other years there has always been at least one book that I have given up on or read the description of and thought "OH DEAR NO". Every one of the books this year was worth getting to the end of, and indeed a good 50% of them were BLOODY GRATE.

I'm sure that everyone is really keen to know my mighty THORTS on them this year, especially in advance of the actual result, so let's go through them in the order what I read them:

Service Model (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
I really really like Adrian Tchaikovsky books, even though it's a bit hard to keep up as he writes SO MANY, and this was one of my favourites of his so far. Excitingly (for me) I read this one BEFORE the shortlist came up, and loved it. It's about a robot whose human master dies, so that he has to go on a JOURNEY through the end of the world and it is VERY FUNNY INDEED.

The Ministry Of Time (Kaliane Bradley)
Cor! I thought this was absolutely flipping brilliant - moving, funny, ROMANTICAL and un-put-downable. There's a government ministry with a TIME MACHINE that picks people out of the past who are about to be killed and then assigns them to a junior member of staff to be looked after, at which point HIJINKS and TWISTS and also ROMANCE happens. It was ace!

Thirteen Ways To Kill Lullabelle Rock (Maud Woolf)
This was not quite as good as it felt like it was supposed to be, although that might be because I read it straight after "The Ministry Of Time". It's about a sort-of-clone who's created to kill the other sort-of-clones of its originator, and it was all right but also Quite Short, which is a type of book I would like to encourage.

Annie Bot (Sierra Greer)
OH MY WORD I had to have a BREAK from reading this one as it was UPSETTING, but in a really good way. This wasn't hugely funny like my other two favourites but was VERY exciting and thought provoking and all round AMAZING.

Extremophile (Ian Green)
Crikey this one took a REALLY long time to get going, and was quite "Look everybody! EDGINESS!" so it's the one I came closest to giving up on. Also, there is lots of stuff about people being in BANDS in East London which felt really WRONG e.g. yes it's the future and everything is terrible, but I'm sure that bands still wouldn't bring their own microphones and stands with them to these sort of gigs. I think it was things like that that made me a bit grumpy about it, but it did get quite exciting in the end.

Private Rites (Julia Armfield) This one took even LONGER to get going, and when it finally did it felt like cheating a bit. The vast majority of the story is about some very posh sisters being a bit cold and rude to each other in a near future where it always rains. It was a little bit dreary to be honest, and mostly about dystfunctional posh people being dysfunctional and posh, so when A THING happened near the end it didn't feel particularly earned. It was very nicely written though!

BOOK REVIEWS! PEASY!

As for my PREDICTION as to what will win - it's usually one of the ones that I found a bit boring and worthy that wins, especially if it's one by somebody who would be midlly offended if someone said that it was science fiction at all. HOWEVER, this year I have a strong feeling that it will be one of the ones I actually liked, specifically "Annie Bot" as a) it is dead good and b) it Speaks To This Current Moment. I really hope it wins, it was dead good... which almost definitely means it won't!

posted 23/6/2025 by MJ Hibbett

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