The Clarke Award and THE Shadow.

If you haven't been paying attention (!!!) the Clarke Submission list is here.

All the Shadow Clarke info can be found here. I recommend reading all the individual posts, shortlists AND the comments!

All the Shadow Clarke shortlists have now been submitted.

With nine jurors choosing six books each we could have had a maximum of 54 novels. In the end we have 27 – not a bad spread! They are:

The Power — Naomi Alderman (Penguin Viking) 3

Songshifting — Chris Bell (wordsSHIFTminds)

Good Morning, Midnight — Lily Brooks-Dalton (Wiedenfeld & Nicolson) 2

The Destructives — Matthew De Abaitua (Angry Robot) 2

Zero K — Don DeLillo (Picador)

The Many Selves of Katherine North — Emma Geen (Bloomsbury) 3

Ninefox Gambit — Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)

Graft — Matt Hill (Angry Robot)

Europe in Winter — Dave Hutchinson (Solaris)

The Fifth Season — N.K. Jemisin (Orbit) 2

A Field Guide to Reality — Joanna Kavenna (riverrun) 4

The Man Who Spoke Snakish — Andrus Kivirähk (Grove Press UK), translated by Christopher Moseley

Death’s End — Cixin Liu (Head of Zeus)

Infinite Ground — Martin MacInnes (Atlantic Books) 2

Empire V — Victor Pelevin (Gollancz)

The Gradual — Christopher Priest (Gollancz) 3

The Trees — Ali Shaw (Bloomsbury)

The Core of the Sun — Johanna Sinisalo (Grove Press UK) 4

Hunters & Collectors — M. Suddain (Jonathan Cape)

Occupy Me — Tricia Sullivan (Gollancz) 2

Fair Rebel — Steph Swainston (Gollancz) 2

Central Station — Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing) 4

Radiance — Catherynne M. Valente (Corsair)

The Underground Railroad — Colson Whitehead (Fleet) 5

The Arrival of the Missives — Aliya Whiteley (Unsung Stories) 2

Azanian Bridges — Nick Wood (NewCon Press) 2

The Lost Time Accidents — John Wray (Canongate)

Notable books that have missed out on Sharke discussion? Maybe these:

All the Birds in the Sky — Charlie Jane Anders (Titan)

Daughter of Eden — Chris Beckett (Daughter of Eden)

The Wolf Road — Beth Lewis (Borough)

The Corporation Wars: Dissidence — Ken MacLeod (Orbit)

Into Everywhere — Paul McAuley (Gollancz)

This Census-Taker — China Miéville (Picador)

After Atlas — Emma Newman (Roc)

The Sudden Appearance of Hope — Claire North (Orbit)

Revenger — Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz)

Underground Airlines — Ben Winters (Century)

 Feel free to analyse away to your hearts content!

   Of the 37 books here I’ve read 16 so add in a few extras for various reasons and that leaves me about 25 to read before May 3^rd when the shortlist is announced. I won’t read that many as I have too far too much else to read and do so I’ll have to prioritise.

   How many? Will I do it? Will I stop caring? I’m not sure.

   I’ve read quite a few of these books over the last 2 weeks and my sense so far is that I’ve read some good books – thete are lots of good things about the Sinisalo and the Kavenna is excellent - but nothing as remarkable as those I read last year – like Whitehead, Tidhar and Whiteley. [I’d add Swainston to those three but I haven’t got to Fair Rebel yet]

   Part of the problem perhaps is that I have been reading other remarkable novels in 2017: older classics from Penelope Fitzgerald, Doris Lessing, Muriel Spark and Alan Garner plus contemporary stuff from Han Kang and Dana Spiotta. These novels manage to be uncanny, weird, complex and profound in ways that leave those others severely wanting I’m afraid. That is vaguely disappointing perhaps, but it’s the process - of making me think through more closely than ever why I’m reading, what I value, and a variety of issues surrounding genre fiction – that is proving to be key.

   I’m really looking forward to all the posts and discussions from the Shadow Clarke jurors.

Best books of 2016

I read around 100 books in 2016. Considering that I managed only 3 or 4 books in July, September, October and November combined I'm reasonably content. There will be little here to surprise readers of this blog or those who keep up with the book world, but, that said, it's been a great year for books. I get most of my ideas from the Guardian, Strange Horizons and from the writers and critics I've learned to trust. 

I would urge any book lover to try some of these if you haven't already.

My favourite fiction of 2016:

Barkskins - Annie Proulx

Days Without End - Sebastian Barry 

The Underground Railway - Colson Whitehead

Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi

The Sellout - Paul Beatty

The Vegetarian - Han Kang

Aurora - Kim Stanley Robinson

Central Station - Lavie Tidhar

What is Not Yours is Not Yours - Helen Oyeyemi

The Arrival of Missives - Aliya Whiteley

The Shore - Sara Taylor
Speak Gigantular - Irenosen Okojie

Francis Spufford - Golden Hill

Jenni Fagan - The Sunlight Pilgrims

Grief is the Thing with Feathers - Max Porter

Special mentions:

I see a number of people are putting The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts on their lists and I'm happy to repeat myself and do the same. It came out right at the end of 2015 and I read it immediately. This novel and his previous one Bete, deserve to be read widely. They are brilliant. Please keep pushing the envelope.

I despair that more people haven't talked about Alexis Wright's The Swan Book. 

Finally Kate Atkinson's A God in Ruins - like the Roberts, I read on the cusp of the New Year and loved.

Passions (new and ongoing): Elena Ferrante, Elizabeth Taylor, W. G. Sebald and Jane Gardam.

Finally read and loved: Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier and Miguel Street by V. S. Naipaul (thanks Lavie Tidhar!)

Non-fiction

This is VERY predictable but it doesn't matter. If you haven't read Amy Liptrot's The Outrun, Olivia Laing's The Lonely City and Lara Pawson's This is The Place to Be then you need to get on and read them asap. They all made me cry and gasp and re-evaluate my life and my ways of thinking. They'll all get reread in 2017.

Late in the year I loved Roy Scranton's Learning to Die in the Anthropocene and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous People's History of the United States. They are fantastic companions to many of those fiction texts above.

YA 

The outstanding discoveries of the year are Alex Wheatle's Liccle Bit and Crongton Knights and Robin Stevens' Murder Most UnLadylike series. Other great books are Katherine Rundell's The Wolf Wilder, Gary D Schulz's Orbiting Jupiter, Sarah Pinborough's The Death House and Alexia Casale's The Bone Dragon. I've also discovered Emma Carroll, Melinda Sainsbury and Edward Carey.  

New Year

I have so much to catch up on you wouldn't believe. Hopefully, at some point soon, I'll start writing again. 

This year I want to read more non-fiction. When I was an activist probably 80% of my reading was non-fiction but this year I'd be happy with something approaching a 50/50 split. 

Thanks to all the writers and critics who have inspired me in what was easily one of the most difficult years of my life. 

Finally book lovers, if you don't listen to the Backlisted podcast you really should. Their enthusiasm and love of books is infectious.