Arthur C. Clarke Award 2015

S C I E N C E F I C T I ON B O O K o f t h e Y E A R

The Arthur C. Clarke Award is given for the best science fiction novel first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. The award was established with a grant given by Sir Arthur C. Clarke and the first prize was awarded in 1987 to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

Now in its 29th year, the award is THE Science Fiction Prize in the UK with the winner receiving a cheque for £2,015 and media partnership from SFX Magazine. The winner will be announced on Wednesday 6th May at an exclusive award ceremony held at Foyles Bookshop, London, and taking place as part of the activities leading up to the SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival.

SHORTLIST www.clarkeaward.com

'I am with you always, even unto the end of the world . . .'

The Book of Strange New Things

by Michel Faber

Peter Leigh is a missionary called to go on the journey of a lifetime. Leaving behind his beloved wife, Bea, he boards a flight for a remote and unfamiliar land, a place where the locals are hungry for the teachings of the Bible - his 'book of strange new things'. It is a quest that will challenge Peter's beliefs, his understanding of the limits of the human body and, most of all, his love for Bea.

The Book of Strange New Things is a wildly original tale of adventure, faith and the ties that might hold two people together when they are worlds apart. This momentous novel, Faber's first since The Crimson Petal and the White, sees him at his expectation-defying best.

Published by Canongate

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Michel Faber (c) Eva Youren

Michel Faber has written seven other books, including the highly acclaimed The Crimson Petal and the White, The Fahrenheit Twins and the Whitbreadshortlisted novel Under the Skin. He has also written two novellas, The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps (2001) and The Courage Consort (2002), and has won several short-story awards, including the Neil Gunn, Ian St James and Macallan.

Born in Holland, brought up in Australia, he now lives in the Scottish Highlands.

Station Eleven

by Emily St. John Mandel

Moving backwards and forwards in time, from the glittering years just before the collapse to the strange and altered world that exists twenty years after, Station Eleven charts the unexpected twists of fate that connect six people: famous actor Arthur Leander; Jeevan - warned about the flu just in time; Arthur's first wife Miranda; Arthur's oldest friend Clark; Kirsten, a young actress with the Travelling Symphony; and the mysterious and self-proclaimed 'prophet'.

Thrilling, unique and deeply moving, this is a beautiful novel that asks questions about art and fame and about the relationships that sustain us through anything – even the end of the world.

Emily St. John Mandel was born in Canada and studied dance at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. She is the author of the novels Last Night in Montreal, The Singer's Gun, The Lola Quartet and Station Eleven and is a staff writer for The Millions.

She is married and lives in New York.

Published by Picador

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Emily St. John Mandel (c) Dese’Rae L. Stage

M e m o r y o f Wa t e r b y Emmi Itäranta

I haven’t dared to go to the spring in seven weeks.

Yesterday I turned on the tap in the house and held the mouth of the waterskin to its metal. I spoke to it in pretty words and ugly words, and I may have even screamed and wept, but water doesn’t care for human sorrows. It flows without slowing or quickening its pace in the darkness of the earth, where only stones will hear.

The pipe gave a few drops, perhaps a spoonful, into my waterskin.

I know what it means.

P u b l i s h e d b y H a r p e r Vo y a g e r

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Emmi Itäranta was born in Tampere, Finland, where she also grew up. She holds an MA in Drama from the University of Tampere and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Kent, UK, where she began writing her award-winning debut novel Teemestarin kirja (The Tea Master’s Book) under the title Memory of Water.

Itäranta wrote the full text in both Finnish and English, and in 2011, Teemestarin kirja won the Sci-fi and Fantasy Literary Contest organised by the Finnish publishing house Teos. Itäranta’s professional background includes stints as a columnist, theatre critic, dramaturge, scriptwriter and press officer.

She lives in Canterbury, UK, and has recently entered the strange world of writing full time.

The extraordinary journey of one unforgettable character - a story of friendship and betrayal, loyalty and redemption, love and loneliness and the inevitable march of time.

Harry August is on his deathbed. Again.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

by Claire North

No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes.

Until now.

As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. 'I nearly missed you, Doctor August,' she says.

'I need to send a message.'

This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.

Claire North is the pen name for the Carnegie-nominated Catherine Webb.

Her previous novel The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club, the Waterstones Book Club and the Radio 2 Book Club.

Catherine currently works as a theatre lighting designer and is a fan of big cities, urban magic, Thai food and graffiti-spotting. She lives in London.

Published by Little, Brown-Orbit Claire North (c) Siobhan Waters

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Europe In Autumn

by Dave Hutchinson

Published by Solaris

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Rudi is a cook in a Kraków restaurant, but when his boss asks him to help a cousin escape across the border, a new career – part spy, part people-smuggler – begins. Recruited by the shadowy organisation Les Coureurs des Bois, Rudi is schooled in espionage and sent across a Europe fractured into hundreds of tiny and dangerous nations.

Kidnapped, double-crossed and stuck in a map that constantly re-draws itself Rudi is the heart this incredible thriller. Evoking the Cold War of John Le Carré and the nightmarish landscape of Franz Kafka, this is a science fiction novel like no other.

Dave Hutchinson was born in Sheffield in 1960. After reading American Studies at the University of Nottingham, he moved into journalism. He’s the author of six collections of short stories and the editor of three more, and the novels The Villages and Europe In Autumn – which was shortlisted for the BSFA Award, as was his novella The Push. Europe At Midnight, a follow-up to Europe In Autumn, will be published in November 2015. He lives in London with his wife and several cats.

Emotionally charged and gripping from beginning to end, The Girl With All The Gifts is the most powerful and affecting thriller you will read this year.

The Girl With All The Gifts

by M.R.Carey

NOT EVERY GIFT IS A BLESSING

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class.

When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair.

She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite.

But they don't laugh.

Melanie is a very special girl.

Published by Little, Brown-Orbit

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M. R. Carey is a pen name for an established British writer of prose fiction and comic books. He has written for both DC and Marvel, including critically acclaimed runs on X-Men and Fantastic Four, Marvel's flagship superhero titles.

His creator-owned books regularly appear in the New York Times graphic fiction bestseller list. He also has several previous novels and one Hollywood movie screenplay to his credit.

M.R.Carey (c) Charlie Hopkinson

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