Arthur C Clarke Shortlist

[Michelle]

The six shortlisted books for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction novel of the year published in 2014 are:

 
The Girl With All The Gifts - M.R. Carey 
The Book Of Strange New Things - Michel Faber 
Europe In Autumn - Dave Hutchinson 
Memory Of Water - Emmi Itäranta 
The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August - Claire North 
Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel 

 

The 6 shortlisted titles were selected from a list of 107 individual eligible submissions, put forward by 36 different publishing houses and imprints.

Award Director Tom Hunter said:

“This is a quintessentially Clarke Award kind of a shortlist of exactly the sort that we’ve become known for over the years and always love to celebrate. Congratulations to all of our shortlisted authors, their publishing teams and, of course, a big thank you to everyone on our judging panel this year.

“We’ve got six authors who have never been nominated for the Clarke Award before and while the subject matter may often be dark, when we think about what this list says about the strength of science fiction literature itself, I see a future that’s full of confidence, creativity and diversity of imagination.”

 

[Michelle]

I have to say, when I saw this on twitter this morning, it made me question my own personal definition of science fiction. The Girl with All the Gifts, for example, has also recently been nominated for a horror award, and Station Eleven didn't strike me at all as SF.

 

So, which have you read, which might you now pick up, and how do you define Science Fiction?

[Nollaig]

For me, science fiction has always involved an alternate or future version of our current world in which concepts or technologies that might only be theoretical here have a scientifically-based reality in the story, and I guess where those things are quite fundamental to the story, not just a glossed-over background element. Anything too flimsy to be called 'science' is fantasy, for me. I think I might be defining fairly hard science fiction though. I don't know much about Harry August, Station Eleven or Girl/Gifts (such long titles, can't be bothered) but none of them struck me as science fiction novels.