The BSFA and Arthur C Clarke Awards
One of the differences between picking books here at FPI as opposed to a general bookstore is that we like SF&F. In fact we love it, we read it, we plead or bribe authors to talk to our blog or add a personal slant to their recent books on our web site, we do our best to tell our customers about the best books. We also believe in supporting the frankly excellent authors on the two most prestigious literary awards in British SF, the Arthur C Clarke and the BSFAs.
There is often crossover between both lists, which is not surprising given they are selecting from UK published books from the same year. This year there is quite a lot of crossover, with three contenders appearing on both lists. Two of those three writers - Geoff Ryman and Ken MacLeod - are previous winners; Geoff for The Child Garden back in 1990 (Clarke) and Ken for The Sky Road in 1999 while the third, Charlie Stross, picked up a Hugo at last summer's Worldcon. The other authors on the lists all have an impressive pedigree of awards and even more nominations for numerous literary prizes.
The range is quite diverse; in fact, as someone who has worked in the booktrade for a long time I'd say the nominees for both awards are often more inventive and diverse than the nominess in more mainstream literary awards. Despite that, most of the 'regular' bookstores and the literati in general often ignore SF&F or dismiss it with some uninformed, stereotypical remarks and cliches. Well, we know better because unlike them we read those books before we make up our minds. We know that these books can take us exploring through complex politics, the implications for humanity of its technological advancement, gender issues, love, life, death and even the afterlife. And that's just from the books on the shortlists here.
Quite why SF&F writing draws such contempt from the mainstream literary establishment has never been overly clear to me. After all, many of the most respected authors in the literary canon have used elements of SF and Fantasy in their writing, from Franz Kafka to Shakespeare to Margaret Atwood to Alisdair Gray or George Orwell. Yes, SF&F writers may use clever pieces of technology extrapolated from today's science in their plot, or feature a god or mythical setting; often the genre is pilloried for this, as if mainstream literature never uses plot devices or McGuffins. As with any good novel these are merely part of the scenery; the real meat of the tales is in exploring humanity - emotions, desires, frailties, strengths, hopes, fears, belief systems, morals, cybernetic talking cats (thanks, Charlie).
This is what any good writer does and, if you are lucky, you also get a cracking and engrossing tale to carry that emotional investment along. And these are good writers, the cream of the crop. We're delighted at FPI to once again bring you the nominees for the BSFAs and the Arthur C Clarke Awards, all offered at a generous 33% discount because we know you won't be able to choose and will want to pick several, so please enjoy browsing our awards section, where you can also check out other awards listings such as last year's Harvey and Eisner awards and our Staff Picks 'best of the year' choices from 2005.
There is often crossover between both lists, which is not surprising given they are selecting from UK published books from the same year. This year there is quite a lot of crossover, with three contenders appearing on both lists. Two of those three writers - Geoff Ryman and Ken MacLeod - are previous winners; Geoff for The Child Garden back in 1990 (Clarke) and Ken for The Sky Road in 1999 while the third, Charlie Stross, picked up a Hugo at last summer's Worldcon. The other authors on the lists all have an impressive pedigree of awards and even more nominations for numerous literary prizes.
The range is quite diverse; in fact, as someone who has worked in the booktrade for a long time I'd say the nominees for both awards are often more inventive and diverse than the nominess in more mainstream literary awards. Despite that, most of the 'regular' bookstores and the literati in general often ignore SF&F or dismiss it with some uninformed, stereotypical remarks and cliches. Well, we know better because unlike them we read those books before we make up our minds. We know that these books can take us exploring through complex politics, the implications for humanity of its technological advancement, gender issues, love, life, death and even the afterlife. And that's just from the books on the shortlists here.
Quite why SF&F writing draws such contempt from the mainstream literary establishment has never been overly clear to me. After all, many of the most respected authors in the literary canon have used elements of SF and Fantasy in their writing, from Franz Kafka to Shakespeare to Margaret Atwood to Alisdair Gray or George Orwell. Yes, SF&F writers may use clever pieces of technology extrapolated from today's science in their plot, or feature a god or mythical setting; often the genre is pilloried for this, as if mainstream literature never uses plot devices or McGuffins. As with any good novel these are merely part of the scenery; the real meat of the tales is in exploring humanity - emotions, desires, frailties, strengths, hopes, fears, belief systems, morals, cybernetic talking cats (thanks, Charlie).
This is what any good writer does and, if you are lucky, you also get a cracking and engrossing tale to carry that emotional investment along. And these are good writers, the cream of the crop. We're delighted at FPI to once again bring you the nominees for the BSFAs and the Arthur C Clarke Awards, all offered at a generous 33% discount because we know you won't be able to choose and will want to pick several, so please enjoy browsing our awards section, where you can also check out other awards listings such as last year's Harvey and Eisner awards and our Staff Picks 'best of the year' choices from 2005.
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