Abigail Nussbaum's The 2013 Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist, Part 1

[james_davis_nicoll]

Every year, the judges for the Arthur C. Clarke Award face a challenge. They have to read a truly heroic amount of books. They have to critically evaluate each of those books. They have to agree amongst themselves on a shortlist of six books, representing the best science fiction novel published in the UK in the last year (while, as the award's administrators' faithfully remind us every year, arriving at their own definitions of "best," "science fiction," and "novel"). And they have to pick a winner out of the six, and do so in the wake of a fannish response that almost inevitably decries their choices as too populist, too literary, too traditional, too experimental, too political, or not enough of any of these things. The judges for the 2013 Clarke award, however, faced an extra challenge. This year, on top of all the usual tasks, it was incumbent upon them to produce a shortlist that would prove that we have not, in fact, lived and fought in vain.