40th Arthur C Clarke Award winner announced

At a packed event in Patch St Paul's, London, the 40th Arthur C Clarke Award winner was announced. It was slightly delayed by a celestial event that clearly hadn't got the message, an occurrence that would undoubtedly have made the late Sir Clarke chuckle.

The winning novel was When There Are Wolves Again by EJ Swift, a notable novel about climate change that appears uniquely relevant as we in the UK go through the 5th Heatwave of the year, with Europe blistering and sea temperatures at an all-time high. It won against a strong shortlist of some standout sci-fi books published in the UK last year. The shortlist included:

• Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (Michael Joseph)
• The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami (Bloomsbury Circus)
• Luminous by Silvia Park (Magpie)
• There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm (Del Rey)
• When There Are Wolves Again by E.J. Swift (Arcadia)
• The Salt Oracle by Lorraine Wilson (Solaris).

It was a record year for submissions too, with 132 eligible books received, which gave me and the other fellow Judges quite a stack to consider.

Chair of Judges, Dr Andrew M. Butler, said:

“For forty years, the many Arthur C. Clarke Award judges have made the difficult choice of best sf novel. For our anniversary year, they picked E.J. Swift’s near future When There Are Wolves Again, a story of environmental change and possible recovery. If the industry continues producing such awesome novels, the ten years between now and the award’s 50th anniversary will be worth watching out for.”

Award Director Tom Hunter said:

“The world of When There Are Wolves Again is an ambitious study in the power of long-term hope in the face of climate breakdown. Science fiction at its most powerful is often not about predicting the future but showing us that no one future has to be inevitable.”

Marking the award’s 40^th anniversary year, Tom Hunter added:

“Sir Arthur was always passionate that the award’s definition of science fiction be as diverse and open as possible, and he would have applauded the record levels of new SF being published today and been delighted by this year’s winner.

“Following Sir Arthur’s passing, the award faced the real possibility of being forced to close after its 25^th year. I am delighted that we have been able to steward the award successfully all the way to its 40^th anniversary, and am happy to report the directors are already making plans for celebrating in 2036.”

The Judging panel consisted of:

• Antony Jones (me) and Eliza Claudia Filimon for the British Science Fiction Association.
• Tiffani Angus and John Coxon for the Science Fiction Foundation.
• Esther MacCallum Stewart for the SCI-FI-LONDON film festival.