Winner of the Arthur C Clarke Award 2010

The winner of the Arthur C Clarke award for 2010 is... China Miéville for his book "The City & the City", breaking a record by becoming the first ever author to win the award 3 times!, having won the 2001 award for "Perdido Street Station" and the 2005 award for "Iron Council".

Miéville fought off some really strong competition, including heavyweights Kim Stanley Robinson for the rather special Galileo's Dream, Iain Banks for Transition and Neal Asher for Shadow of the Scorpion and Orbus.

Chair of Judges Paul Billinger said,

"It was particularly difficult for judges to pick a winner this year, China eventually won because of the intricacy of the book and the way the whole of the concept expands from the initial premise into the different types of city. The way that was done was so clearly and cleverly written."

Billinger called The City and the City "superb" and "very different from China's other books - almost more restrained, in a good way.

After hearing the news, a shocked and delighted China Miéville was recorded at the award ceremony:

The City & The City follows the unique premise of two cities (Bes?el and Ul Qoma) inhabiting the same space while the denizens of each must ignore the other or face serious punishment. These citizen's are trained from birth to recognize things belonging to the other city without actuallyseeing them.