A record-breaking year: The complete submissions list of eligible titles for the Arthur C Clarke Award 2019

The Arthur C. Clarke Award
6 min readApr 23, 2019

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Image: SpaceX /Pexels.com

It began as an experiment, but for a decade now we’ve been releasing the full submissions data for the Arthur C. Clarke Award as a first overview of the previous year in science fiction publishing.

Back when I first became involved with the award in 2006, the total number of books received was a far more modest 32, but that has grown steadily in the past years, first reaching the 100+ books mark in 2013 and now topping that previous high with a grand total of 124 books received from 46 UK publishing imprints and independent authors.

That complete submissions list is published below, but before you scroll down I wanted to quickly remind everyone as always that this is not a longlist, it is merely the list of eligible books received by our judges from the publishing year 2018.

With a decade’s worth of submissions under our belts we’re planning to publish a series of deeper dives into this data over the coming weeks, running up until the announcement of this year’s winner on Wednesday 17th July 2019; and, of course, this data is open to anyone to make their own analysis too!

(On that note, if you have a great idea for a line of enquiry we might publish here, please do get in touch)

6 of these of 124 books will go on to be shortlisted for this year’s prize, but which six?

Tom Hunter, Award Director

THE SUBMISSIONS LIST

Origamy — Rachel Armstrong (NewCon Press)

The Soldier — Neal Asher (Tor)

Ivon — Michael Aylwin (RedDoor)

Census — Jesse Ball (Granta)

Space Unicorn Blues — T.J. Berry (Angry Robot)

Alt Truths — Alec Birri (Near-Future Nightmares)

Adrift — Rob Boffard (Orbit)

The Subjugate — Amanda Bridgeman (Angry Robot)

Iron Gold — Pierce Brown (Hodder & Stoughton)

Semiosis — Sue Burke (HarperVoyager)

Wyntertide — Andrew Caldecott (Jo Fletcher Books)

XX — Angela Chadwick (Dialogue Books)

Record of a Spaceborn Few — Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton)

Everything About You — Heather Child (Orbit)

Splintered Suns — Michael Cobley (Orbit)

The Lights of Time — Paul Ian Cross (Farrow)

Green Jay and Crow — D.J. Daniels (Abaddon)

Vox — Christina Dalcher (HQ)

Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful — Arwen Elys Dayton (HarperVoyager)

The Earlie King & the Kid in Yellow — Danny Denton (Granta)

One of Us — Craig DiLouie (Orbit)

The Book of Hidden Things — Francesco Dimitri (Titan Books)

Shattermoon — Dominic Dulley (Jo Fletcher Books)

Murmur — Will Eaves (CB Editions)

Broken Branches — Ben Ellis (Ben Ellis)

Future Home of the Living God — Louise Erdrich (Corsair)

Rejoice — Steven Erikson (Gollancz)

Hidden Sun — Jaine Fenn (Angry Robot)

The Charmed Life of Alex Moore — Molly Flatt (Macmillan)

Eve of Man — Giovanna and Tom Fletcher (Michael Joseph)

Stained Light — Naomi Foyle (Jo Fletcher Books)

In/Half — Jasmin B. Frelih (Oneworld)

The Synapse Sequence — Daniel Godfrey (Titan Books)

Connect — Julian Gough (Picador)

The Quanderhorn Xperimentations — Rob Grant and Andrew Marshall (Gollancz)

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing — Hank Green (Trapeze)

Spare and Found Parts — Sarah Maria Griffin (Titan Books)

Daughters of Forgotten Light — Sean Grigsby (Angry Robot)

Smoke Eaters — Sean Grigsby (Angry Robot)

Salvation — Peter F. Hamilton (Macmillan)

Pulse — Michael Harvey (Bloomsbury)

Extinct — R. R. Haywood (47North)

Suicide Club — Rachel Heng (Sceptre)

Europe at Dawn — Dave Hutchinson (Solaris)

Shelter — Dave Hutchinson (Solaris)

The Smoke — Simon Ings (Gollancz)

Providence — Caroline Kepnes (Simon & Schuster)

Lifel1k3 — Jay Kristoff (HarperVoyager)

The Quantum Magician — Derek Künsken (Solaris)

The Changeling — Victor LaValle (Canongate)

Revenant Gun — Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)

The Rig — Roger Levy (Titan Books)

The Biggerers — Amy Lilwall (Point Blank)

An Ocean of Minutes — Thea Lim (Quercus)

Ball Lightning — Cixin Liu (Head of Zeus)

Fugitive Six — Pittacus Lore (Michael Joseph)

Noumenon Infinity — Marina J. Lostetter (HarperVoyager)

The Psychology of Time Travel — Kate Mascarenhas (Head of Zeus)

Battlestar Suburbia — Chris McCrudden (Farrago Books)

Black Star — Michael Mendoza (Kate Pythian Publishing)

Red Planet — Michael Mendoza (Kate Pythian Publishing)

Blackfish City — Sam J Miller (Orbit)

Into the Fire — Elizabeth Moon (Orbit)

One Way — S. J. Morden (Gollancz)

Thin Air — Richard Morgan (Gollancz)

Before Mars — Emma Newman (Gollancz)

Only Human — Sylvain Neuval (Michael Joseph)

The Body Library — Jeff Noon (Angry Robot)

84K — Claire North (Orbit)

Alienated: Grounded at Groom Lake — Jeff Norton (Awesome Reads)

Hazards of Time Travel — Joyce Carol Oates (Fourth Estate)

Burning Sky — Weston Ochse (Solaris)

Quietus — Tristan Palmgren (Angry Robot)

Terminus — Tristan Palmgren (Angry Robot)

Bandwidth — Eliot Peper (47North)

From Distant Stars — Sam Peters (Gollancz)

Embers of War — Gareth L. Powell (Titan Books)

The Dreaming Stars — Tim Pratt (Angry Robot)

An American Story — Christopher Priest (Gollancz)

Summerland — Hannu Rajaniemi (Gollancz)

Nyxia Unleashed — Scott Reintgen (Michael Joseph)

Elysium Fire — Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz)

Genome — A.G. Riddle (Head of Zeus)

By the Pricking of Her Thumb — Adam Roberts (Gollancz)

Doyle’s Law — Sam Roberts (Sam Roberts)

Red Moon — Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)

Free Chocolate — Amber Royer (Angry Robot)

Lovecraft Country — Matt Ruff (Tor UK)

Empire of Silence — Christopher Ruocchio (Gollancz)

Frankenstein in Baghdad — Ahmed Saadawi (Oneworld)

Skyward — Brandon Sanderson (Gollancz)

Snapshot — Brandon Sanderson (Gollancz)

The Eternity War: Exodus — Jamie Sawyer (Orbit)

Head On — John Scalzi (Tor UK)

The War in the Dark — Nick Setchfield (Titan Books)

The Book of M — Peng Shepherd (HarperVoyager)

The Second Death of Daedalus Mole — Niall Slater (Unbound Digital)

The Bastard Legion: Friendly Fire — Gavin Smith (Gollancz)

I Still Dream — James Smythe (The Borough Press)

Happy Doomsday — David Sosnowski (47North)

The Electric State — Simon Stålenhag (Simon & Schuster)

The Blinds — Adam Sternbergh (Faber & Faber)

Dark State — Charles Stross (Tor)

The Labyrinth Index — Charles Stross (Orbit)

Paris Adrift — E.J. Swift (Solaris)

The Last Children of Tokyo — Yoko Tawada (Granta)

Implanted — Lauren C. Teffeau (Angry Robot)

Rosewater — Tade Thompson (Orbit)

Death of a Clone — Alex Thomson (Abaddon)

Unholy Land — Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)

The Tropic of Eternity — Tom Toner (Gollancz)

The Cabin at the End of the World — Paul Tremblay (Titan Books)

Claudia — Anthony Trevelyan (Sceptre)

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle — Stuart Turton (Raven)

Space Opera — Catherynne M. Valente (Corsair)

Blood Binds the Pack — Alex Wells (Angry Robot)

The Loosening Skin — Aliya Whiteley (Unsung Stories)

Tell the Machine Goodnight — Katie Williams (The Borough Press)

The Stars Now Unclaimed — Drew Williams (Simon & Schuster)

The Feed — Nick Clark Windo (Headline)

Altered Straits — Kevin Martens Wong (Epigram Books)

Halcyon — Rio Youers (Titan Books)

The Book of Joan — Lidia Yuknavitch (Canongate)

Red Clocks — Leni Zumas (The Borough Press)

ELIGIBILITY FOR ENTRY

A science fiction novel receiving its first United Kingdom publication during the calendar year 2018.

The prize is open to novels written in English by an author of any nationality, provided that the novel is published for the first time by a UK publisher between 1 January and 31 December of the year for which submissions are open.

Although the novel’s first UK publication must fall within these dates, it is still eligible if it was previously published in other territories or has been translated into English for the first time in the judging year.

We encourage publishers to submit books from across the range of science fiction genre publishing. These must be unified and substantial works, with the final decision of what constitutes unified, substantial, science fiction and indeed novel, remaining with the judging panel for the year of submissions in question and the governing committee of the award.

The judges for the 2019 prize are nominated by our supporting organisations, the Science Fiction Foundation, the British Science Fiction Association and the SCI-FI-LONDON film festival.

This year’s judges are Kris Black, Rhian Drinkwater, Kari Maund, Chris Pak and Andrew Wallace. The Chair of Judges is Dr Andrew M. Butler representing the Arthur C. Clarke Award in a non-voting role.

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The Arthur C. Clarke Award

Stories, interviews and news from the Arthur C. Clarke Award science fiction book of the year. clarkeaward.com