The complete judges’ reading list for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2024

The Arthur C. Clarke Award
6 min readApr 22, 2024

The annual publication of our submissions list, the complete list of eligible books received by our judges every year, has gone from novelty to being a major part of our Clarke Award traditions.

For us award directors it is an opportunity to showcase the variety of science fiction books published across the UK in a single year, and to highlight both the challenge and the dedication required by our judging panel in parsing their collective way to a shortlist selection comprising only six titles and one ultimate winner.

This year our judges received 117 eligible titles from 50 UK publishing imprints and independent authors.

It’s common for people to look at the total number of books received as a first measure of the relative health and variety of science fiction publishing across the UK, so to be clear this is a big year. However, we also wanted to draw attention to the total number of submitting imprints, which is one of our highest ever.

You are, of course, most welcome dear readers to use this list as a means to pit your skills of prediction against our judges prior to the reveal of this year’s shortlist in May.

There is no prize for accurate prognostication, but monolith-sized bragging rights are all yours if you get it right!

That said, to our knowledge no one to date has successfully predicted all six shortlisted books in all the years we’ve published this list, and that stat includes us directors with all the advantages of our inside track…

And finally a necessary note of clarification:

The below is not a long-list, or some other form of curated or judged list, and it should not be promoted as such.

It is simply the full list of eligible titles, in alphabetical order by author surname, received by this year’s judging panel, and from which they will make their final shortlist selection of six books.

THE COMPLETE SUBMISSIONS LIST FOR THE ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD SCIENCE FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024

ConquestNina Allan (riverrun)

Chain-Gang All-StarsNana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Harvill Secker)

The FutureNaomi Alderman (4th Estate)

Promises Stronger than Darkness Charlie Jane Anders (Titan Books)

The Artifice of EternityAaron H. Arm (Cosmic Egg Books)

Thirsty AnimalsRachelle Atalla (Hodder & Stoughton)

BurrowedMary Baader Kaley (Angry Robot)

Secondhand Daylight Eugen Bacon & Andrew Hook (Cosmic Egg Books)

The StrangeNathan Ballingrud (Titan Books)

Creation Node Stephen Baxter (Gollancz)

The Sisterhood Katherine Bradley (Simon & Schuster)

MyriadJoshua David Bellin (Angry Robot)

Bridge Lauren Beukes (Penguin Michael Joseph)

AscensionNicholas Binge (HarperVoyager)

AdriftLisa Brideau (Sourcebooks)

Silicone God Victoria Brooks (Moist Books)

EvergreensLiam Brown (Legend Press)

In the Blink of an EyeJo Callaghan (Simon & Schuster)

The Lost Fleet: Outlands — ImplacableJack Campbell (Titan Books)

Infinity Gate M. R. Carey (Orbit)

Sea ChangeGina Chung (Picador)

The End of NightworkAidan Cottrell-Boyce (Granta Books)

FluxJinwoo Chong (Melville House)

Oh God, The Sun Goes David Connor (Melville House)

FrontierGrace Curtis (Hodderscape)

The Combat CodesAlexander Darwin (Orbit)

A Fire Born of ExileAliette de Bodard (Gollancz)

MeruS. B. Divya (47North)

The Lost Cause Cory Doctorow (Head of Zeus)

Alien AgendasIan Douglas (HarperVoyager)

Mindbreaker Kate Dylan (Hodder & Stoughton)

TrineChris Faraday (Angry Robot)

The Memory of AnimalsClaire Fuller (Fig Tree)

The Gauntlet and the Broken ChainIan Green (Head of Zeus/ AdAstra)

Earth RetrogradeR. W. W. Greene (Angry Robot)

The Last Star Terry Grimwood (Elsewhen Press)

The Disinformation WarS. J. Groenewegen (Goldsmiths Press)

Beautiful Shining People Michael Grothaus (Orenda Books)

Shark Heart: A Love StoryEmily Habeck (Jo Fletcher Books)

MothtownCaroline Hardaker (Angry Robot)

The ForcingPaul E. Hardisty (Orenda Books)

Titanium NoirNick Harkaway (Corsair)

World Running DownAl Hess (Angry Robot)

LambMatt Hill (Dead Ink Books)

The InfiniteAda Hoffmann (Angry Robot)

Red Dust, White SnowPan Huiting (Fairlight Books)

The Dimensions of a CaveGreg Jackson (Granta Books)

These Burning Stars Bethany Jacobs (Orbit)

The Space Between UsDoug Johnstone (Orenda Books)

In the Lives of PuppetsTJ Klune (Tor UK)

Birds of ParadiseRudolf Kremers (Elsewhen Press)

Biography of XCatherine Lacey (Granta Books)

The Ten Percent Thief Lavanya Lakshminarayan (Solaris)

Translation StateAnn Leckie (Orbit)

Perilous Times Thomas D. Lee (Orbit)

Doubleback: The Hunt G. S. Lester (G. S. Lester)

The Death I Gave Him Em X. Liu (Solaris)

The Blue, Beautiful WorldKaren Lord (Gollancz)

Prophet Helen Macdonald & Sin Blaché (Jonathan Cape)

Ravage: An Astonishment of Fire MacGillivray (Bloodaxe Books)

In AscensionMartin MacInnes (Atlantic Books)

Beyond the Reach of EarthKen MacLeod (Orbit)

The GhostwritersM. J. Maloney (Goldsmiths Press)

The Marriage ActJohn Marrs (Macmillan)

HopelandIan McDonald (Gollancz)

She’s a KillerKirsten McDougall (Gallic Books)

Our Hideous ProgenyC. E. McGill (Doubleday)

Moojag and the Lost MemoriesN. E. McMorran (Spondylux Press)

Refractions M V Melcer (Storm Publishing)

Sons of Darkness Gourav Mohanty (Head of Zeus / AdAstra)

The 14th StormDaniel J Mooney (Legend Press)

The Mountain in the SeaRay Nayler (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)

RenegadeMiles Nelson (Elsewhen Press)

The TerraformersAnnalee Newitz (Orbit)

JuliaSandra Newman (Granta Books)

More PerfectTemi Oh (Simon & Schuster)

The Blighted Stars Megan E. O’Keefe (Orbit)

Jungle HouseJulianne Pachico (Serpent’s Tail)

Fractal Noise Christopher Paolini (Tor UK)

Zoey is too Drunk for this DystopiaJason Pargin (Titan Books)

The Other ShoreHoa Pham (Goldsmiths Press)

The Thick and the LeanChana Porter (Titan Books)

Descendant MachineGareth L. Powell (Titan Books)

My Brother’s KeeperTim Powers (Head of Zeus/AdAstra)

AirsideChristopher Priest (Gollancz)

The Surviving SkyKritika H. Rao (Titan Books)

Quantum RadioA. G. Riddle (Head of Zeus / AdAstra)

The Wrath of the BlobDashe Roberts (Future Human)

Flight of the Eternal Emperor James Rogers (Cosmic Egg Books)

Arch-ConspiratorVeronica Roth (Titan Books)

Red River SevenA. J. Ryan (Orbit)

HimGeoff Ryman (Angry Robot)

Starter VillainJohn Scalzi (Tor UK)

A Day of Fallen NightSamantha Shannon (Bloomsbury)

Suborbital 7John Shirley (Titan Books)

The Centre Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi (Picador)

A Second Chance for YesterdayR. A. Sinn (Solaris)

Bird Life: a novelAnna Smaill (Scribe Publications)

OneEve Smith (Orenda Books)

Cahokia JazzFrancis Spufford (Faber & Faber)

LoopholeIan Stewart (Elsewhen Press)

Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon -Wole Talabi (Gollancz)

House of Open Wounds Adrian Tchaikovsky (Head of Zeus/AdAstra)

Some Desperate GloryEmily Tesh (Orb it)

The Circumference of the WorldLavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)

Pink SlimeFernanda Trías (Scribe Publications)

The Phoenix KingAparna Verma (Orbit)

The DissentLeah Vernon (47North)

Corey Fah Does Social MobilityIsabel Waidner (Hamish Hamilton)

Lessons in BirdwatchingHoney Watson (Angry Robot)

Paradise-1David Wellington (Orbit)

The Night Field -Donna Glee Williams (Jo Fletcher Books)

Girlfriend on MarsDeborah Willis (Serpent’s Tail)

Mother SeaLorraine Wilson (Fairlight Books)

Bang Bang BodhisattvaAubrey Wood (Solaris)

AndroneDwain Worrell (47North)

Land of Milk and HoneyC Pam Zhang (Hutchinson Heinemann)

The judging panel for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2024 are:

The Clarke Award directors have released this submissions data as an open-source resource intended to showcase the breadth and diversity of UK science fiction literature and publishing.

This forms part of the award’s ongoing commitment to self-accountability, the positive promotion of science fiction, and supporting equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) across the UK publishing industry and wider science fiction community.

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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