The Arthur C Clarke Awards… scandal, beer suppage and science fiction
By Stephen Hunt
Ah, the Arthur C Clarke Awards. Truly, the Oscars of the science fiction literary community, for what other event holds its ceremony in such luxurious and glamorous surroundings… the Apollo Cinema and the SCI-FI-LONDON film festival? What other event attracts such a distinguished selection of the great and the good to hear about all that is noble and page turning in our genre?
If I could fly to Spain in a seat as plush as the ones the Apollo provides, I’d be travelling a happy man (and probably on my own Lear jet, for cushioning that substantial).
Gwyneth Jones, China Miéville, Adam Roberts, Kim Stanley Robinson, Marcel Theroux and Chris Wooding were the six authors shortlisted for this year’s Arthur C. Clarke award, a.k.a the UK’s main prize for science fiction literature.
The six shortlisted books, in alphabetical order by surname of course, no favouritism here…
Spirit – Gwyneth Jones (Gollancz).
The City & The City – China Miéville (Macmillan).
Yellow Blue Tibia – Adam Roberts (Gollancz).
Galileo’s Dream – Kim Stanley Robinson (HarperCollins).
Far North – Marcel Theroux (Faber & Faber).
Retribution Falls – Chris Wooding (Gollancz).
The six shortlisted titles were selected from a long list of forty-one eligible submissions put forward by seventeen different publishing houses. As the web site I founded, SFcrowsnest.com, supplied fabulously intelligent literary critic Paul Skevington as judge for the award, my own book, ‘The Rise of the Iron Moon’, was naturally disqualified from the action. That’s three years running now, surely a Clarke record in its own right? Well, no good deed goes unpunished.
But onto the awards night. It opened with free bottles of Polish beer at the bar, among many other libations, always a clever play when it comes to satisfying a horde of fantasy & science fiction professionals, fans, authors and assorted genre neerdowells.
I recognised quite a few faces at the awards from the panels I had spoken at or sat in at Eastercon (as well as previous dos), including Bella Pagan from Orbit, authors like Christopher Priest and Al Reynolds, not to mention Adam Roberts and China Miéville, the Forbidden Planet’s Danie Ware, which sounds like Danny Bear if you say it loud enough (in a crowded and drunk environment), and a team from SFX magazine including Saxon Bullock, Nick Setchfield and Dave Bradley.
HarperCollins Voyager supplied a lovely posse in the form of dynamic duo Emma Coode, now head editorial cheese, and Juliet Mushens, marketing svengali, by whose fair hand this blog reached production. If anyone from HarperCentral reads this, I am happy to report they behaved themselves with admirable restraint.
It was great to catch up with the Voyager team and people like Caroline Mullan, the current chair of the Science Fiction Foundation, and Rob Grant, the literary editor of SCI-FI-LONDON. One of the curses of the life of an author is you can forget about the social niceties, squirreled away from humanity with only your word processor and imagination for company. Events like the Clarke Awards are my compensation and antidote combined.
If you have been keeping up with current events, you’ll know that China Miéville came away with the grand trophy for the night. An unprecedented 3rd win in the Clarkes for China and his works. He stood up and made a great speech, which included some fine trash-talking about the derogatory way that science fiction was dismissed as essentially worthless by one of the Booker panel this year.
As to whether ‘The city and the City’ is crime, fantasy or SF, The Guardian reported China as commenting, ‘I think these debates are silly – genre is a moveable feast, but some people do ask these questions. What I don’t want to do is disavow the fantastic tradition I come from. This is a book from within the fantasy tradition, which hopefully can also be a perfectly faithful crime book – and a good book.’
The City & the City also scooped up the BSFA award for best novel earlier this month, so another nail in that canard!
Now, lastly, onto the great Sean Pertwee scandal…
The actor Sean Pertwee – aka Mutant Chronicles, Doomsday, Equilibrium, Dog Soldiers, and the upcoming The 4th Reich – was sitting directly in front of me, close to China Miéville on the left of the cinema auditorium during the ceremony. I suspect he was there as part of the SCIFI London Film Festival, the kind hosts of the Clarke awards for the last three years (last year William Hurt came to the Clarke awards… ah the glamour of the life I lead).
As the thanks to the organisations supplying the judges were made, Tom Hunter, head awards honcho, gets through thanking the SF Foundation and the BSFA, it comes to SFcrowsnest.com’s turn and said web site’s ace judge Paul Skevington, then Sean Pertwee leans forward to his mate and I am fairly sure he whispered, ‘Who the £$%£ are SFcrowsnest?’
Yikes, a Gillain Duffy/Gordon Brown moment, if there ever was one. So, Sean, you’re ofay with the SF Foundation, and even the BSFA has managed to impinge itself on the London acting community, yet the might that is www.SFcrowsnest.com has yet to disturb the Equity fellowship, hmmm?
Next you’ll be pretending that you don’t even know HarperCollin’s best-selling fantasy author, Stephen Hunt, founded that home of online genre goodness. Humph.
Oh well, you have to laugh. All future SFcrowsnest.com team t-shirts will henceforth feature a large photo of Sean Pertwee, probably from his ‘Slingers’ trailer, and the proud slogan ‘Who the £$%£ are SFcrowsnest?’ emblazoned across its centre – if I get around to doing one of those ubiquitous T-shirt stores you can tag onto your web site, I might even release the T-shirt to the public!
China is, I understand, going to be guest director at this October’s Cheltenham Literary Festival, so a further chance to fly the flag for SFF! That’s worth the cheque for £2,010 he got last night by itself.
On that subject, China Miéville and myself will be signing our books at the launch event of the SFX Summer Of SF Reading, shortly, so you can come and say hello to me and congratulate him for his 3rd win at the Clarkes!
You can get to the event via booksellers Waterstone’s and its ‘An Evening With SFX’ at Waterstone’s Piccadilly store in London on Monday 10th May 2010 (5.30pm-7.00pm). Also in attendance as well as China and myself are SFF authors Adam Roberts, Michael Cobley, Dan Abnett and Graham McNeill.
There’s also an all-star party after the signing, entry solely by winning a ticket over at: https://www.futurecompetitions.com/SFXevening/
Until next year, gentle readers, and the 2010 awards are presented in 2011.
Stephen Hunt
www.StephenHunt.net
Stormtroopers waiting outside the venue
The shortlisted titles
China accepting his award
The after-party
Great article!
Looks like it was a great night