At long last, the submissions list for the 2017 Arthur C Clarke Award is out!

The Centre for Science Fiction and Fantasy at Anglia Ruskin University is delighted to host a competition for readers to guess the short list.

The winner, thanks to the generosity of the Arthur C Clarke Award, will receive copies of all six of this year’s shortlisted novels.

To enter, post a comment in reply to this post with a list of six books (no more, no fewer), selected from the list of 86 eligible submissions, along with a rationale as to why you think that shortlist will be the ones which the judges have chosen. Pingbacks won’t be accepted as entries.

Your rationale can be anything you like, whether brief or detailed, whether your guess is based on extensive reading or randomly guessing; but you must provide one in order to have a valid entry for this contest.

The Nitty Gritty Details

You may not enter this contest if you are a current Clarke Award judge, a family member of a current judge, or someone who has access to the currently-embargoed press release containing the shortlist. You may not enter the contest multiple times: only your first entry will be entered into the contest. You are welcome to enter from wherever you are: the prize can be shipped internationally.

The winner will be the person who has correctly guessed the most shortlisted books. In the event of a tie, the winner will be randomly chosen by Tom Hunter, Clarke Award Director, from those who correctly guessed the most shortlisted books, and his decision in all aspects of the contest is final.

The deadline for your six guesses, posted as a reply to this post along with your rationale for your guess, will be 23:59 GMT on Tuesday, 2nd May.

The List Itself

Note that this is a submissions list, of the books submitted by their imprints, for consideration by the judges. It is a not a longlist.

SUBMISSIONS LIST 2017

This is a complete list of every eligible title submitted for consideration for this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award.

This year the judges received 86 titles from 39 publishing imprints and independent authors.

Savant — Nik Abnett (Solaris)

The Power — Naomi Alderman (Penguin Viking)

Necrotech — K.C. Alexander (Angry Robot)

All the Birds in the Sky — Charlie Jane Anders (Titan)

War Factory — Neal Asher (Tor)

Creation Machine — Andrew Bannister (Bantam)

Starbound — Dave Bara (Del Rey)

The Medusa Chronicles — Stephen Baxter & Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz)

Daughter of Eden — Chris Beckett (Daughter of Eden)

Songshifting — Chris Bell (wordsSHIFTminds)

City of Blades — Robert Jackson Bennett (Jo Fletcher Books)

Sockpuppet — Mathew Blakstad (Hodder & Stoughton)

The Hatching — Ezekiel Boone (Gollancz)

Good Morning, Midnight — Lily Brooks-Dalton (Wiedenfeld & Nicolson)

Morning Star — Pierce Brown (Hodder & Stoughton)

Lament for the Fallen — Gavin Chait (Doubleday)

A Closed and Common Orbit — Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton)

The Rise of Io — Wesley Chu (Angry Robot)

Forsaken Skies — D. Nolan Clark (Orbit)

Ancestral Machines — Michael Cobley (Orbit)

Dark Matter — Blake Crouch (Crown)

The Destructives — Matthew De Abaitua (Angry Robot)

Zero K — Don DeLillo (Picador)

The Tourist — Robert Dickinson (Orbit)

The Blood of the Hoopoe — Naomi Foyle (Jo Fletcher Books)

The Many Selves of Katherine North — Emma Geen (Bloomsbury)

Survival Game — Gary Gibson (Tor)

New Pompeii — Daniel Godfrey (Titan)

Front Lines — Michael Grant (Electric Monkey)

Ninefox Gambit — Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)

The Bastard Wonderland — Lee Harrison (Wrecking Ball Press)

Graft — Matt Hill (Angry Robot)

The Last Gasp — Trevor Hoyle (Jo Fletcher Books)

Europe in Winter — Dave Hutchinson (Solaris)

The Fifth Season — N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

A Field Guide to Reality — Joanna Kavenna (Riverrun)

The Man Who Spoke Snakish — Andrus Kivirähk (Grove Press UK)

False Hearts — Laura Lam (Macmillan)

Nemesis — Alex Lamb (Gollancz)

The Sign of One — Eugene Lambert (Electric Monkey)

The Wolf Road — Beth Lewis (Borough)

Death’s End — Cixin Liu (Head of Zeus)

The Disciple — Stephen Lloyd Jones (Headline)

Infinite Ground — Martin MacInnes (Atlantic Books)

The Corporation Wars: Dissidence — Ken MacLeod (Orbit)

Into Everywhere — Paul McAuley (Gollancz)

Burning Midnight — Will McIntosh (Delacorte Press)

This Census-Taker — China Miéville (Picador)

When the Floods Came — Clare Morrall (riverun)

Sleeping Giants — Sylvain Neuvel (Michael Joseph)

After Atlas — Emma Newman (Roc)

The Sudden Appearance of Hope — Claire North (Orbit)

The Last One — Alexandra Oliva (Michael Joseph)

South — Frank Owen (Corvus)

The Girl with Two Souls — Stephen Palmer (Infinity Plus)

The Girl with One Friend — Stephen Palmer (Infinity Plus)

The Girl with No Soul — Stephen Palmer (Infinity Plus)

Empire V — Victor Pelevin (Gollancz)

Outriders — Jay Posey (Angry Robot)

Medusa’s Web — Tim Powers (Corvus)

The Long Cosmos — Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter (Doubleday)

The Gradual — Christopher Priest (Gollancz)

Revenger — Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz)

Invasion — Luke Rhinehart (Titan)

Waking Hell — Al Robertson (Gollancz)

The Lazarus War — Jamie Sawyer (Orbit)

The Trees — Ali Shaw (Bloomsbury)

The Core of the Sun — Johanna Sinisalo (Grove Press UK)

Dark Made Dawn — J.P. Smythe (Hodder & Stoughton)

The High Ground — Melinda Snodgrass (Titan)

The Nightmare Stacks — Charles Stross (Orbit)

Hunters & Collectors — M. Suddain (Jonathan Cape)

Occupy Me — Tricia Sullivan (Gollancz)

Fair Rebel — Steph Swainston (Gollancz)

Central Station — Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)

United States of Japan — Peter Tieryas (Angry Robot)

The Devil’s Evidence — Simon Kurt Unsworth (Del Rey)

Radiance — Catherynne M. Valente (Corsair)

Behind the Throne — K.B. Wagers (Orbit)

Escapology — Ren Warom (Titan)

Every Mountain Made Low — Alex White (Solaris)

The Underground Railroad — Colson Whitehead (Fleet)

The Arrival of Missives — Aliya Whiteley (Unsung Stories)

Underground Airlines — Ben Winters (Century)

Azanian Bridges — Nick Wood (NewCon Press)

The Lost Time Accidents — John Wray (Canongate)