The reclusive Thomas Pynchon might have shunned the National Book Awards last year, but organisers of the Kitschies are hoping the lure of a stuffed tentacle could bring the publicity-shy US author out of hiding after his multi-genre outing Bleeding Edge made the shortlist for this year's best novel prize.

Pynchon is competing with poet Anne Carson and crossover novelist Patrick Ness on what must be one of the most varied shortlists in history for a science fiction prize.

The Kitschies' Red Tentacle award, for the year's "most progressive, intelligent and entertaining" novel containing elements of the "speculative or fantastic", pits Pynchon's Bleeding Edge – set in New York just before 9/11 – against rivals including Carson's verse-novel Red Doc>, a modern take on the myth of the red, winged monster Geryon .

The Booker-shortlisted Ruth Ozeki makes the lineup for A Tale for the Time Being, her exploration of the nature of time, while the Carnegie medal-winning Ness is nominated for More Than This, which takes place – possibly – in the afterlife of a teenager trapped in a deserted world. James Smythe's The Machine, billed as a "Frankenstein for the 21st century" and set in a world where memories can be preserved by a machine, completes the shortlist.

Pynchon failed to attend last year's National Book Awards ceremony, despite being shortlisted for the prize. Professor Irwin Corey accepted the same award in Pynchon's place when the author won it in 1974 for Gravity's Rainbow. But Jared Shurin, co-editor of the books site Pornokitsch, which set up the Kitschies, said a seat had been saved for Pynchon on 12 February, when the winner of the Red Tentacle will receive £2,000, one of the prize's "iconic Tentacle trophies", and bottles of Kraken rum.

"We're certain that all the finalists will attend the awards ceremony. Who would miss out on their shot at a gigantic stuffed Tentacle?" said Shurin. "His name's at the door … Wouldn't it [be amazing if he came?] It is just batshit enough to have a .0001% chance. Which is, you know, better than most."

Judge Nick Harkaway, who won the Red Tentacle last year for Angelmaker, said the panel had some "very spirited" discussions about the prize's parameters, particularly concerning the quality of "progressive" books.

"It's very hard to put aside something you think is brilliant because it essentially embraces the status quo – or something you think is inspiringly political because someone else doesn't find it exciting. At the same time, there were some books which would have been amazing but which the publishers refused to submit," revealed Harkaway.

"Boundaries of genre … are definitely blurring, but apparently the rather drab, puritan perception of what a proper book is, and who's allowed to celebrate it, still holds sway in some situations. It's silly. If Virginia Woolf wrote fan mail to Olaf Stapledon in 1937, surely no one will actually die if something from a 'literary' list is praised by a 'science fiction' prize in 2014?"

Harkaway admitted that this year's lineup includes some "notionally mainstream" novels, but said he would "rather swallow [his] own teeth" than set out to find a more literary list.

"In the end, these are the books submitted that best matched the Kitschies' criteria in our collective judgement – but that's not all they are," he said. "I've heard a well-known fiction prize described by a former judge as going to the book with the fewest enemies in the room. This is not that. These are books which knocked our socks off, sometimes to our surprise. They are speculative novels, rich and strange and brilliant, and it really doesn't matter in this context whose imprint is on the spine or what the design brief for the cover was. They reward your attention, they are clever, engaging, critical and forward-looking. Try them and see what happens."

Harkaway and his fellow judges Kate Griffin, Will Hill, Anab Jain and Annabel Wright also selected Stray by Monica Hesse, A Calculated Life by Anne Charnock, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, Nexus by Ramez Naam and Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan for the Golden Tentacle for a debut novel.