The British Science Fiction Association shortlist was announced on the weekend.  As with last year I’ll be reading the five books nominated in the Best Novel category:

  • Europe at Midnight by Dave Hutchinson (Solaris)
  • Mother of Eden by Chris Beckett (Corvus)
  • The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard (Gollancz)
  • Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald (Gollancz)
  • Glorious Angels by Justina Robson (Gollancz)

Some quick observations of the nominees:

  1. This year I’m tracking publishers so it’s interesting to see that three of the novels were published by Gollancz (last year it was only 1 novel out of the 8 nominated).
  2. As with the PKD Award, four of the novels nominated are part of a series – although it might be all five, I’m not sure if Glorious Angels by Justina Robson is a standalone novel.
  3. Chris Beckett’s Mother of Eden is a sequel to Dark Eden a novel that won both the Clarke Award and the BSFA. As I haven’t read Dark Eden I could opt out from reading this book.  But a quick squizz of the internet indicates that Mother of Eden, while set on the same colony world as the first book is set many generations after the events of that novel so can be enjoyed as a standalone. We shall see…
  4. As a side note congratulations to all the nominees in all the categories, but especially Alisa Krasnostein, Alex Pierce, Jonathan McCalmont and Nina Allan.