The nominees for the 2019 Philip K. Dick Award were announced a couple of days ago, and it’s a pretty fine list of books:

  • TIME WAS by Ian McDonald (Tor.com)
  • THE BODY LIBRARY by Jeff Noon (Angry Robot)
  • 84K by Claire North (Orbit)
  • ALIEN VIRUS LOVE DISASTER: STORIES by Abbey Mei Otis (Small Beer Press)
  • THEORY OF BASTARDS by Audrey Schulman (Europa Editions)
  • AMBIGUITY MACHINES AND OTHER STORIES by Vandana Singh (Small Beer Press)

Ian McDonald’s Time Was is great. 84K may not be Claire North’s best, but it’s still damn good. And if you haven’t heard me bleat on about the magnificence of Theory of Bastard by Audrey Schulman (my top genre book of the year) then clearly you’ve muted me on social media platforms, and you don’t subscribe to Locus… so it’s unlikely you’re reading this now.

As for the three I haven’t read, I own Ambiguity Machines and other stories by Vandana Singh, and it’s certainly the book I’d read off this list if I had to choose one. I wish I could say I was going to read all three, and maybe I will… who knows.

Congratulation to the nominees.