cowfish

I have just spied on the Sci-Fi-London website that the long list for the Arthur C Clarke awards has now been announced. I’ve read a chunk of them this year and am now reminded of a load of other books that I wanted to read but forgot about.

I was coat monitor at last year’s awards (a promotion from ’sausage roll carrier’ the year before) so I might even get to go along again this year… and stand in the lobby of the Apollo guarding coats. I am quite good at guarding coats…

Ones I’ve read in bold

• The Ashes of Worlds by Kevin J Anderson (I still don’t quite understand why people can read these books. Then again, I ‘enjoyed’ Guy Smith’s Crabs series…)
• The Line War by Neal Asher
• The Heritage by Will Ashon
• Man in the Dark by Paul Auster
• Neuropath by Scott Bakker
• Matter by Iain M Banks
• Flood by Stephen Baxter (I think I was rude about Stephen Baxter’s recent books, accidentally, while standing in front of him and taking coats at last year’s awards. I didn’t mean to be [it was part of a very long conversation] and if he ever sees this and did hear me then I’m very sorry. I bought The H-Bomb Girl out of guilt and rather enjoyed it.)
• Weaver by Stephen Baxter
• City at the End of Time by Greg Bear
• Kethani by Eric Brown
• Necropath by Eric Brown
• Sputnik Caledonia by Andrew Crumey
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (it’s on my e-reader although having spoken to a bunch of people about it it’s not at the top of my list…)
• Incandescence by Greg Egan
• Infoquake by David Louis Edelman
• The Broken World by Tim Etchells
• Omega by Christopher Evans
• Blonde Roots by Bernadine Evaristo
• Principles of Angels by Jaine Fenn
• Eve: The Empyrean Age by Tony Gonzales (This looked vanity published and expensive, and I know enough people addicted to Eve (you know who you are) that I stayed away. I may have a look now. The book, that is, not the game. I’m not that stupid)
• The Temporal Void by Peter F Hamilton (My favourite book [well, series at least] of last year)
• The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
• Template by Matthew Hughes
• The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt
• Song of Time by Ian R MacLeod
• The Night Sessions by Ken MacLeod
• The Affinity Bridge by George Mann
• The Quiet War by Paul McAuley
• Dark Blood by John Meaney
• The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan
• The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
• Debatable Space by Philip Palmer
• House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
• Swiftly by Adam Roberts (I got this for my Dad for Christmas as part of my tradition of buying him good books that he probably hadn’t heard of. I was meant to read it before I wrapped it…and didn’t)
• Going Under by Justina Robson
• The Last Colony by John Scalzi (I enjoyed it, even if lots of people have dissed it)
• DogFellow’s Ghost by Gavin Smith
• Anathem by Neal Stephenson
• The Dog of the North by Tim Stretton 
• Halting State by Charles Stross
• Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross (Still waiting on an ebook that doesn’t cost £15…)
• The Margarets by Sheri S Tepper
• Blue War by Jeffrey Thomas
• Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber (I just read On Basilisk Station – once you have a formula for book titles, you might as well stick with it… [I rather enjoyed Basilisk Station])
• Martin Martin’s on the Other Side by Mark Wernham
• Winterstrike by Liz Williams

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