The Nominees
OCCUPY ME by Tricia Sullivan (Gollancz)
The American émigré, a Clarke winner in 1999 for Dreaming In Smoke, returns to the genre after a six-year hiatus with a tale of an angel whose wings exist in another dimension, a killer wearing another man’s body and a vast conspiracy. As readers, we immediately realise why we’ve missed her so much. SFX SAYS Contender
AFTER ATLAS by Emma Newman (Roc)
Having already created an acclaimed fantasy past in her Split Worlds series, the “anxietywrangling tea-drinker” (her description) again heads into the future with her second Planetfall tale. Taking a murder as her starting point, Newman shows us a world where the comforts of luxury come at a high price. SFX SAYS Possibly an outsider
NINEFOX GAMBIT by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)
The Korean-American’s debut has already been lavishly praised by the likes of Alastair Reynolds, Ann Leckie and Stephen Baxter. We would add that his first Machineries Of Empire book is a dazzling, dizzying space opera that takes a genre staple, the tale of a disgraced captain, somewhere totally new. The ambitious worldbuilding is especially good. SFX SAYS Dark horse
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD by Colson Whitehead (Fleet)
New Yorker Whitehead’s Pulitzer winner takes an idea – the network that slaves in the South used to escape to freedom in the North – and gives it substance as we follow a subterranean journey through different American states. A bravura piece of storytelling that’s rated by, among others, a fella called Barack Obama. SFX SAYS The winner?
A CLOSED AND COMMON ORBIT
by Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton)
The Californian writer’s career stands as proof that, yes, self-publishing can work – if you have talent. The follow-up to The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet, which was financed in part by a Kickstarter campaign, tells the story of an AI on the run. Humane and witty, not descriptions you usually associate with space opera. SFX SAYS Second favourite?
CENTRAL STATION by Lavie Tidhar (Tachyon Publications)
The Israeli-born Brit resident crafts, in the approving words of Adam Roberts, a “sprawling hymn to the glory and mess of cultural diversity set in a future spaceport Tel Aviv”. Having made a huge splash with Osama (2011), Tidhar again reminds us that he’s one of the most versatile – and daring – SFF writers around. SFX SAYS Not this time. It’ll probably win...