As usual, looking at the total number of users who have rated the book on Goodreads, the total number who say that they own it on LibraryThing, and the average ratings on both systems. The top quintile in each column is in bold. Again, this is of course no more than a reflection of the tastes of the user base on both systems, and certainly not a good guide to the Clarke judges’ tastes; it may (or may not) be useful to assess how far each of the books has penetrated the market.
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | ||||
| raters | rating | owners | rating | ||
| In the Lives of Puppets, T.J. Klune | 60364 | 3.94 | 1061 | 3.91 | |
| A Day of Fallen Night, Samantha Shannon | 29369 | 4.38 | 1445 | 4.16 | |
| Starter Villain, John Scalzi | 38902 | 4.19 | 836 | 4.01 | |
| Chain-Gang All-Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah | 39639 | 4.14 | 667 | 4.09 | |
| The Mountain in the Sea, Ray Nayler | 17678 | 3.95 | 741 | 3.96 | |
| Shark Heart: A Love Story, Emily Habeck | 29771 | 4.03 | 322 | 4.04 | |
| Translation State, Ann Leckie | 8945 | 4.12 | 472 | 4.17 | |
| The Future, Naomi Alderman | 11923 | 3.87 | 320 | 3.87 | |
| Some Desperate Glory, Emily Tesh | 7317 | 4.06 | 500 | 4.05 | |
| Land of Milk and Honey, C Pam Zhang | 12574 | 3.56 | 235 | 3.33 | |
| Fractal Noise, Christopher Paolini | 9269 | 3.45 | 307 | 3.54 | |
| The Marriage Act, John Marrs | 17964 | 3.83 | 140 | 3.50 | |
| Biography of X, Catherine Lacey | 7687 | 3.87 | 286 | 3.98 | |
| Ascension, Nicholas Binge | 8573 | 3.59 | 251 | 3.30 | |
| The Terraformers, Annalee Newitz | 4927 | 3.39 | 401 | 3.43 | |
| The Centre, Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi | 9293 | 3.42 | 160 | 3.50 | |
| Titanium Noir, Nick Harkaway | 5608 | 4.04 | 237 | 3.98 | |
| In Ascension, Martin MacInnes | 5497 | 3.82 | 236 | 3.71 | |
| Infinity Gate, M. R. Carey | 4477 | 4.16 | 272 | 3.87 | |
| Sea Change, Gina Chung | 5452 | 3.59 | 181 | 3.54 | |
| Quantum Radio, A. G. Riddle | 12205 | 4.13 | 69 | 3.66 | |
| Flux, Jinwoo Chong | 4460 | 3.40 | 180 | 3.24 | |
| Arch-Conspirator, Veronica Roth | 4804 | 3.43 | 167 | 3.76 | |
| Julia, Sandra Newman | 3920 | 3.80 | 201 | 3.73 | |
| Our Hideous Progeny, C. E. McGill | 4494 | 3.98 | 165 | 4.02 | |
| The Memory of Animals, Claire Fuller | 3293 | 3.62 | 143 | 3.59 | |
| The Blighted Stars, Megan E. O’Keefe | 2790 | 4.10 | 141 | 4.23 | |
| The Phoenix King, Aparna Verma | 2933 | 3.71 | 111 | 4.00 | |
| Meru, S. B. Divya | 1732 | 3.77 | 171 | 3.61 | |
| The Strange, Nathan Ballingrud | 2172 | 3.84 | 127 | 3.78 | |
| Perilous Times, Thomas D. Lee | 1684 | 3.90 | 161 | 4.25 | |
| Prophet, Helen Macdonald & Sin Blaché | 1836 | 3.70 | 126 | 3.43 | |
| Bridge, Lauren Beukes | 1700 | 3.69 | 117 | 3.81 | |
| The Surviving Sky, Kritika H. Rao | 1547 | 3.60 | 128 | 3.59 | |
| In the Blink of an Eye, Jo Callaghan | 4459 | 4.25 | 44 | 4.00 | |
| Girlfriend on Mars, Deborah Willis | 2169 | 3.44 | 87 | 3.54 | |
| These Burning Stars, Bethany Jacobs | 1536 | 4.21 | 117 | 3.97 | |
| Paradise-1, David Wellington | 1985 | 3.81 | 89 | 3.63 | |
| The Combat Codes, Alexander Darwin | 1971 | 3.93 | 81 | 3.80 | |
| The Death I Gave Him, Em X. Liu | 1508 | 3.42 | 91 | 4.00 | |
| Cahokia Jazz, Francis Spufford | 1004 | 4.08 | 126 | 4.20 | |
| Zoey is too Drunk for this Dystopia, Jason Pargin | 1894 | 4.31 | 65 | 4.30 | |
| Androne, Dwain Worrell | 1769 | 3.99 | 59 | 2.94 | |
| The Space Between Us, Doug Johnstone | 2079 | 3.86 | 49 | 3.63 | |
| Sons of Darkness, Gourav Mohanty | 696 | 3.85 | 137 | 3.00 | |
| Pink Slime, Fernanda Trías | 2548 | 3.75 | 36 | 3.00 | |
| The Lost Cause, Cory Doctorow | 910 | 3.68 | 92 | 3.72 | |
| Frontier, Grace Curtis | 1072 | 3.65 | 67 | 3.94 | |
| House of Open Wounds, Adrian Tchaikovsky | 991 | 4.53 | 71 | 4.42 | |
| Adrift, Lisa Brideau | 1372 | 3.56 | 43 | 3.43 | |
| The Thick and the Lean, Chana Porter | 835 | 3.66 | 70 | 3.63 | |
| Red River Seven, A. J. Ryan | 1273 | 3.55 | 39 | 3.56 | |
| Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, Wole Talabi | 535 | 3.72 | 71 | 3.55 | |
| World Running Down, Al Hess | 589 | 3.99 | 63 | 3.68 | |
| The Blue, Beautiful World, Karen Lord | 479 | 3.05 | 72 | 3.38 | |
| More Perfect, Temi Oh | 545 | 3.70 | 61 | 3.88 | |
| The Lost Fleet: Outlands – Implacable, Jack Campbell | 1271 | 4.41 | 24 | 4.13 | |
| She’s a Killer, Kirsten McDougall | 816 | 3.69 | 37 | 3.28 | |
| Hopeland, Ian McDonald | 377 | 3.87 | 80 | 4.43 | |
| Descendant Machine, Gareth L. Powell | 712 | 4.13 | 33 | 4.40 | |
| The Circumference of the World, Lavie Tidhar | 434 | 3.43 | 51 | 3.54 | |
| Beyond the Reach of Earth, Ken MacLeod | 546 | 4.03 | 38 | 3.78 | |
| The Ten Percent Thief, Lavanya Lakshminarayan | 499 | 3.83 | 35 | 3.50 | |
| Promises Stronger than Darkness, Charlie Jane Anders | 322 | 4.21 | 50 | 4.05 | |
| My Brother’s Keeper, Tim Powers | 340 | 3.83 | 42 | 3.65 | |
| A Fire Born of Exile, Aliette de Bodard | 210 | 4.14 | 47 | 4.33 | |
| Corey Fah Does Social Mobility, Isabel Waidner | 293 | 3.86 | 28 | 4.00 | |
| Him, Geoff Ryman | 220 | 3.79 | 35 | 3.67 | |
| Oh God, The Sun Goes, David Connor | 392 | 3.25 | 19 | – | |
| Mothtown, Caroline Hardaker | 383 | 3.36 | 16 | 3.63 | |
| The Infinite, Ada Hoffmann | 253 | 4.26 | 23 | 4.00 | |
| Airside, Christopher Priest | 174 | 3.43 | 31 | 4.00 | |
| Conquest, Nina Allan | 189 | 3.65 | 28 | 3.00 | |
| The Forcing, Paul E. Hardisty | 421 | 3.94 | 12 | 4.00 | |
| Bang Bang Bodhisattva, Aubrey Wood | 179 | 3.00 | 24 | 3.83 | |
| Mindbreaker, Kate Dylan | 228 | 4.19 | 17 | 3.50 | |
| The Sisterhood, Katherine Bradley | 272 | 3.79 | 10 | – | |
| Thirsty Animals, Rachelle Atalla | 383 | 3.98 | 7 | 3.25 | |
| Creation Node, Stephen Baxter | 167 | 3.63 | 16 | 2.83 | |
| Burrowed, Mary Baader Kaley | 210 | 3.87 | 12 | 2.83 | |
| Bird Life, Anna Smaill | 168 | 3.60 | 14 | 3.00 | |
| A Second Chance for Yesterday, R. A. Sinn | 166 | 3.57 | 13 | 3.25 | |
| Beautiful Shining People, Michael Grothaus | 248 | 4.11 | 7 | – | |
| The Dimensions of a Cave, Greg Jackson | 94 | 3.65 | 17 | 4.00 | |
| Myriad, Joshua David Bellin | 140 | 3.67 | 10 | 3.17 | |
| The End of Nightwork, Aidan Cottrell-Boyce | 130 | 3.68 | 9 | 3.50 | |
| One, Eve Smith | 283 | 4.17 | 4 | 4.00 | |
| Refractions, M. V. Melcer | 115 | 4.12 | 9 | 4.33 | |
| Lamb, Matt Hill | 134 | 3.67 | 7 | – | |
| Lessons in Birdwatching, Honey Watson | 106 | 3.42 | 8 | 3.00 | |
| Alien Agendas, Ian Douglas | 91 | 4.18 | 8 | 4.00 | |
| The Dissent, Leah Vernon | 192 | 3.91 | 3 | – | |
| Jungle House, Julianne Pachico | 105 | 4.04 | 5 | 4.00 | |
| Red Dust, White Snow, Pan Huiting | 116 | 3.08 | 3 | – | |
| The Other Shore, Hoa Pham | 67 | 3.50 | 5 | – | |
| Suborbital 7, John Shirley | 45 | 3.09 | 7 | – | |
| Secondhand Daylight, Eugen Bacon & Andrew Hook | 27 | 3.33 | 10 | 2.50 | |
| Trine, Chris Faraday | 27 | 3.81 | 5 | 4.50 | |
| The Night Field, Donna Glee Williams | 25 | 4.00 | 5 | – | |
| Evergreens, Liam Brown | 119 | 3.82 | 1 | – | |
| The Artifice of Eternity, Aaron H. Arm | 38 | 3.88 | 3 | 3.00 | |
| Mother Sea, Lorraine Wilson | 54 | 2.98 | 2 | – | |
| The Gauntlet and the Broken Chain, Ian Green | 24 | 4.00 | 3 | 3.00 | |
| Loophole, Ian Stewart | 12 | 4.17 | 4 | – | |
| Earth Retrograde, R. W. W. Greene | 38 | 4.08 | 1 | – | |
| The 14th Storm, Daniel J Mooney | 18 | 4.17 | 2 | – | |
| The Disinformation War, S. J. Groenewegen | 6 | 4.33 | 3 | – | |
| Silicone God, Victoria Brooks | 11 | 3.55 | 1 | – | |
| The Wrath of the Blob, Dashe Roberts | 8 | 4.50 | 1 | – | |
| Moojag and the Lost Memories, N. E. McMorran | 6 | 4.33 | 1 | – | |
| Birds of Paradise, Rudolf Kremers | 5 | 4.00 | 1 | – | |
| Flight of the Eternal Emperor, James Rogers | 4 | 4.25 | 1 | – | |
| The Ghostwriters, M. J. Maloney | 3 | 3.67 | 1 | – | |
| Renegade, Miles Nelson | 2 | 5.00 | 1 | – | |
| The Last Star, Terry Grimwood | 1 | 5.00 | 1 | – | |
| Ravage: An Astonishment of Fire, MacGillivray | 0 | – | 1 | – | |
| Doubleback: The Hunt, G. S. Lester | 1 | 5.00 | 0 | – | |
So, what might be on the short list? Discounting fantasy, and reducing probability for later volumes of ongoing series (except where the action is not closely tied to previous installments), and also for books that are just too American, I will take a wild guess and predict that A Fire Born of Exile, by Aliette de Bodard; Translation State, by Ann Leckie; Refractions, by M. V. Melcer; Starter Villain, by John Scalzi; The Blighted Stars, by Megan E. O’Keefe and In the Blink of an Eye, by Jo Callaghan, all have good chances. But I have only read one of these myself, and I am probably completely wrong!