Eight years ago I was very pleased to be appointed by the BSFA as one of the judges of the Arthur C. Clarke Award. I’m very glad to say that the Science Fiction Foundation has appointed me to the current panel, for the best science fiction novel first published in the United Kingdom during 2022.

This will mean some reduction in book-blogging here. The keen-eyed among you will have noticed that I’ve been coding some recent sf reads by Greek letters rather than writing them up; those represent books which have been, or might be, submitted for the award. However, that still leaves plenty of other books to write about.

As I said last time, Arthur C. Clarke was one of those writers who dragged me into sf, through Of Time And Stars, A Fall of Moondust, Imperial Earth, Earthlight, Rendezvous with Rama, The City and the Stars, The Fountains of Paradise, Childhood’s End, 2001, 2010, and the various other short stories and non-fiction around the place. His writing style is lucid, ironic, occasionally passionate, usually infused with sensawunda. I’m really honoured to be part of the award that celebrates his legacy.