Congratulations to CHRIS BECKETT, Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award!

Yesterday I attended the Clarke Award ceremony at the Royal Society in London. The event opened with a panel discussion on science in five years (in 2,001 days… Geddit?) – I was pleased to learn that there are people currently working on World Ships. That was cool.

Anyway, the reason most of us were there was to learn who won the prize (and, ahem, the drinks afterwards…). And so, big congratulations to…

CHRIS BECKETT, for his novel DARK EDEN (Corvus)

The runners-up, all equally interesting and high-quality science-fiction novels, were…

Adrian Barnes, Nod (Bluemoose)

Nick Harkaway, Angelmaker (William Heinemann)

Peter Heller, The Dog Stars (Headline)

Ken MacLeod, Intrusion (Orbit)

Kim Stanley Robinson, 2312 (Orbit)

After the event, I had the pleasure of meeting a great number of people who I have long respected and/or only known on the other end of an email conversation or through Twitter. It was wonderful to meet so many of you and chat about all things genre and much other things besides. A great evening.

The Rise of “Mini-eBooks” (or “Short Stories”, as we usually call them…)

On USA Today yesterday, Craig Wilson published a story about “mini ebooks”, which are “being served up this summer as bite-size appetizers for the main course to follow”. I wasn’t aware that this was particularly news-worthy, having seen plenty of these short stories and prequel minis released over the past couple of years. Also, Amazon’s been releasing it’s Kindle Singles for a long time, so there’s more evidence that it’s not a new idea.

They are, however, clearly on the rise. Wilson picks up on three – a new Rizzoli & Isles short from Tess Gerritsen (John Doe UK/US), an early Jack Reacher story from Lee Child (Deep Down UK/US) and a new Walt Longmire story from Craig Johnson (Divorce Horse).

I am entirely in agreement with Johnson, who said these eBook shorts were “a good way of providing a bridge between books,” and also Wilson’s support for them:

“[They are] an opportunity to feed a voracious, digitally savvy public no longer willing to wait between books. The public appears willing to plop down a couple of bucks for a teaser before paying $25 for the real deal.”

Even excusing the impatience-born appeal, I think they really serve best as tasters for new readers – which is why I’ve bought both of Child’s eBook short stories – Deep Down and last year’s Second Son (I’ve never read a Reacher novel, and to this day I have no idea why not…). I’m not sure if I’ll buy Gerritsen’s, as I have the first full-length novel in the Rizzoli & Isles series, and John Doe isn’t a prequel.

In the SFF genre, I’m not aware of too many examples, but off the top of my head T.C. McCarthy’s Somewhere it Snows, Brad Beaulieu & Steve Gaskell’s Strata, Nick Harkaway’s Edie Investigates, Brent Weeks’s Perfect Shadow, and Orbit Books’s Short Fiction initiative, which now has 22 titles (sadly still only available in the US, except for Perfect Shadow).

I would certainly be interested to read more short stories from other authors I already know and like, so I definitely see this as a win-win for eReading fans.

The real issue, I suppose, would be more about whether or not the short fiction should be series prequel, a continuation, or something entirely unrelated to the author’s next full-length release. I personally would like a mix of all three.

How do other people feel about this?

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CORRECTION: Orbit Short Fiction initiative HAS rolled out for UK customers! Just go to the website, and each title has a handy list of vendors. Hurrah! This is great news! I really want seven of them…

“Edie Investigates” by Nick Harkaway

An introduction to the protagonist of Angelmaker

There has been a strange death in the quiet village of Shrewton: old Donny Caspian has lost his head. In the Copper Kettle tea rooms, Tom Rice, a junior nobody from the Treasury, puzzles over the details of the case. He has been sent by his superiors to oversee the investigation, but is he supposed to help or hinder? At the next table, octogenarian superspy Edie Banister nibbles a slice of cake and struggles not to become Miss Marple. But what is the connection between the two? Who killed Donny Caspian, and why? Taking in Rice’s present and Edie’s daring past, from duels on shipboard to death in back alleys, we are introduced to a character from Harkaway’s upcoming novel, Angelmaker.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this short story. As an introduction to Angelmaker, I can’t imagine it’s very necessary. As an introduction to Harkaway’s writing style, it is a story that you will probably find the words “endearing” and “delightful” used to describe it, and its content full of “whimsy”. While they are accurate, I think it would also be necessary to add “frustrating” and even “irritating” to the description. I have extremely mixed feelings about this. Part of this may be because of my mood when I read it – I was having quite the bout of book-indecision – and yet, even with hindsight, I still find myself less-than-satisfied with this short story.

To Speak Ill of Other Reviewers…

… is not done, I know, but this just irritated me no end, and I just couldn’t let it go (and particularly the bit highlighted in bold):

It’s stunningly well-written, apart from the badly-written bits. It’s a really good thing, way too much of a good thing, served with good thing salad on a bed of bruised good thing, with stewed good thing and custard for afters. If fat is beautiful, it’s a supermodel. Two supermodels.

It’s a snippet from an SFX review of Nick Harkaway’s The Gone Away World, and just reading this short grab made me want to slap the reviewer silly. Then the reviewer (“Tom Holt” – oh how I hope it’s not the author of same name who’s reviewing this…) goes on to refer to the protagonist as “this bloke”. I stopped reading thereafter. I know I’m not the best reviewer in the world (far from it), but please: this is just plain unhelpful. This review from The Guardian is far more helpful, and does actually manage to be amusing.

The Gone-Away World is, incidentally, a “2009 Book That Got Away”… I will, hopefully, and at some point, have a chance to read and review it. There are quite a few of these. The pile of books is starting to encroach on my living-/breathing-space…