SCI-FI-LONDON gets underway

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And M John Harrison wins Clarke Award

The sixth SCI-FI-LONDON festival kicked off yesterday, so we headed off to the Apollo West End to get a slice of the action and catch the presentation of the annual Arthur C Clarke Award
for best UK SF novel of the year. After milling around the bar with the great and the good of Brit SF, attentions turned from drinks to an envelope containing the title of this year’s winner. Would it be Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s End of the World Blues, M John Harrison’s Nova Swing, Lydia Millet’s Oh Pure and Radiant Heart, Jan Morris’s Hav, Adam Roberts’s Gradisil or Brian Stableford’s Streaking? Okay, so we killed the suspense dead with the strapline to this story, but for the less observant reader, the author selected by the Clarke jury was M John Harrison, who received a commemorative bookend and a rather nice cheque for £2007.

“In M. John Harrison’s Nova Swing we have a triumphant return to the world first seen in his earlier acclaimed novel, Light,” said chair of the judges, Paul Billinger. “This is a vividly and richly described world, full of Harrison’s unique interpretations, and is his most lyrical and affecting book to date.”

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