Blog

Excerpts from all six novels shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award are being made available to read online.

Book Geek, which is part of the multi-genre book website, nudgemenow.com, has collaborated with publishers in the build-up to the award ceremony of Britain’s most prestigious science fiction book prize, to give readers a peek at some of the writing that has impressed this year’s panel of judges.

Award director, Tom Hunter, said: ‘This is a fascinating and complex shortlist that demands repeated attention and thoughtful interpretation. Shortlisting six books from a potential list of 82 eligible submissions is no easy task by any critical standard … [It is] a shortlist that I hope people will find as much engaging and optimistic as it is subversive and challenging.’

Publishing the six excerpts in a single series is a positive way for readers to make informed opinions about the shortlist and to engage with the judging process, before the winner is announced at an award ceremony at the Royal Society, London, on May 1st.

Each extract is accompanied by a quickfire interview with the respective author. The first extract, Nod by Adrian Barnes, is now available at nudgemenow.com.

Adrian Barnes, the author of Nod, which has been shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, will be making his one and only booksigning appearance ahead of the ceremony at a bookshop in Leeds.

This is a great opportunity for fans of Nod to meet Barnes, who will only be in the UK for a few days to attend the ceremony of Britain’s most prestigious science fiction book award.

Barnes will be signing copies of Nod at Leeds’ Waterstones on Monday 29th April, from 12-2pm. Please come along and show your support to some very excited Bluemoosers ahead of this special event.

The Clarke Award ceremony takes place on 1st May at the Royal Society, London.

In an almost science fictional twist of destiny, Adrian Barnes – the author of Nod, which has been shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award – has revealed his science fiction inspiration was none other than the master himself: Sir Arthur C. Clarke.

After receiving the news yesterday that he is a contender for Britain’s most prestigious science fiction book prize, Barnes said: ‘The novels of Arthur C. Clarke were an early inspiration for me and 2001: A Space Odyssey was the start of a lifelong love of science fiction. Consequently, I couldn’t be happier to find myself nominated for this award. It’s a thrill and an honour.’

The achievement is all the more remarkable because Nod is Barnes’s debut novel. He beat stiff, record-breaking competition to make it onto the six-book shortlist. There were 82 titles submitted for consideration, more than in any previous year since the award started in 1987.

Barnes will be flying over from Vancouver to attend the award ceremony, which will take place at the Royal Society, London, on 1st May.

Nod, the critically-acclaimed debut novel by Adrian Barnes, has beaten off record-breaking competition to be shortlisted for the 2013 Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Nod is one of just six titles selected from a long-list of 82 novels. This is the award’s largest long-list since its inception in 1987, when Margaret Atwood won the prize for The Handmaid’s Tale.

Award director, Tom Hunter, said: ‘This is a fascinating and complex shortlist that demands repeated attention and thoughtful interpretation. Shortlisting six books from a potential list of 82 eligible submissions is no easy task by any critical standard … [It is] a shortlist that I hope people will find as much engaging and optimistic as it is subversive and challenging.’

The annual prize was established with a grant from Sir Arthur C Clarke in 1986, and is awarded to the year’s best science fiction novel first published in the United Kingdom.

This year’s award ceremony will take place on Wednesday 1st May, at the Royal Society, London. The winner will receive a cheque for £2013.00.

This is what the Guardian had to say about Nod:

‘The apocalypse comes in many forms, but none stranger than that of the chronic sleep deprivation that leads to mass psychosis in Adrian Barnes’s audacious novel Nod (Bluemoose, £7.99). Paul is a misanthropic hack writing a non-fiction book about obscure words when the world is afflicted and the majority of citizens begin to hallucinate solipsistic realities that Paul, as a Sleeper and a wordsmith, can influence. Barnes employs this brilliant idea to explore the nature of perception, redemption, and personal and social catastrophe. Outstanding.’

Adrian Barnes was born in Blackpool, England, but moved to Canada in 1969. You can watch a video here of Adrian discussing the Vancouver setting for Nod.

Bluemoose author, Michael Stewart, will be reading from his award-winning novel, King Crow, at a series of events across the North as part of the Read Regional campaign.

The campaign selects the best writing in the north of England and connects it with its local readership, through events at libraries, festivals and bookshops.

Stewart’s King Crow won the Guardian’s Not-the-Booker prize in 2011. It was also David Peace’s recommended read for World Book Night in 2012.

The Guardian described Stewart as ‘a poetic writer – about nature, about boys and casual violence – and good at capturing moments of beauty … [the] psychology is spot on.’

Stewart will be joined at the events by Cassandra Parkin, author of New World Fairy Tales, described by Jonathan Pinnock as a ‘beguiling collection of present-day fables that effortlessly transcend their folk origins.’

Parkin’s Tales won the 2011 Scott Prize for debut collections of short stories.

The events will take place at Wallsend Library, Bishop Auckland Town Hall and Hull Central Library. For further details, visit the Read Regional website.

You can watch the King Crow trailer here:

An award-winning film, co-written by Bluemoose author, Socrates Adams, is due to be screened at the Belfast Film Festival in April.

Shot on a budget of £400, Wizard’s Way concerns Julian ‘Windows’ Andrews, the world’s most celebrated player of an old, dated computer game. But when Compusoft delete the game, life for ‘Windows’ and his sidekick Barry Tubbulb will be changed for ever.

Director, Metal Man, said: ‘We hope Wizard’s Way demonstrates that if you have a good idea, some likeable characters and a lot of spare time at the weekends, you can make a feature film without any external support or funding.’

With good fortune, but unbeknown to the writers and directors as to how, they secured the services of Sadie Frost in a cameo role.

Wizard’s Way won Best Comedy Feature at the 2012 London Independent Film Festival, and is the 2013 winner of the Discovery Award at the London Comedy Film Festival.

The film screens at the Belfast Film Festival on April 14th.

Socrates Adams has also written a novel for Bluemoose Books, a humorous punch at today’s celebrity culture. A Modern Family features TV’s most popular car show presenter, who has the perfect job, but not the perfect family, which he watches disintegrate around him, unable to control anything that is not scripted.

Kevin Duffy, of Bluemoose Books, said: ‘A Modern Family looks at how obsessed we are as viewers and readers of celebrity culture, its all-consuming take on who and what we are becoming, and the catastrophic effects it has when we realise all is not well in the orange coloured world of celebrity.’

A Modern Family will be published on 25th July.

One of the great things about publishing books is finding great new talent and in Socrates Adams, I’m convinced we’ve found it. We are publishing A MODERN FAMILY by Socrates in July. His novel looks at how a celebrity TV pundit from a number one ranking show about cars, speed and swarfega, deals with fame and how he lives his life according to the rules of celebrity, or what he deems those rule are whilst his family disintegrates around him. It is very funny, acerbic, poignant and illustrative of what is happening in our celebrity fuelled society. Socrates has also written, along with fellow authors, Joe Stretch and Chris Killen, a film called WIZARD’S WAY, which has just won The Loco’s, the London Comedy Award, for best new film. Socrates also stars in it too. They had the premier at the end of January at The BFI in London. It goes on general release in April.

And so, back to A MODERN FAMILY. A very important aspect of publishing any book is getting the jacket cover spot on. The jacket has to ask a dramatic question and convey to the reader what the book is about. The Bookseller’s Association did a survey a few years back which stated that a book cover has a fifth of a second, 0.2 of a second, to catch the eye of the casual book browser. So, it has to do its job in such a short space of time and stand out amongst all the other hundreds of books on display, it has to be striking. We spend a lot of time with our designers, authors and editors getting what we think are the best possible jacket treatments for our books and we hope we’ve done it again with A MODERN FAMILY. We also like to think our books pass the ‘Strokeability test.’ Our books are never shiny, always matt, and feel good to hold. A book is for life, not just for a Kindle. Once the browser has one of our books in their hands and strokes it, we hope they’ll read the blurb on the back, then turn to page one and … BUY IT.

Socrates is making a film for the launch, which you’ll be able to see nearer publication. It will be funny because Socrates has been called, ‘A 21st Century Alan Partridge but with a beard.’ And well, he is just a funny man. With a beard.

The designer of the jacket, Stuart Brill, used to design for PENGUIN and so he has a legacy of brilliant designs behind him and here for A MODERN FAMILY, he’s come up trumps again with a jacket that I hope you will like.

You know what it’s like, you get very little newspaper publicity for what feels like an eternity, then two articles come along almost at the same time.

Late last year we had something in the Yorkshire Post, basically a round up of what we got up to in 2012. It was a great article and we were very pleased to be featured. That article explained our attempts to muscle in on the “50 Shades of Grey” action by announcing our plans for a biography of Christian Grey. This was picked up by the national press and before you know it we were in the Guardian and the story was re-tweeted several times with international interest.

Publicity like this is really important to a small indie like us. We haven’t got big budgets to promote our books and authors, in fact, let me re-phrase that, we haven’t even got small budgets to promote our books, so free publicity like newspaper articles and our loyal readers talking about us on Twitter and Facebook is vital. Thank you to everyone who follows us and talks about us – you are our marketing department!