Jane Rogers' latest wins Arthur C. Clarke Award

"Jane Rogers' vision of a world crippled by biological terrorism, The Testament of Jessie Lamb, has won the UK's top prize for science fiction, the Arthur C. Clarke award.
     Published by tiny Scottish independent press Sandstone, Rogers' novel – narrated by a teenager – was longlisted for last year's Man Booker prize but missed out on a shortlist place. Now it has beaten some of the biggest names in science fiction, including China Miéville, Charles Stross, Greg Bear and Sheri S Tepper, to take the 2012 Arthur C Clarke award. Rogers has previously won the Somerset Maugham award and been a runner-up for the Guardian fiction prize, but The Testament of Jessie Lamb is her first venture into science fiction.
     'It wasn't an obvious Arthur C. Clarke winner – it's not from a science fiction publisher but from a small Scottish press. But I don't think anyone was surprised it was nominated. It really is a very good book and it has found a real audience in the science fiction readership,' said the prize's director Tom Hunter. [...]"
— Alison Flood, The Guardian
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Three-time Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlisted for 2012

From: This Is Horror

"China Miéville joins SF heavy-hitters Charles Stross, Greg Bear and Sheri S. Tepper on the shortlist for the 2012 Arthur C. Clarke award, putting him in line to win the prize an unprecedented fourth time.
     Miéville – who won the prize in 2001 with Perdido Street Station, in 2005 with Iron Council and in 2010 with The City & the City – is nominated for Embassytown, a deep-space exploration of language, truth and identity which was shortlisted for the British science fiction awards earlier this year.
     His 2002 novel The Scar was also nominated for the prize, which is awarded to the best science fiction novel first published in the UK in the previous calendar year.
     According to the chair of the judges, Andrew M. Butler, there's no reason why the prize shouldn't be awarded to Miéville again."
— Richard Lea, The Guardian
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From: Vasanth Seshadri writes

Arthur C. Clarke

1917 - 2008

"In 2007, Clarke completed 90 orbits around the sun. He was now in a wheelchair, but his mind continued to reach the farthest outposts of the universe. He marked his 90th birthday by speaking to his followers through a Youtube video. He expressed three birthday wishes: For ET to call, for mankind to quit his addiction to oil, and for lasting peace in Sri Lanka. He could not resist making more predictions. He declared this the beginning of the golden age of space travel. He predicted that thousands of space tourists will travel to the moon and beyond within the next 30 years."
— Vasanth Seshadri writes
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