The Enclave wins BSFA 2017 Award

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I’ve just returned home to Bute after a remarkable weekend at Follycon in Harrogate where I’ve enjoyed many fascinating conversations with authors and readers, and to top it all… I’ve come home with the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Shorter Fiction for my novella, The Enclave (NewCon Press). It’s a huge honour given the shortlist and previous winners and it’s particularly exciting to gain this award in the BSFA’s sixtieth year. I was thrilled to receive the award from acclaimed author Nnedi Okorafor. The Enclave is set the world of my first novel A Calculated Life (47North). The whole experience of returning to a familiar world was intensely rewarding and certainly enjoyable.

My novel Dreams Before the Start of Time was shortlisted for the Best Novel Award, which was actually awarded to Nina Allan for her wonderful novel The Rift. We were delighted to celebrate together!

In accepting this award I took the opportunity to thank my family. I’m actually very fortunate, even unusual, as an author in having close family members who are excellent beta-readers, each bringing something quite individual to my manuscripts. I value their insights and suggestions enormously. Whenever I send a manuscript to Garry, Adam and Robert, I always say something along the lines of: “I know you are busy but it would be great if you could find time to read this and comment.” They know that what I’m really saying is this: “Drop whatever you are doing!!! Read this carefully, give it your undivided attention and get back to me without delay.” They have never disappointed me.

Congratulations to all the BSFA Award winners, see here, and all the nominees. Thank you to publisher NewCon Press for inviting me to write a novella. And many thanks to the BSFA, and BSFA members for voting!

Also from Harrogate

The stand-out event for me was a three-way discussion about the 1960s/70s New Wave science fiction movement, which can be seen as a resurgence of surrealist writing. The discussants were John Clute, Kim Stanley Robinson and Christopher Priest. Their conversation conveyed an enthralling mix of facts, reminiscence, personal anecdotes and the end-result was a fresh, even revisionist, account of a revolutionary period of fantastical writing.

BSFA 2017 Awards: Dreams Before the Start of Time and The Enclave reach shortlists

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I’m so delighted, a tad overwhelmed, that Dreams Before the Start of Time (47North) is short listed for the British Science Fiction Association 2017 Award for Best Novel, and my novella The Enclave (NewCon Press) is short listed for the BSFA’s 2017 Award for Short Fiction. Here’s a link to the full announcement.

 

Congratulations to all the other shortlisted writers and artists, and thank you to all the lovely BSFA members who read my books and voted in the second round of the awards process.

I’ve already read Nina Allan’s The Rift and Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West and I’m thrilled to be on a shortlist with such wonderful novels! I’m adding all the other books and stories to the top of my reading pile, right now. Why not read some of the shortlisted works and make your own guess at who will gain the most votes in the final round? The award winners will be announced at Eastercon in Harrogate on Saturday 31st March.

And how wonderful to see Marcin Wolski  shortlisted for the cover artwork of 2084 Anthology (Unsung Stories).

Here are the full short lists:

 

Best Novel

Nina Allan – The Rift (Titan Books)

Anne Charnock – Dreams Before the Start of Time (47North)

Mohsin Hamid – Exit West (Hamish Hamilton)

Ann Leckie – Provenance (Orbit)

Best Shorter Fiction

Anne Charnock – The Enclave (NewCon Press)

Elaine Cuyegkeng – These Constellations Will Be Yours (Strange Horizons)

Greg Egan – Uncanny Valley (Tor.com)

Geoff Nelder – Angular Size (in ‘SFerics 2017’ edited by Roz Clarke and Rosie Oliver, Createspace Independent Publishing Platform)

Tade Thompson – The Murders of Molly Southbourne (Tor.com) Read more

I’ve moved to a house with no bookshelves

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Some of you will have gleaned from my social media posts that I ended 2017 with a dramatic change on the home front. Garry and I moved house from Chester, moving not simply across town or to a neighbouring county, but to Scotland. To be precise we’re now living in Port Bannatyne on the Isle of Bute. It’s not as remote as you might imagine since the island has excellent connections to Glasgow. I’m thrilled and excited to be here and I’m keeping my fingers crossed this will prove to be an inspired relocation.

My first priority is to unpack my books, but there isn’t a single bookshelf in our new home. So I’m looking for design inspiration. And where better to look that the local gothic pile, Mount Stuart, which has four libraries! Pictured here is the Purple Library, so called for the colour of the marble pillars. Somehow, I think my ‘library’ will be relatively minimal in architectural terms, but my book spines will be way more colourful! Read more

Novella Release! The Enclave from NewCon Press

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enclave-hardbacks

The limited edition, signed hardback! I love it!

All three formats of my first novella, The Enclave, have now been released by NewCon Press: eBook, limited edition hardback and paperback!

I’ve always stated that I’d never write a sequel to A Calculated Life (47North). And I haven’t done so! 

The Enclave cuts across the world of A Calculated Life with a cast of new characters. I felt strongly that I had far more to say about the lives of the unenhanced, fully organic population living out in the enclaves. And it was immensely rewarding for me to return to that world.

It’s a standalone novella (a smidge over 20,000 words). If you’ve read A Calculated Life, I hope you’ll enjoy the occasional echo from that novel.

If you’re tempted to read the novella… you have the choice of a splendid limited edition, signed hardback (or paperback) from the NewCon website here. Or a Kindle eBook here.

Many thanks go to Ian Whates at NewCon Press for inviting me contribute to this wonderful series of four novellas, including works by Alastair Reynolds, Simon Morden and Neil Williamson. Art work by Chris Moore. Read more

UPDATE: Full Cover for Dreams Before the Start of Time and more…

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A slightly belated Happy New Year, everyone! I hope I’ll be blogging more often this year—posting more conversations with some of my favourite authors and offering updates on writing projects. 

Last year was a full-on writing year, which meant I kept a very low profile. I seemed to spend the entire year flitting on-screen between Scrivener and a variety of news streams as I tried to make sense of the political shifts on both sides of the pond. How to respond? Probably through writing fiction!

During 2017, I’ll be out and about talking about my upcoming novel, Dreams Before the Start of Time (47North), and my novella, The Enclave (NewCon Press). Pre-ordering is now on for both titles in all formats.

Publishers Weekly ‘Most Anticipated’

Dreams Before the Start of Time is one of Publishers Weekly’s most anticipated titles of Spring 2017. I couldn’t hope for a better start! Read more

Cover Release: The Enclave from NewCon Press

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My first novella-length piece of fiction—The Enclave—will be published by NewCon Press in February 2017, as part of a series of four science fiction novellas. Chris Moore has created a stunning piece of art that spans the series.

theenclavecoverfinal

I’ve lost count of the number of readers who have asked for a sequel to A Calculated Life. I’ve resisted the pressure because the novel feels complete to me! However, last year I mooted the idea of a companion piece that would cut across the world of A Calculated Life, set in the enclave outside Manchester, which featured in the novel.

Well, here it is! The Enclave, a standalone novella. It will be published in excellent company, as follows: Read more