Clarke



Just found out via MAtthew's blog that Neal Stephenson's astonishing Quicksilver has won this year's Arthur C Clarke Award, arguably the SF world's equivelant to the Booker Prize in terms of respectability. I'm surprised that the first book in a series would win this - I thought perhaps he may win in a few years with the final part, although we all would know it was really for the whole series. Jon Courtenay Grimwood's loose trilogy won the BSFA award last month for Felaheen, although again I suspect it was as much for the entire trilogy as that particular book.



Very happy with the prizes this year on the SF front, generally speaking (still think it was ludicrous and unfair to include Gaiman and McKean's Wolves in the Walls in the Short Fiction category since it patently was not short fiction bu a complete kid's illustrated picture book). I've blown the trumpet for Quicksilver and the following book in the Baroque Cycle, The Confusion on a number of occassions and, I am glad to say, sold lots of them in my bookstore (despite being distracted by a nasty little colleague who is an utter bitch and drives most of the staff mad and tried to make life harder for me this week, but I won't waste my blog space on the little spoiled princess). Matthew has of course been sounding the Quicksilver trumpet even longer and if it is to the detriment of his studies then at least he should know a lot about Restoration period history :-).