Presenting the 37th winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award
Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds
We're delighted to announce that VENOMOUS LUMPSUCKER by Ned Beauman and published by Sceptre has been announced as the 37th winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award science fiction book of the year.
The winner was revealed at an award ceremony held at St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square, London, to an audience of authors, publishing professionals, and science fiction fans.
Chair of the Judges, Dr Andrew M. Butler said:
“The judges took several hours to choose their winner and debate was intense but always good-willed. Their choice, Ned Beauman’s Venomous Lumpsucker, is a biting satire, twisted, dark and radical, but remarkably accessible, endlessly inventive and hilarious.”
Award Director Tom Hunter said:
“Venomous Lumpsucker takes science fiction’s knack for future extrapolation and aggressively applies it to humanity’s shortsighted self-interest and consumptive urges in the face of planetary eco-crisis. The result is a bleakly funny novel where the only hope for our species is working out the final punchline before it’s delivered.”
Ned Beauman receives a trophy in the form of a commemorative engraved bookend and prize money to the value of £2023.00; a tradition that sees the annual prize money rise incrementally by year from the year 2001 in memory of Sir Arthur C. Clarke.
The judging panel for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2023 were:
Dave Hutchinson and Francis Gene-Rowe for the British Science Fiction Association.
Kate Heffner and Nicholas Whyte for the Science Fiction Foundation.
Georgie Knight for the SCI-FI-LONDON film festival.
Dr Andrew M. Butler, non-voting Chair of the Judges, Serendip Foundation
The Arthur C. Clarke Award is presented for the best science fiction novel of the year, and selected from a list of novels whose UK first edition was published in the previous calendar year.
The award was originally established by a generous grant from Sir Arthur C. Clarke with the aim of promoting UK science fiction, and is currently administered by the Serendip Foundation, a voluntary organisation created to oversee the on-going delivery and development of the award.
Members of the judging panel are nominated by supporting organisations, currently the British Science Fiction Association, the Science Fiction Foundation and the SCI-FI-LONDON film festival.