Killer Bots, Time Travel, and Tentacled Tchaikovsky: The Arthur C. Clarke Award 2025 Shortlist Lands.
Well, polish your grav-boots and charge up your AI life-partner because the 2025 shortlist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award has just materialised—and it’s a doozy.
Now in its 39th orbit around the sun, the Clarke Award continues to honour the finest science fiction novel published in the UK each year. And this year’s batch? A mix of gleaming debuts, seasoned pros, and brain-melting genre weirdness that would make Sir Arthur beam with delight (or mild existential dread).
Here are your six contenders for the coveted engraved bookend and the princely sum of £2025 (because inflation, like entropy, waits for no one):
- Private Rites – Julia Armfield (4th Estate).
- The Ministry of Time – Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre).
- Extremophile – Ian Green (AdAstra).
- Annie Bot – Sierra Greer (The Borough Press).
- Service Model – Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor UK).
- Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock – Maud Woolf (Angry Robot).
That’s a list with more range than a rogue asteroid on a sugar rush. We’ve got sentient robots questioning capitalism (Service Model), time travel ethics from debut author Kaliane Bradley, and something deeply strange and possibly fungal in Extremophile. Then there’s Private Rites, which, knowing Armfield’s flair for the eerie and bodily, is likely to be as haunting as it is intelligent. Annie Bot gives us an AI-girl-next-door tale gone rogue, while Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock… well, if that doesn’t scream “SFcrowsnest wants a review copy,” nothing does.
Chair of Judges Dr Andrew M. Butler commented, in classic fence-sitting style: “Adrian Tchaikovsky might win for the second time, but he’s up against debuts and other first-time adult sf contenders… I can’t even begin to guess whose name will be in the envelope.” Cheers, Andrew. Real helpful.
Award Director Tom Hunter was a bit more reflective, noting the “striking parallels and surprising juxtapositions” in the list, which is science fiction-speak for “this lot are all brilliant and weird in wildly different ways.”
The winner will be announced on Wednesday 25th June 2025. Until then, let the speculation, side-eyeing, and celebratory rereading begin. Here at SFcrowsnest, we love this kind of shortlist—eclectic, provocative, and just a little bit bonkers.
And remember, the Clarke isn’t just about honouring the past—it’s about peering into the future with one cybernetic eye open. Whether that future involves killer bots, climate collapse, or metaphysical time-travel angst… we’ll see you in June to find out who comes out on top.
