If you didn’t already see it, the Arthur C Clarke Awards released this great photo yesterday via SFX Magazine, along with the full list of submissions to the prize.

The Arthur C. Clarke Award

is given for the best science fiction novel first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. The award was established with a grant given by Sir Arthur C. Clarke and the first prize was awarded in 1987 to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

Last week, the Clarke Awards released a list of the novels by women that had been submitted. Award director Tom Hunter hoped that this would make ‘a positive contribution towards further raising the profile of women writers of science fiction in the UK.’ It also ties in nicely with the brilliant Joanna Walsh a.k.a. Badaude’s Readwomen2014 campaign — a year-long celebration of women’s writing — that can be followed on Twitter and/or joined by using hashtag #readwomen2014.

The Clarke Award publish the list of submissions,

as a snapshot of the current state of science fiction publishing and to help readers everywhere get a fuller understanding of the judging process before the official short list is announced in March.

I think it’s a great idea to open up this information for discussion and analysis in this way. Perhaps it is something that other literary prizes might learn from.

Shackleton’s Man Goes South is just visible up in the top left corner of the picture, between James Lovegrove’s The Age of Voodoo and James Brogden’s Tourmaline.

Shackleton’s Man Goes South is available from the Science Museum as a free and DRM-free ebook, compatible with most devices. These are available free online and also via a touchscreen ‘ebook dispenser’ that is part of a display about the novel in the Science Museum’s Atmosphere Gallery. The Museum have also produced a limited edition paperback of the novel. Print aficionados may be interested to know that signed copies of this first paperback edition of Shackleton’s Man Goes South are currently available from the Science Museum shop for the sale price of £5.00.

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Download Shackleton’s Man Goes South directly from the Science Museum website

Read press and reviews of Shackleton’s Man Goes South

‘Like’ Shackleton’s Man Goes South on the novel’s official Facebook page

Visit the Shackleton’s Man Goes South display in the Science Museum’s Atmosphere Gallery, Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2DD. Opening hours: 10.00 – 18.00 (last entry 17.15) every day except 24 to 26 December.