The Clarke Shortlist, Dissected

I learn from Emerald City that Adam Roberts casts his beady eye on the shortlist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award every year for Infinity Plus, and this year's effort is available online. I don't know how I've managed to miss this in past years, but it is a wonder and a joy. Roberts is both a very incisive reader and a persuasive, clear writer, and he's willing to criticize major novels without descending into personal attacks. (Which is very rare in the SFF world.)

In particular, Roberts is so right about Never Let Me Go that I almost found myself pumping my fist in the air while reading his review.

Knowing that Roberts is out there looking this closely at the best novels in the field also makes me quite happy that I'm not now, and don't intend to become, a fiction writer. But he's a great treasure for readers, which is the point of a critic.