Last night saw the announcement of the jury-selected winner of this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award, presented for ‘the best science fiction novel of the year’. Often a contentious and controversial award, the Clarke has a history of going to the book least expected to win. However, most of the controversy this year has surrounded which books did or didn’t make it onto the shortlist … but I get the feeling that, with the exception of the inevitable few dissenting voices, hardly anyone is going to argue that M. John Harrison’s Nova Swing isn’t a worthy winner. If you’d like to know more about the shortlist, there’s a bumper round-up of reviews at Torque Control, and you can see Harrison’s reaction to winning on his own blog.