Just this Wednesday, 26th April, the Apollo West End Cinema in London saw a crowd of writers and book-lovers anticipating the announcement that was the Booker Prize equivalent in Science Fiction: the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

The Arthur C. Clarke award is the most prestigious award for science fiction in Britain although the nominees are not necessarily British. The award is an inscribed plaque in the form of a bookend and a cheque from Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the prize money matches the year. For instance, in 2006, the prize money is £2006.

For more information about the Arthur C. Clarke Award, you can visit the official site or Wikipedia.

This year, Geoff Ryman clinched his second Arthur C. Clarke award with Air: Or, Have Not Have. This is what the Administrator of the Award has to say about Air:

"Novelty is the toy that science fiction has always played with, but it is very rarely the subject that science fiction writes about. We see newness after newness, technological innovation after technological innovation, but how often do we experience the shock of all this newness? But that is exactly what Geoff Ryman has chosen as the subject of Air. The novelty, an intrusive development of the already overly familiar internet, is far far less important than its impact, the way that turning to face the new changes the way we have to perceive our sense of self, of belonging, of society."

Interested? What about the book itself? Publishers Weekly summarises the story with this:

On the heels of his whimsical fantasy, Lust (2003), British author Ryman makes a triumphant return to science fiction in this superbly crafted tale. Life in Kizuldah, a village in Karzistan, has changed little over the centuries, though most homes have electricity. Chung Mae, the local fashion expert, earns her living by taking women into the city for makeovers and by providing teenagers with graduation dresses. Intelligent and ambitious, this wonderfully drawn character is also illiterate and too often ruled by her emotions. One day, the citizens of Kizuldah and the rest of the world are subjected to the testing of Air, a highly experimental communications system that uses quantum technology to implant an equivalent of the Internet in everyone's mind. During the brief test, Mae is accidentally trapped in the system, her mind meshed with that of a dying woman. Left half insane, she now has the ability to see through the quantum realm into both the past and the future. Mae soon sets out on a desperate quest to prepare her village for the impending, potentially disastrous establishment of the Air network. For all its special effects, what makes the novel particularly memorable is the detailed portrait of Kizuldah and its inhabitants. Besides being a treat for fans of highly literate SF, this intensely political book has important things to say about how developed nations take the Third World for granted.

For the record, the past winners of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for 2005 and 2004 were:

Iron Council by China Miéville (2005),
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson (2004).