• Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman (Dandy House US; Michael Joseph UK) amazon / bookshop
• The Dream Hotel, Laila Lalami (Pantheon US; Bloomsbury Circus UK) amazon / bookshop
• Luminous, Silvia Park (Simon & Schuster US; Magpie UK) amazon / bookshop
• There Is No Antimemetics Division, QNTM (Ballantine US; Del Rey UK) amazon / bookshop
• When There Are Wolves Again, E.J. Swift (Arcadia) amazon / bookshop
• The Salt Oracle, Lorraine Wilson (Solaris)

The winner will be announced on August 12, 2026 and receives an engraved bookend and £2,026 in prize money. The 2026 judges are Eliza Claudia Filimon and Antony Jones for the British Science Fiction Association, Tiffani Angus and John Coxon for the Science Fiction Foundation, and Esther MacCallum-Stewart for the Sci-Fi-London film festival. Andrew M. Butler represented the Clarke Award directors as non-voting Chair of the Judges.

Butler says,

For four decades, our Clarke judges have whittled hundreds of books down to shortlists and then to the books they feel is the best sf novel published in Britain. This is never easy. The current judges debated over 130 volumes and picked the six they liked best. There’s a strong thread of memory running through the shortlist – and I think this might be a memorable year.

Award Director Tom Hunter said,

Sir Arthur was always passionate that the award’s definition of science fiction be as diverse and open as possible, and I believe he would have both applauded the record levels of new SF being published today and the formidable challenge this created for our judging panel.

Following Sir Arthur’s passing, the award faced the real possibility of being forced to close after its 25th year. I am delighted that we have been able to steward the award successfully all the way to its 40th anniversary, and am happy to report the directors are already making plans for celebrating in 2036.

For more information, see the Clarke Award website.

• The Drowned Man’s Daughter, C.J. Lavigne (NeWest) [amazon / bookshop]
• The Works of Vermin, Hiron Ennes (Tor) [amazon / bookshop]
• Horsefly, Mireille Gagné, tr. Pablo Strauss (Coach House) [amazon / bookshop]
• Wild Life, Amanda Leduc (Random House Canada)
• The Hunger We Pass Down, Jen Sookfong Lee (McClelland & Stewart) [amazon / bookshop]
• The Lady, The Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death, Helen Marshall (Titan) [amazon / bookshop]
• The Bewitching, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey) [amazon / bookshop]
• Veal, Mackenzie Nolan (ECW) [amazon / bookshop]
• Death on the Caldera, Emily Paxman (Titan) [amazon / bookshop]
• Ley Lines, Tim Welsh (Guernica) [amazon / bookshop]