Another bit of catch-up. While I was travelling, the submissions list for this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award was released, which this year clocks in at a hefty 82 books. As usual there was a bit of discussion. Jared Shurin summarises the inconsistent handling of ebooks here, and Cheryl Morgan comments on the same topic here (in addition to the ones she mentions, Will McIntosh' Soft Apocalypse got a UK ebook edition from Orbit at the end of last year, with no physical edition in the offing that I'm aware of); David Hebblethwaite offers some initial thoughts here, and notes the increase in the number of YA titles submitted; and Nina Allan offers her typically detailed shortlist wishlist and prediction here. The shortlist is due on Friday 4th April, with the winner to be announced on Wednesday 1st May.

As to predictions of my own ... that varies from hour to hour. Clarke judges serve two-year terms, so there's some overlap with last year's idiosyncratic panel, but also some new blood; and with a larger-than-average pool of books, even the pool of plausible candidates is substantial (somewhere between 20 and 25, I reckon).

I think Nina's proposed shortlist is quite convincing. I think I'll leave off Jack Glass from my own guess; partly because you rarely lose money betting on Adam Roberts being left off the Clarke list, but partly also because I don't think it's quite up there with New Model Army and By Light Alone. The first third of Jack Glass is superb, but as a whole I have reservations about how the novel hangs together. Alif the Unseen may also fall by the wayside if the jury is in a core-sf mood, and again I wouldn't feel too bothered by that: there were elements of the novel's cultural commentary I found unconvincing, and narratively I felt the ending shied away from honesty at the last moment.

I think it's very likely we'll see at least one YA novel on the list, of which the most plausible candidates would seem to be Baggott's Pure, Bacigalupi's The Drowned City, and Mieville's Railsea, all of which received a lot of attention and praise. Janet Edwards' Earth Girl may be in with an outside shot: less uniform praise, but those who like it really like it.

What of the other familiar names? McAuley and Reynolds both have novels in the mix, both have been generally positively received, but neither seems to have set the world on fire. I think Blue Remembered Earth is certainly Reynolds' best novel since his last nomination, for House of Suns, though, so I wouldn't be surprised to see it on the list. Baxter I think has not had his strongest year. Egan's The Eternal Flame is mid-series, which tends to count against a book. And then there's Empty Space, which I still haven't read, but which the gestalt of the field seems to think is (or should be) the closest thing we have to a presumptive nominee this year: so the stage is set for another Islanders-style upset. After a lot of debate, I think Empty Space will make it to the shortlist -- but not win.

Newer names? Rajaniemi, I suspect, is in the same boat as Egan. I think James Smythe (for The Explorer more than The Testimony) and Nick Harkaway (for Angelmaker) may be in with a chance, as slick adventure tales. Madeline Ashby's vN has received about equal amounts praise and criticism, that I've seen; I come down on the negative side, in the end, but it strikes me as a book with a lot of hooks that might stick in a judges' minds. Wool is, of course, much talked-about, but (without having read it) seems relatively unoriginal, and without the high-gloss finish that has carried other less-original novels onto the shortlist in the pass.

Which, of course (!), brings us to the quote-unquote mainstream candidates, including the two Booker longlisters, Communion Town and The Teleportation Accident, Kitschies nominee The Method, not-widely-praised The Dog Stars, The Flame Alphabet, Nod, and a couple of others. I think The Method will suffer by comparison to the more conventional sfnal treatment of similar material in Intrusion; the others, I just don't know. But I do want to get around to reading Commmunion Town. (There are a couple of other mainstream-published books I'd have liked to see in contention: notably The Uninvited by Liz Jensen, and Arcadia by Lauren Groff, which would have been a definite shortlist pick for me. But so it goes.)

So where does that leave me? Here's my guess at what the judges will shortlist:

• vN by Madeline Ashby
• Dark Eden by Chris Beckett
• Earth Girl by Janet Edwards
• Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway
• Empty Space by M. John Harrison
• 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson

And here's what I'd like them to pick:

• Pure by Juliana Baggott
• Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway
• Empty Space by M. John Harrison
• 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Communion Town by Sam Thompson
• The Method by Juli Zeh

And in ten days we'll know.