Annal:1988 Arthur C. Clarke Award

The Sea and Summer

George Turner

• 1988 Clarke winner
• 1988 Campbell 2nd
• Score: 18.38

 

Fiasco

Stanislaw Lem

• 1988 Clarke shortlist
• Score: 6.38

The planet Quinta is pocked by ugly mounds and covered by a spiderweb-like network. It is a kingdom of phantoms and of a beauty afflicted by madness. In stark contrast, the crew of the spaceship Hermes represents a knowledge-seeking Earth. As they approach Quinta, a dark poetry takes over and leads them into a nightmare of misunderstanding.

Ancient of Days

Michael Bishop

• 1988 Clarke shortlist
• Score: 6.38

Ancient of Days is among Michael Bishop’s most appealing works—the story of a prehistoric man found wandering in a Georgia orchard, whose honesty and deep spirituality bring him into conflict with the modern world.

Ægypt

John Crowley

• 1988 Clarke shortlist
• 1988 WFA–Novel nominee
• Score: 12.38

There is more than one history of the world.

Before science defined the modern age, other powers, wondrous and magical, once governed the universe, their lore perfected within a lost capital of hieroglyphs, wizard-kings, and fabulous monuments, not Egypt—but Ægypt.

What if it were really so?

In the 1970s, a historian named Pierce Moffett moves to the New England countryside to write a book about Ægypt, driven by an idea he dare not believe—that the physical laws of the universe once changed and may change again. Yet the notion is not his alone. Something waits at the locked estate of Fellowes Kraft, author of romances about Will Shakespeare and Giordano Bruno and Dr. John Dee, something for which Pierce and those near him have long sought without knowing it, a key, perhaps, to Ægypt.

Replay

Ken Grimwood

• 1988 WFA–Novel winner
• 1988 Clarke shortlist
• Score: 16.38

Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn’t know he was a replayer until he died and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room; he lived another life. And died again. And lived again and died again—in a continuous twenty-five-year cycle—each time starting from scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past mistakes, or make a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of time, Replay asks the question: “What if you could live your life over again?”

Grainne

Keith Roberts

• 1988 Clarke shortlist
• Score: 6.38

 

Memoirs of an Invisible Man

Harry F. Saint

• 1988 Clarke shortlist
• Score: 6.38