Comments: In 1987, Margaret Atwood won the first Clarke Award with The Handmaid's Tale, a harrowing vision of a dystopian future in which women were reduced to little more than breeding stock. Atwood presented this misogynistic dehumanizing of women as a nightmarish turn of events. Twenty-six years later, Jane Rogers on the Clarke Award for The Testament of Jesse Lamb, which presents a vision of history in which the female protagonist turns herself into a brainless incubator for a fetus - an act that is presented as one of selfless nobility. Somehow, over two decades of science fiction, it seems that the status of women in science fiction has gone from an oppressed group struggling to be more than their wombs, to being defined entirely by their wombs. It seems to me that this is a step backwards.
Winner
The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
Shortlist
Embassytown by China Miéville
The End Specialist by Drew Magary
Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear
Rule 34 by Charles Stross
The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper
What Are the Arthur C. Clarke Awards?
Go to previous year's nominees: 2011
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 2013
Book Award Reviews Home
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