Deep Wheel Orcadia by Harry Josephine Giles has won the 2022 Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction novel.
The science fiction novel is written in verse. It is told in the Orkney dialect of the Scots language, and includes a parallel English translation (as described by The Guardian).
Darling, who is fleeing a life that never seems to fit her, and Astrid, who is returning home from art school on Mars, are the protagonists of the novel. The two meet on Deep Wheel Orcadia, a faraway space station where people are fighting for their lives as the pace of change threatens to leave behind the community.
Dr. Andrew M. Butler, chair of the judges, said that Deep Wheel Orcadia is the type of novel that makes one re-think what the genre of science fiction is capable of “and makes the reading experience feel strange in a new and thrilling way.”
“It’s as if language itself becomes the book’s hero and the genre is all the richer for it,” he added.
Giles was presented the award by Dr. Glyn Morgan during a ceremony at the Science Museum, London. The author received a prize of £2,022 (roughly $2,318 USD), which is a prize amount based on the year that increases year-by-year, in addition to an engraved trophy.
The other shortlisted novels included Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine, A River Called Time by Courttia Newland, Wergen: The Alien Love War by Mercurio D. Rivera, and Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley.