Books from veteran and debut speculative fiction authors have been named to the shortlist of the 2020 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards, released June 17.

“This is such an odd and unsettling time to be reading through so much speculative fiction,” said Dan Rockmore, director of the Neukom Institute and creator of the award program. “It’s also an important time. The works chosen for the 2020 Neukom shortlist are insightful, provocative and may even guide our thinking as we experience the challenges that beset the world today.”

2020 Neukom Awards Shortlist:

Debut Category

• Cold Storage, David Koepp (Ecco, 2019)
• The Crying Machine, Greg Chivers (HarperVoyager, 2019)
• The Imaginary Corpse, Tyler Hayes (Angry Robot, 2019)
• Infinite Detail, Tim Maughan (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2019)
• The Lesson, Cadwell Turnbull (Blackstone Publishing, 2019)
• Today I Am Carey, Martin L. Shoemaker (Baen Books, 2019)
• We Set the Dark on Fire, Tehlor Kay Mejia (Katherine Tegen Books, 2019)

Open Category

• A Song for a New Day, Sarah Pinsker (Berkley, 2019)
• And Go Like This, John Crowley (Small Beer Press, 2019)
• The Archive of Alternate Endings, Lindsey Drager (Dzanc Books, 2019)
• Dead Astronauts, Jeff VanderMeer (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2019)
• The Divers’ Game, Jesse Ball (Ecco, 2019)
• Exhalation, Ted Chiang (Knopf, 2019)
• Naamah, Sarah Blake (Riverhead Books, 2020)
• Pigs, Johanna Stoberock (Red Hen Press, 2019)
• Tears of the Trufflepig, Fernando A. Flores (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2019)
• War Girls, Tochi Onyebuchi (Razorbill, 2019)
• Zero Bomb, M. T. Hill (Titan Books, 2019)

The shortlist was determined by Rockmore and his Dartmouth colleagues Professors Tarek El-Ariss, Peter Orner, and Eric Schaller, as well as Santa Fe Institute Professor Jessica Flack.

The third annual speculative fiction awards program will be judged by sff writer Sam J. Miller.

Miller also provided input on the shortlist selections.

“There’s lots to be angry about, and plenty of reasons for pessimism, but this list is proof that today’s speculative fiction writers can still help us imagine—and create—a better future,” said Miller. “I’m eager to dive into this list, and suddenly intensely terrified at the prospect of picking winners out of such an excellent list of books, encompassing work from well-known genre luminaries and bright new lights in the literary sky.”

Awards for both the debut and open book categories will be announced during the summer.

Each award winner will receive a $5,000 honorarium that is typically presented during a Dartmouth-hosted panel discussion about the genre and the winning works.

The Neukom Institute for Computational Science is dedicated to supporting and inspiring computational work. The Literary Arts Awards is part of the Neukom Institute’s initiative to explore the ways in which computational ideas impact society.

[Based on a press release,]