Annal:2007 Philip K. Dick Award

Nova Swing

M. John Harrison

• 2007 Clarke winner
• 2007 Philip K Dick winner
• Score: 20.57

Vic Serotonin is a “travel agent” into and out of the Saudade Event Site, a zone of strange geography, twisted physics, and frightening psychic onslaughts. His latest client is a woman who’s nearly as unpredictable as the site itself—and maybe just as dangerous. She wants a tour just as a troubling new class of biological artifacts are leaving the site—living algorithms that are transforming the world outside in inexplicable and unsettling ways. Shadowed by a metaphysically inclined detective determined to shut his illegal operation down, Vic must make sense of a universe rapidly veering toward a virulent and viral form of chaos…and a humanity almost lost.

From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain

Minister Faust

• 2007 Philip K Dick citation
• Score: 8.57

They’re Earth’s mightiest superteam—and dysfunctional as hell. Having finally defeated all archenemies, the members of the Fantastic Order of Justice are reduced to engaging in toxic office politics that could very well lead to a superpowered civil war. Only one woman can save them from themselves: Dr. Eva Brain-Silverman, aka Dr. Brain, the world’s leading therapist for the extraordinarily abled.

Ally: Book 1 of Wess'Har series

Karen Traviss

• 2007 Philip K Dick nominee
• Score: 6.57

The worlds orbiting Cavanagh’s Star are in turmoil. Civil war on Umeh—ignited by outsiders—threatens to annihilate the teeming masses of a grossly overpopulated planet. On Bezer’ej, the handful of native aquatic creatures who survived extermination must take extraordinary and terrible steps to ensure the future of their kind… And the interlopers from a distant planet called Earth can only watch the chaos they helped, in part, to create—knowing their home world will be next to suffer.

The day of reckoning is rapidly approaching when the powerful Eqbas will remake the Earth at the expense of its dominant species. And Shan Frankland—once a police officer, once human, now something much more—must decide where her loyalties truly lie: among the gethes, on a planet she once called home, or here, where a dying species presents her with a new and unexpected crisis.

Gradisil

Adam Roberts

• 2007 Clarke shortlist
• 2007 Philip K Dick nominee
• Score: 12.57

Not very long from now, if you are wealthy, space can be yours, space to grow. New technology has seeded a rebirth of the pioneer spirit. A new breed of adventurer has slipped the bonds of gravity and begun a fresh life in orbit, free from interference by government, free from the petty concerns of earth.

But tradition, fear, and revenge carry a murderous weight, a gravity that is not so easy to escape. The death of Gradisil’s grandfather, floating high in the uplands above earth, was only the beginning. And now the US government is looking up at the new nation above our heads with jealous eyes.

Grey

Jon Armstrong

• 2007 Philip K Dick nominee
• Score: 6.57

For Michael Rivers, life is perfect. He is tall, handsome and worshipped by billions of fans around the globe. He is wealthy beyond measure, the heir apparent to one of the high-tech corporations that controls the world. He is fashionable, setting trends with his wardrobe of immaculate designer suits. And Michael is in love with Nora, his beautiful, witty and equally perfect fiancee. When an assassin’s bullets pierce Michael’s body before the cameras at a press junket, everything changes. Forcibly separated from Nora, his illusions shattered, Michael seeks to uncover the reasons behind the attempted assassination. Michael delves deep into his past, finding that all paths lead to a time when he was the golden boy, dancing furiously to the beat of notorious all-night Rage parties thrown by his father.

Saturn Returns: Book 1 of Astropolis

Sean Williams

• 2007 Philip K Dick nominee
• Score: 6.57

In the forty-third millennium of human history, Imre Bergamasc awakens after two hundred years to the realization that he has been the victim of an elaborate murder plot-a plot that also destroyed the intergalactic transport milieu known as the Continuum. But now that Imre has been reborn, he will stop at nothing to help bring forth the rebirth of the galaxy.

Undertow

Elizabeth Bear

• 2007 Philip K Dick nominee
• Score: 6.57

A frontier world on the back end of nowhere is the sort of place people go to get lost. And some of those people have secrets worth hiding, secrets that can change the future–assuming there is one….

André Deschênes is a hired assassin, but he wants to be so much more. If only he can find a teacher who will forgive his murderous past–and train him to manipulate odds and control probability. It’s called the art of conjuring, and it’s André’s only route to freedom. For the world he lives on is run by the ruthless Charter Trade Company, and his floating city, Novo Haven, is little more than a company town where humans and aliens alike either work for one tyrannical family–or are destroyed by it. But beneath Novo Haven’s murky waters, within its tangled bayous, reedy banks, and back alleys, revolution is stirring. And one more death may be all it takes to shift the balance….