The Loosening Skin

"Exactly, yeah. It’s so bizarre. It’s a great example of how science fiction often makes just one change in the world, and then the entire plot revolves from that. In this book, humans shed their skin, like snakes, and you shed other parts of yourself as well. How do we use that to talk about humanity? Because technically, we do shed our skins all the time. And the brains that we have now are not in fact the brains that we were born with. We are completely new. We change all the time, so, our cells are replaced. We think is ourselves as quite fixed beings, but we are impermanent continually while alive and even more obviously at the end of that. But what an amazing concept. Fantastically written as well. It’s a small press publication. I think they’ve got about 10 books out there. Aliya is one of those writers that writers recommend to each other. That’s the easiest way to put it. So, whilst she’s at a smaller press, and is maybe a name not familiar to so many people, Aliya is the word-of-mouth author on this list. Absolutely. She is the one that people who know what they’re talking about, talk about. She’s becoming more and more known to the the science fiction community, and she has been nominated for more awards, but I think this is really the breakthrough novel for her. “Aliya is one of those writers that writers recommend to each other” For me, this one, the concept, coupled with the plot dynamic – which is investigation-led. A detective story, basically. That’s always a great way of tying an amazing science fictional concept to a plot engine that keeps you reading. So many science fictional works, think Blade Runner for example, have an investigative element of them. So that sort of genre awareness of plot mechanics, coupled with an absolutely out-there concept is what’s going to make this novel a real success for everyone. It really reminds me of Vurt , a book by Jeff Noon back in the 1990s. His first novel, a very psychedelic novel, very cyberpunky, set in Manchester, rather than America. People would enter the Vurt – the virtual world –by putting a feather in their mouth. It had a really surrealistic take. I think Aria’s done something similar with the Loosening Skin concept. So, it’s always a pleasure when an award can shine a light on an author that is deserving of much wider attention, especially outside of the UK sci fi scene. Because while the Clarke is a UK award, we are watched from much further afield. Yes. So we had 124 books submitted. We conducted a survey within our base – so it’s quite biased, because it’s fans – and we found that many people were reading 50 or more books a year. But of those 50-plus books, only five or so would be read within the year of them being published. Obviously, these books all came out last year. Unless you are a judge, you’re unlikely to read 124 new science fiction books in a year. It’s impossible for anyone to really claim to be an expert in the entire field these days. Which I think is a good thing, because there’s always something new out there to be discovered, however informed you are of the genre. Yes. Aliya is a very literary voice. Her book, I think, is the book that’s doing what Ian McEwan thinks he’s doing. The winner of the Arthur C Clarke Award will be announced on 17 th July 2019, in association with Foyles Book Store. Tickets will be available at clarkeaward.com"