Pleased as anything to write that Zero Bomb has been shortlisted for the 2020 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Speculative Fiction. It’s in the open category, in some ridiculously good company.

“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)