A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING by Ruth Ozeki is on the Shortlist for Kitschies Red Tentacle Award

It was announced today that Ruth Ozeki's Booker-shortlisted novel, A Tale for the Time Being, is on the shortlist for the Kitschies Red Tentacle Award.

Since its simultaneous release across all formats - complementary hardback, paperback, digital and audio editions - in March 2013, A Tale for the Time Being has attracted worldwide critical acclaim, as well as securing a shortlisting for the 2013 Man Booker Prize and winning the Independent Booksellers Week Award for the same year.

The Kitschies, presented by The Kraken Rum, reward the year's most progressive, intelligent and entertaining works that contain elements of the speculative or fantastic. Now entering its fifth year, the prize offers the Red (novel), Golden (debut) and Inky (cover art) Tentacle awards, as well as the Black Tentacle, awarded at the discretion of the judges to a piece of work that doesn't otherwise fit the Kitschies criteria. Last year's winners include Nick Harkaway's Angelmaker, Karen Lord'sRedemption in Indigo, Dave Shelton's A Boy and a Bear in a Boat and The World SF Blog.

Previously also awarded to Patrick Ness, Lauren Beukes and China Miéville, the Red Tentacle is presented annually to the author whose novel containing speculative or fantastic elements best fulfills the criteria of 'intelligent, progressive and entertaining'. This year's finalists are selected from a record 234 submissions, coming from over fifty different publishers and imprints. The winner receives a £1,000 prize, a hand-crafted tentacular trophy and a bottle of the Kraken's finest black rum.

The 2013 judging panel for the Red Tentacle comprises of author Kate Griffin, 2012 Red Tentacle Winner Nick Harkaway, Will Hill, author of the bestselling YA series Department 19, Superflux founder and TED Fellow Anab Jain, and editor and founder of whitefox, Annabel Wright.

Harkaway said "This was an awe-inspiring year. For the Red Tentacle, we could have built a shortlist composed purely of iconic names, and we had to reject at least one book which may be a work of genius because it did not entirely mesh with the Kitschies' cardinal virtues: 'intelligent, entertaining, and progressive'. The debuts are pretty breathtaking, too: broad in scope, deft and compelling. It's been an education as well as a privilege to judge the prize, and a vast relief not to be in competition with these writers."

Announced today, the full shortlists include:

The Red Tentacle (Novel):

• Red Doc> by Anne Carson (Jonathan Cape)

• A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (Canongate)

• Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon (Jonathan Cape)

• More Than This by Patrick Ness (Walker)

• The Machine by James Smythe (HarperCollins / Blue Door)

The Golden Tentacle (Debut):

• Stray by Monica Hesse (Hot Key)
• A Calculated Life by Anne Charnock (47 North)
• Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Orbit)
• Nexus by Ramez Naam (Angry Robot)
• Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan (Atlantic)

The Inky Tentacle (Cover Art):

• Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill (Gollancz) / Design and illustration by Sinem Erkas
• The Age Atomic by Adam Christopher (Angry Robot) / Art by Will Staehle
• Homeland and Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow (Titan) / Design by Amazing15
• Stray by Monica Hesse (Hot Key) / Art by Gianmarco Magnani
• Apocalypse Now Now by Charlie Human (Century) / Art by Joey Hi-Fi

The winners will be announced in a ceremony at the Seven Dials Club on 12 February.

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