BSFA Award Finalists announced

I've been mostly out of the SF loop the past few days, so I missed this (along with a few other things that I'll do in the morning Saturday) announcement that Niall Harrison posted:

Best Novel

Flood by Stephen Baxter
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
The Night Sessions by Ken MacLeod
Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Best Short Fiction

"Exhalation" by Ted Chiang (Eclipse 2)
"Crystal Nights" by Greg Egan (Interzone 215)
"Little Lost Robot" by Paul McAuley (Interzone 217)
"Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment" by M. Rickert (F&SF, Oct/Nov 2008)

Best Non-Fiction

"Physics for Amnesia" by John Clute (talk given at the Gresham College Symposium "Science Fiction as a Literary Genre")
Superheroes!: Capes and Crusaders in Comics and Films by Roz Kaveney (I.B. Tauris)
What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction by Paul Kincaid (Beccon)
Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn (Wesleyan)

Best Artwork

Cover of Subterfuge, ed. Ian Whates, by Andy Bigwood
Cover of Flood by Stephen Baxter, by Blacksheep
Cover of Swiftly by Adam Roberts, by Blacksheep
Cover of Murky Depths 4, by Vincent Chong
Cover of Interzone 218, by Warwick Fraser Coombe

I have read/partially read (and will finish reading in the near future) two of the Novel finalists (Stephenson, Harkaway), as well as Chiang's story (typical for Chiang, meaning it is great stuff), plus the Kincaid and Mendlesohn non-fiction books that I reviewed last summer (and which I talked about in my year-end wrapups as being excellent books for those more interested in SF criticism). Based on what I've heard of most of the others (and the point is, I have heard of virtually all these authors/stories before now), this finalist list isn't that bad. In fact, some of it I couldn't argue with (plus I think the Harkaway novel is one of those polarizing novels that hints, from what I've read so, that it isn't going to fit easily into a pre-fab cubbyhole) being there. Shall be interesting to read the reaction from other quarters this weekend.