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8 More Pyr Titles Arrive on the Kindle

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A batch of eight more Pyr books has been Kindle-ized (though one is only listed as pre-order. Didn’t know they’d do that with ebooks.)

They are:

Justina Robson’s Chasing the Dragon (Quantum Gravity, Book 4)(Preorder)

Sean Williams’ The Crooked Letter: Books of the Cataclysm: One

Chris Roberson’s End of the Century

Gardner Dozois’ Galileo’s Children: Tales Of Science VS. Superstition

Sean Williams’ The Hanging Mountains

Alexis Glynn Latner’s Hurricane Moon

Theodore Judson’s The Martian General’s Daughter

Matthew Sturges’ Midwinter

Again, no control of the order in which Amazon puts these things up. It is apparently based at least partially on demand, as logged by their “I’d like to read this book on Kindle” button. Click often.

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For Your Viewing Pleasure: The Quiet War Full Cover Spread

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Coming in September…

Cover Illustration © Sparth
Design by Jacqueline Cooke


“Shortlisted for this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award, this sweeping interplanetary adventure is also a thoughtful examination of human nature. …McAuley (Cowboy Angels) moves deftly among five well-drawn characters in the thick of the action: a cloned spy, a hotshot pilot, a ruthless scientist, a bluntly independent biological engineer and an unscrupulous diplomat. They all, in different ways, must choose between the familiar and the new, struggling to reconcile conflicting desires. This compelling tale opens vast panoramas while confronting believable people with significant choices.” Publishers Weekly starred review

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everything is here for a reason

Words of wisdom from James Enge:

In an imaginary world, everything is there for a reason. The reason may be sheer inertia–the ground is made of soil, because it didn’t occur to the writer to make it anything else. But a shrewd writer doesn’t make those choices via inertia. He makes the ground into an angry vegetable that devours random people at the dark of the twelfth moon. She makes it into a vast expanse of shining incorruptible metal. They make it into something on purpose, to make an impact on the reader. Stuff that in realistic fiction would be corny–instances of the pathetic fallacy–are part of the basic toolkit for shrewd writers of sf/f. The whole world can be a metaphor in imaginative fiction.

Or not. Part of the impact of the metaphor requires the writer to take the material in the imaginary world at face value, as real for the purposes of the story–like a comedian keeping a straight face while telling a joke. I’ll sleep on this and try to figure out if it makes any sense.

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James Enge @ Joe Mallozzi’s blog

James Enge, author of Blood of Ambrose,is the latest writer to guest-blog at Stargate writer/producer Joseph Mallozzi’s wonderful book club blog. Last night, Mallozzi posted the results of his readers Q&A with Enge. The answers (and the questions) are well worth checking out, as always.

Here’s a sample:

Q: I liked the fact that you chose to reveal back-story for these characters and their world throughout the book rather than write a prologue to explain these things at the beginning. What went into this decision?”

A: About prologues… the more of them I read, the less I like them. I think some writers confuse the process they go through (in creating the world, the characters, the backstory) with the process the reader goes through. If the reader feels like he or she is reading “Report on Planet X” or “Fodor’s Guide to Middle Earth” then the writer has blown it somehow. A successful beginning is more like introducing two people. If you want Bob to meet Shlomo, you don’t start by reciting Shlomo’s educational background, vocational aptitudes and credit history. You say, “Bob: meet Shlomo. Which one of you is buying the next round?” (Or something like that. I’m still working on that whole social skills thing.)

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James Enge @ Adventueres on SciFi Publishing

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James Enge, author of Blood of Ambrose,is the latest guest on the newly-returned Adventures in SciFi Publishing podcast. They discuss “Leiber vs. Tolkien fantasy, massive fantasy epics, and his beef with H.G. Wells.”

Host Shaun Farrell reviewed the novel back in June. His verdict then: “James Enge writes Blood of Ambrose with a subtle elegance that disguises his extraordinary narrative skill. The humor is natural and unforced. The characterization rings true, even under the revelation of shocking realities. The horror is never glorified, and it is all the more horrific for it. And the plot grows with organic grace. You won’t find any quests here, nor the usual clichés or trappings of epic fantasy. No, these pages drip the unexpected, and they will make you laugh and scream and cry and thirst for more. Simple put, Blood of Ambrose is a powerful and fun stand alone novel.”

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Stalked by a Bibliophile

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The wonderful Charles Tan has posted an interview with Yours Truly on Bibliophile Stalker. I think it came off rather well, if I do say so myself. Here’s a taste:

How has Pyr adapted to the changes in the publishing industry?

More trade paperbacks, fewer hardcovers. We’re getting serious about ebooks.

But I want to give a shout out here to our Director of Publicity, Jill Maxick, who I think was somewhat ahead of the curve on reaching out to online communities and bloggers. These days, that’s a no brainer, but five years ago when we were just starting out, Jill launched us out of the gate with a heavy outreach to bloggers, and treated online review venues with every bit as much respect as traditional print venues. Again, these days, that’s not a big deal, but the climate was different in 2004, and she deserves massive credit for being one of the first to get it. And that was essential when it came to Pyr making the splash it did.

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Blood of Ambrose – an excellently crafted tale

Monsters & Critics on James Enge’s Blood of Ambrose:

“This excellently crafted tale tells a familiar story in a world filled with magic and all emotional turmoil of a terrified youngster struggling to gain acceptance. Divided into five main chapters, the world building is topnotch while centering on the four main characters. The emotions have a genuine feel and Lathmar’s angst draws sympathy without being overdone.”

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Blood of Ambrose @ Joe Mallozzi’s Book Club Discussion

This week kicks of a discussion of James Enge’s Blood of Ambroseat Joseph Mallozzi’s Weblog.Joe kicks it off with his thoughts on the book.

“Enge’s prose is tight and efficient, devoid of the rambling, oft-unendurable meandering descriptive passages that typify the high-fantasy genre. The setting is rich in detail, a masterful creation of world building, while the magic system that runs through the narrative proves ferociously imaginative yet impressive in its consistency. The characters are interesting – particularly Ambrosia and Morlock – yet miss the depth that would have made them truly memorable….Still, a unique and entertaining read with plenty to recommend it in terms of the myriad of inspired elements on hand to facilitate and complicate: flesh golems, mechanical spiders, the living dead, inelegant leaping horses, sorcerers, and mazelike castle passageways to make Mervyn Peake envious. An impressive fantasy debut.”

Joe ends the post by soliciting questions for the forthcoming Q&A with James.

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Tolkien’s Sigurd and Gudrun

How long is my Strange Horizons review of the latest posthumous Tolkien publication? Pretty long.

(Actually it’s part of a larger, secret strategy of mine to question the assumptions of SF and F characterisation, which I take to be bound by ‘a rather stiffly limitedly consecutive logic of human motivation.’ We need a couple more SFF Hamlets, and a couple fewer SFF Luke Skywalkers and Sigurds. Or so I believe …)

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