Chris Roberson’s forthcoming Solaris title, Set the Seas on Fire,
As John says above, Chris’s novels occur in one big, interconnected multiverse, much like those of his influences Michael Moorcock and Philip José
Interminable Ramblings Read More »
Fantasy Book Critic is holding a contest. Twenty lucky winners will be awarded an advance reading copy of Joe Abercrombie’s fantasy debut The Blade Itself.
Meanwhile, here is the final full jacket of the book. This was composed by Jaqueline Cooke, following the original design by Laura Brett. Astute readers will notice font changes from the UK edition, though we share the letter “h.” Also the final printed version will see gold foil used to limn the title and author’s name, with the arrow design and the words “the first law: book one” in solid foil.
“If you’re fond of bloodless, turgid fantasy with characters as thin as newspaper and as boring as plaster saints, Joe Abercrombie is really going to ruin your day. A long career for this guy would be a gift to our genre.”- Scott Lynch, author of The Lies of Locke Lamora
Michael Moorcock is the subject of a big, eight page interview in the second issue of the new SF media magazine, Death Ray. Among other things, Mike talks briefly about his forthcoming novel, The Metatemporal Detective.
“We have to keep struggling in order to maintain justice — the Balance,” says Mike. “The price of freedom is to quote again, eternal vigilance. My next book, The Metatemporal Detective (due in October from Pyr), might otherwise be different from anything I’ve done before, but ultimately that’s the same message it offers.”
Meanwhile, over on his blog On the Front, John Picacio talks about the cover, posting the final front cover image, the image sans type, and the spine/back cover wrap. Elsewhere on John’s blog, he discusses the Death Ray issue and – for Elric fans – he gives a glimpse of one of his interior illustrations for the upcoming Del Rey reissue, Elric The Stealer of Souls.
Jeff Vandermeer posts his very short interview with Kay Kenyon, about her experiences touring in support of Bright of the Sky,
For more of Kay’s wit and wisdom, visit her LiveJournal.
Kay Keynon on Tour Read More »
“Pyr is quickly becoming the standard by which all other sci-fi imprints are judged.” – Bookgasm.com
Ian McDonald’s Brasyl:
Quill nominee, Salon.com’s Summer Reading Recommendation, Starred Review in PW, Starred Review in Booklist, A grade in SciFi Weekly, B+ in Entertainment Weekly. Ranked # 5 on the bestselling hardcover list at San Francisco-based independent genre bookstore Borderlands Books for May 2007
Ian McDonald’s River of Gods (paperback available September 2007):
BSFA Award winner, Arthur C. Clarke nominee, Hugo nominee, starred review in Library Journal
Justina Robson’s Keeping It Real (Quantum Gravity Book One)
Locus Recommended Read, Starburst Five Star Review
Kay Kenyon’s Bright of the Sky (Book One of The Entire and the Rose):
Starred Review in Publishers Weekly, A grade in SciFi Weekly
David Louis Edelman’s Infoquake (Volume One of the Jump 225 Trilogy):
Barnes & Noble’s # 1 Editor’s Choice Top 10 SF&F Novels for 2006, John W. Campbell Memorial Award Nominee for Best Novel 2006, Bookgasm’s 5 Best SciFi Books of 2006
Mike Resnick’s Starship: Mutiny and Starship Pirate (5 book Starship series):
B in Sci Fi Weekly
Recent Awards & Nominations for Pyr:
Recommendations/Endorsements:
Foreign Awards given to Pyr books for their overseas editions:
2 Years, 4 Months and Counting… Read More »
Two Pyr authors, just back from the recent Readercon, post their reports:
Read what David Louis Edelman and Kay Kenyon have to say.
Fantasy Book Critic is hosting a Sean Williams Giveaway. Three lucky winners will be awarded the first three volumes of The Books of the Cataclysm by Sean Williams: The Crooked Letter,
“…the mind-blowing concept is enough to make me want more. ” Fantasy Book Critic
“[E]xplores the nature of life, death, and reality. Big subjects, but with the precision of an archaeological expert, Williams is more than up to the task. There is a lot to admire in Williams’ epic fantasy, the wide range of global religions and myths of which his afterlife is comprised, to the characterization of the protagonists. The story has the mythic resonance of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and American Gods, the dark fantasy/horror one might associate with something like Stephen King’s Dark Tower saga, the multiple universes/realities of Moorcock’s Eternal Champion mythos, and the strange, weird creatures one might associate with China Miéville’s Bas-lag novels. Williams imagined world is equal part those novels which preceded his, but fortunately, there is enough newness to both the approach and vision to make this the work of a singular vision….” [R]eading many of the other titles Lou Anders has published with Pyr, I shouldn’t have been surprised with both the quality of the writing and the breadth of Williams’ imagination. Like a lot of the other books published by Pyr, Williams captures what makes a tried and true genre like Epic Fantasy so popular and enjoyable of a genre and spins a tale with his unique voice. This is the type of book you finish and can’t wait to read the sequel.”- SFFWorld.com
Cataclysmic Contest Read More »
The fabulously-talented John Picacio has just delivered the final cover illustration for Michael Moorcock’s forthcoming work, The Metatemporal Detective.
from Pyr this October, collects for the first time eleven tales of Sir Seaton Begg vs. Count Zodiac the Albino (perhaps better known to the world as Elric of Melniboné), including the never before seen tale, “The Flaneur of the Arcades d’Opera.”
From the book description:
Seaton Begg and his constant companion, pathologist Dr “Taffy” Sinclair, both head the secret British Home Office section of the Metatemporal Investigation Department–an organization whose function is understood only by the most high-ranking government people around the world–and a number of powerful criminals.
Begg’s cases cover a multitude of crimes in dozens of alternate worlds, generally where transport is run by electricity, where the internal combustion engine is unknown, and where giant airships are the chief form of international carrier. He investigates the murder of English Prime Minister “Lady Ratchet,” the kidnapping of the king of a country taken over by a totalitarian regime, and the death of Geli Raubel, Adolf Hitler’s mistress. Other adventures take him to a wild west where “the Masked Buckaroo” is tracking down a mysterious red-eyed Apache known as the White Wolf; to 1960s’ Chicago where a girl has been killed in a sordid disco; and to an independent state of Texas controlled by neocon Christians with oily (and bloody) hands. He visits Paris, where he links up with his French colleagues of the Sûreté du Temps Perdu. In several cases the fanatical Adolf Hitler is his opponent, but his arch-enemy is the mysterious black sword wielding aristocrat known as Zenith the Albino, a drug-dependent, charismatic exile from a distant realm he once ruled.
In each story the Metatemporal Detectives’ cases take them to worlds at once like and unlike our own, sometimes at odds with and sometimes in league with the beautiful adventuresses Mrs. Una Persson or Lady Rosie von Bek. At last Begg and Sinclair come face to face with their nemesis on the moonbeam roads which cross between the universes, where the great Eternal Balance itself is threatened with destruction and from which only the luckiest and most daring of metatemporal adventurers will return.
These fast-paced mysteries pay homage to Moorcock’s many literary enthusiasms for authors as diverse as Clarence E. Mulford, Dashiell Hammett, Georges Simenon, and his boyhood hero, Sexton Blake.
Metatemporal Matters Read More »
Chris Roberson is interviewed on Yatterings. “Setting the Pages on Fire,” is a comprehensive-Chris interview, talking not only about his previous two Pyr novels, Here, There & Everywhere
Although he has written outside of it, the vast majority of Chris’s published and forthcoming work is set in one of two fictional universes. First, there is his stories of the extended Bonaventure-Carmody clan. Comparable to Michael Moorcock’s Beck/Begg dynasty, Chris says, “Along with the von Beck family, the other inspirations for the Bonaventure family (more properly the Bonaventure-Carmody family, though the Carmody side of the clan hasn’t much appeared in print, as yet) are Kim Newman’s Diogenes Club stories, and Philip José Farmer’s Wold-Newton stories. I’ve got a real weakness for stories that mix genres, or at least blend different subgenres, and I’ve always been a sucker for heroes.” Novels in this universe include Here, There & Everywhere, Paragaea, Set the Seas on Fire (forthcoming, but featuring a pre-Paragaea Hieronymus Bonaventure) and End of the Century.
His other major universe is that of the Celestial Empire, an alternate history of a space-faring Chinese empire that diverges from our own timeline sometime in the 15th Century and follows the empire as it sets out to colonize Mars. I published the first of these tales, “O One,” in my anthology Live Without a Net. Several more have appeared in Asimov’s and Postscripts, with the novella The Voyage of Night Shining White
Check out the interview, and then, if you haven’t already, dive into the universe of your choice. Not that you can’t visit both.
Setting The Pages on Fire Read More »
Over on SFSite.com, Stuart Carter reviews Ian McDonald’s Brasyl,
Speaking of how the three story lines converge in a tale of parallel realities, Stuart says, “Really — this is exactly what I read science fiction for: to be shown dazzling new things, new worlds — new thoughts, even; to be immersed in unfamiliar milieux and made aware of the potential wonder of the world around us, whether in a different dimension or just a different timezone.”
The Kaleidoscopic Mr McDonald Read More »