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Give Me Liberty and Then Some!

Rob H. Bedford has posted his review of Martin Sketchley’s The Liberty Gun over on SFFWorld. Rob likes the book, and I’m gratified to see so much praise heaped on the characters, both human and alien, in what is a fast-paced action novel. Furthermore, Rob writes:

“Flavoring the whole of the novel are many themes – gender roles, sexuality roles, and adjustment to the alien. These themes balance very well with the high-octane action scenes. Throughout the novel, Sketchley continues to inject the adrenaline into the series, between breakneck chase scene and the tooth-and-nail fights. The novel draws to a relatively predictable close, though the specifics aren’t quite as predictable, if that makes sense. It was easy enough to follow Sketchley’s path, but the last few turns were a bit surprising. The Liberty Gun brought the novel to a satisfying conclusion, Sketchley left himself enough wiggle room should he wish to return to these characters.”

Elsewhere, over on his Rob’s Blog o’Stuff, he posts his thoughts on the favorite reads of the year, including a few Pyr titles. Of David Louis Edelman’s Infoquake, he says:

“What [Scott] Lynch did for my fantasy reading taste-buds, Edleman did for my Science Fiction reading taste-buds. A believable protagonist in an all-too plausible extrapolated future with a Big Idea and backed by a future history was a lot of fun to read. Check out my review from earlier in the year.”

Sean Williams’s The Crooked Letter: “This was another beautiful Pyr book; Williams blended elements from all the speculative fiction branches to create a stew of the fantastic and horrific. The second book, The Blood Debt, published in October and while different in some respects, it was a fantastic continuation of the over-reaching saga.

Chris Roberson’s Paragaea: A Planetary Romance: “Part SF, part fantasy, part physics, and part pirate novel, Roberson pulled off a nice trick in this one. I’d love to read more about these people and the strange and familiar world.”Blogger: Pyr-o-mania – Edit Post “Give Me (More) Liberty!”

Mike Resnick’s New Dreams for Old: “I’ve heard and read of Resnick’s reputation, with all the awards he’s both won and for which he’d been nominated. This book showed me why.”

Meanwhile, over at his House of Awkwardness, novelist and tv scribe Paul Cornell picks Infoquake as his favorite SF novel of the year. “A future of business and competition that we can all identify with, which neatly avoids apocalyptic cliché, and thus the adoration of the British SF critics. I’ve blogged about it before, otherwise I’d say more. And hey, catchphrases you can use online: towards perfection!”

Along with, it should be noted in fairness, a less than favorable review of Paragaea, the website Ideomancer posts the first review of my own upcoming anthology, Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge:

“This anthology is proof hard science fiction is still a vibrant, worthwhile endeavor for any writer; here’s hoping this anthology series has a long, healthy life.”

Amen!

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Pyr Makes 3 of Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist Top 5

Three must be a magic number, because Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist has just posted their Top Ten Novels of 2006, and once again Pyr is on the list with three titles.

Ian McDonald’s River of Gods comes in at # 4.
Joel Shepherd’s Crossover is # 7.
And Sean Williams’ The Crooked Letter is # 9.

Pyr is also given the “Best Thing Since Sliced Bread Award”, with the comment that we are “a breath of fresh air in both the fantasy and science fiction genres.”

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Pyr Makes 3 of Bookgasm’s Top 5 (point five)

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Bookgasm has posted their list of the 5 Best Sci-Fi Books of 2006.

David Louis Edelman’s Infoquakeand Joel Shepherd’s Crossovertie for fifth place. And, in a list that includes Tobias S. Buckell, Kim Stanley Robinson, and John Scalzi, the number one spot is given to Ian McDonald’s River of Gods.

Of Infoquake and Crossover, Ryun Patterson writes:

“This pair of books is a great example of what Pyr is doing right. Infoquake is a tech-heavy exercise in scientific speculation that combines economics, high technology and business mechanics into an all-too-human story of greed, loss and redemption. Crossover isn’t satisfied with being just another hot-chick-android-assassin book and goes for some heavy-duty characterization (not unlike what’s been going on in TV’s Battlestar Galactica) that makes the kicking ass that much more tremendous.”

“It’s at once cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk, awash in the verbiage of globalization and emerging-markets uncertainty. As the story’s huge cast of characters tumbles toward their individual destinies in tomorrow’s India, it’s hard to believe that McDonald doesn’t have a time machine stored somewhere in his backyard…”

And they open the list with this comment about the Pyr imprint:

“The biggest story of the year, in my opinion, is Pyr’s rise to prominence as a high-quality sci-fi imprint. Pyr has managed to round up a stable of authors and titles that represents the cutting edge of sci-fi and backs it up with promotion and marketing that pretty much outdoes the other imprints out there. Bravo, Pyr. Here’s hoping for an even greater 2007.”

Congratulations to all six authors. On this end, we’ll certainly do our best to make 2007 even better than 2006.

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Quando il business è da fantascienza

David Louis Edelman, and Infoquake, have shown up on the Italian website Fantascienza.com, in a piece which, as far as I can tell, quotes Edelman’s earlier interview on Sci Fi Wire. Now, I don’t read Italian, but I do know how to call up Babel Fish, that wonderful web service that owes it’s name to Douglas Adams but reminds me of nothing more than the opening chapters of Philip K. Dick’s Galactic Pot Healer, in which bored employees in three countries push famous quotes thru translation software and back again, then play guessing games as to what the original text is.

Thus, in the spirit of PKD, who, I believe, would have appreciated Infoquake, I present these wonderful excerpts from the Babel Fish translation:

“We speak instead of Infoquake, novel of debut of trentacinquenne the American David Louis Edelman, programmatore, web designer, journalist and now also ski fi writer (operates its, between the others, the situated one web of the U.S. Army), which it seems to have inaugurated a new fantascientifico kind that same it defines one via of means between Dunes and the Wall ßstreet Journal. Interviewed from Ski Fi Wire, Edelman has delineated the weft of the book centralized on the figure of Natch, a businessman pitiless and lacking in scrupoli whose scope consists in launch on the market one new technology of which it ignores the real essence, potentially dangerous.”

And, my favorite, this piece contrasting Infoquake and it’s forthcoming sequel:

“While in Infoquake the action regards mainly the part, so to speak, mercantilistica of the matter, with taken care of descriptions of the tactics of sale and all the dirty ones makes up that they put in field the speculators without scrupoli, in Multi-Real the vicissitude takes a fold more political, even if the pure action does not lack in both cases, guarantees Edelman. Insomma, after the fantapolitica, the fantathriller, the fantaeconomia, the fantastoria etc etc, is the turn of the fantabusiness. “

Who couldn’t be for that! Thank you Babel Fish and thank you, most importantly, Fantascienza, for helping spread the word.

Update: While we’re on the subject, Paul Cornell – he of Doctor Who novel, audiobook & television fame – has just selected Infoquake as his favorite SF novel of the year. As he describes on his blog, the House of Awkwardness:

“My favourite SF novel of the year. A future of business and competition that we can all identify with, which neatly avoids apocalyptic cliché, and thus the adoration of the British SF critics. I’ve blogged about it before, otherwise I’d say more. And hey, catchphrases you can use online: towards perfection!”

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Joel Shepherd’s Waterstone’s Page

Waterstone’s in the UK is giving Crossover author Joel Shepherd his own author page, along with an online profile where he talks about “Vikram Seth, women’s basketball, and Robert Heilein,” among other things.

From the page:
Other than writing, what other jobs or professions have you undertaken or considered?

The most interesting thing I’ve actually done would be covering the women’s basketball tournament at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 for an American internet magazine. Absolutely hectic, the only time I’ve ever worked 18-hour days. Considered? As a kid, I wanted to be a fighter pilot or airline pilot. Then, a movie director. Otherwise, I think I might have made a good Intel agent for CIA, ASIO – not a spy, just someone who analyses behind the scenes.

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Kudos for WorldBuilding

Two more reviews, both of which praise their respective relevant works for world-building.

First, Neth Space remarks on David Louis Edelman’s Infoquake:

“New ideas in the world of science fiction are hard to come by, and to be honest, I’m sure just how new Infoquake really is, but it feels new. David Edelman’s debut is about cutthroat economics, technologic innovation, and government control that are played out in corporate boardrooms, work stations, and product release presentations. Most importantly, Infoquake remains engaging throughout.”

Then Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, along with some good things to say about Pyr, praise a book “that could elevate fantasy to new heights” when they say of Sean Williams’ The Crooked Letter:

“…a superior tale, one that should satisfy even jaded readers. Surreal, imaginative, captivating, unique — there’s a lot to love about this one. Add this novel to your ‘books to read’ list.”

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Love Stricken & Agoraphobic: An Interview with Sean Williams

John Scalzi, he of Old Man’s War and The Android’s Dream, has been interviewing an author a day all week over on his AOL blog, By the Way. After wonderful interviews with Karl Schroeder, Karen Traviss, Charles Stross and Sarah Hoyt, Scalzi concludes his week with an interview with Sean Williams. They talk about publishing on two continents, writing solo and in collaboration, creator owned worlds vs shared universes like Star Wars, and how love can strike you at the oddest moments. Along the way, they also find time to discuss Sean’s marvelous Books of the Cataclysm, of which two (The Crooked Letter, The Blood Debt) are now published here via Pyr in the US. Of The Blood Debt, Sean says:

“The book is simultaneously a chase novel and a romance, with various people trying to rescue family members and maintaining or starting relationships along the way. Love strikes us in the oddest places sometimes, and at the most awkward times. Its perversity is what makes it so addictive, I think. If it always came when and how we wanted to, where would be the fun in that? I’m getting married next year, to a wonderful woman who, like me, thought she would never tie the knot. That we’re both willing and eager to do this thing that we’ve resisted for so long, with other people, is testimony to the amazing transformations that love can wreak, for good or ill, on the unsuspecting. To a certain extent, The Blood Debt is also about that.”

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Lightening Up the Shadows: An Interview with Joe Abercrombie

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Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist runs an interview with Joe Abercrombie today. Joe is the author of The Blade Itself, the first book in The First Law trilogy, published by Gollancz in the UK and forthcoming from Pyr September 2007.

I’m very excited by this book. First, it’s one of the best fantasy novels I’ve read in a long time, and second, when it debuts in the US next fall, it will mark our first serious foray into epic fantasy. Yes, we’ve done some (I think) excellent fantasy already – more of it than people realize – with books like The Prodigal Troll and The Crooked Letter that I am very, VERY proud of. But those are fantasy plus, in this case fantasy plus wonderfully-realized Tarzan of the Apes pastiche and fantasy plus brilliant metaphysical quantum physics inspired afterworlds. They are tremendous books and you should read them right now if you haven’t already (Go ahead; I’ll wait) – just not what people think of when they speak of the post-Tolkien epic fantasy genre, the sure enough, dyed-in-the-wool fantasy of knights and wizards on a quest in an invented, secondary world. Which I’ve held off on publishing at Pyr until now, because, well, The Blade Itself is the first such work that came across my desk and knocked both my socks off at once. (I’ve had one or the other sock knocked off at a time before, but not both! Not both I tell you!) Because The Blade Itself is brilliant and subversive and imaginative and hysterical and dark, with great, great characters, none of which are entirely good or entirely bad, moments that make you ache and moments that are laugh out loud they are so funny without the book actually being a comedy. And I can’t wait for you to see what I mean. (Of course, if you live in the US, I do urge you to wait. If you live in the UK, go right out and get the Gollancz edition right now, then come tell me what you thought.)

Meanwhile, check out Joe’s interview, where he pontificates on such important concerns as:

“Characters, dialogue, humour, action. And the unfolding of the whole series will hopefully demonstrate that I can put a plot together in a tight spot as well (fingers crossed). The area for which I’ve garnered the most praise, however, is the nice feeling paper in which my books are bound. If you like nice feeling books, you can’t go wrong with The Blade Itself.”

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Wall to Wall Pirates

David Louis Edelman is interviewed by John Joseph Adams over on SciFi Wire, where he talks about the science of bio/logics that make up a large part of his extrapolative future in Infoquake:

“”There are programs to help you stay awake, and … the beginning chapters revolve around a program called ‘NightFocus 48,’ which enables you, during the nighttime, to see better… “There’s [also] a program … called ‘PokerFace 83. 4b.’ If you want to project zero emotion, to prevent somebody from getting a read on what you’re thinking, you fire up this program real quick, and your face just goes to this poker face, essentially. There are lots of programs like that, and I tried to give the impression these people are operating these programs all day long. It’s almost like when you’re sitting at a computer, there’s the antivirus program going on in the background, there’s a defragmenting program going on, Windows Update is updating, or a Linux package is updating. So these people are running thousands of programs all day long, [with] 90 percent of them just going on in the background; they’re probably not even aware of them.”

Meanwhile, good words from the December 15th Library Journal regarding Mike Resnick’s Starship: Pirate:

“After his crew rescued him from trumped-up court martial charges, Capt. Wilson Cole, formerly a member of the galactic Republic and now an outlaw, decides to turn to piracy to survive. His version of what pirates do, however, differs from the standard pillage-and-plunder mode; other pirates are his chosen quarry. This sequel to Starship: Mutiny, set in Resnick’s Birthright Universe (A Hunger in the Soul; “The Widowmaker” series) shows the author’s genuine flair for spinning a good yarn. Snappy dialog, intriguing human and alien characters, and a keen sense of dramatic focus make this a strong addition to most sf collections, with particular appeal to the sf action-adventure readership.”

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Just Look At This, Will You?

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For your viewing pleasure: the full cover spread for the reissue of Jack Dann’s classic novel, The Man Who Melted, coming from Pyr January 07.

This is our first time working with artist Nick Stathopoulos, but not his first time illustrating a work by Jack Dann. If you look closely there is an easter egg buried in the cover, a reference to the cover of an Australian edition of the book which Nick also painted. Trouble spotting it? Here’s a hint.

Cover design is once again by the wonderful Jacqueline Cooke. Right click to enlarge, of course. All very pretty, no?

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