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Bright of the Sky: PW’s Best Books of the Year 2007

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This week’s Publishers Weekly Cover Story is their Editor Picks for PW’s Best Books of the Year 2007.

According to PW, three thousand books are published daily in the U.S., and PW reviewed more than 6,000 of them in 2007, in print and online. From that astounding number, they’ve culled a best books list covering their favorites in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, comics, religion, lifestyle and children’s—150 in all. (That’s right, only 150 total books from 6,000 reviewed titles.) And in the SF/Fantasy/Horror category PW selected only seven titles, one of which, we are very pleased to say, is our very own Bright of the Sky: Book One of The Entire and the Rose!

Congratulations to Kay Kenyon from everyone at Pyr/Prometheus! We couldn’t be happier!

PW says, “Deft prose, high-stakes suspense and skilled, thorough world building lift this first in a new far-future SF series involving a mishap in interstellar space that sends a family into a parallel universe.” Remember, you can read an excerpt from Bright of the Sky here. And feel free to drop by Kay’s Journal and congratulate her here.

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Amazon Proclaims Brasyl "Hidden Gem"

Amazon.com has just posted their Best Books of the Year So Far: Hidden Gems. This is a mid-year round up in anticipation of their annual Best of the Year list, and, in addition to categories of fiction, nonfiction, and books for children and teens, they selected 10 “hidden gems,” books they say “don’t fit easily into the usual categories or that were just too good to leave off our lists.” And, in a category that includes both fiction and nonfiction (including books about photography, technology and meat), they chose Ian McDonald’s Brasyl,of which they further say, “Ian McDonald is hardly a hidden gem to science fiction readers by now, but with Brasyl he has proven once again that he should be reckoned as one of the finest of all our novelists. Brasyl fractures the Brazil we know into past, present, and near future in a brilliantly frenetic and spellbinding stew and a dramatic tale of character and culture.”

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The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

I’m very pleased to announce that B&N.com has just picked three titles for inclusion in their Editor’s Choice Top Ten SF&F Novels of 2006 list, prompting our publicity department to issue the following press release:

For Immediate Release

January 3, 200

“The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread Story of the Year”
Several Year-End “Bests”Cap 2006 for SF&F Imprint
Including Barnes & Noble’s SF&F Book of the Year!

Amherst, NY — Barnes & Noble online today posted their Editor’s Choice lists for the best science fiction and fantasy books of 2006. Three books by Pyr, an imprint of Prometheus Books, are in this Top Ten Novels of 2006 list, including the top spot!

The Barnes & Noble Science Fiction/Fantasy Book of the Year, Editor’s Choice, is Infoquake by David Louis Edelman—a debut that ingeniously mixes business with pleasure, or as B&N puts it, “equal parts corporate thriller, technophilic cautionary tale and breathtakingly visionary science fiction adventure.”

The other two Pyr books included in this best of the year list are The Crooked Letter by Sean Williams at number four (“prepare to be blown away,” they write) and Resolution, the conclusion to John Meaney’s three-book Nulapeiron Sequence, at number six.

The UK bookseller Waterstone’s also included two Pyr titles on their list of Top Ten SF for 2006: Crossover by Joel Shepherd and Paragaea by Chris Roberson.

Publishing blog Bookgasm posted a Best 5 Sci-Fi Books of 2006 list in which three of the best five books were from Pyr. River of Godsby Ian McDonald topped their list at number one, while Infoquake by David Louis Edelman and Crossover (both first novels) tied for fifth.

According to the science fiction and fantasy reviewer for Bookgasm,

“The biggest story of the year…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.”

The imprint will certainly do its best to make 2007 even greater than 2006:

In February, Pyr will launch a new hard science fiction anthology series, Fast Forward 1, dedicated to presenting the vanguard of the genre and charting the undiscovered country that is the future. In March, Pyr will publish Keeping It Real, the first of Justina Robson’s Quantum Gravity titles that are being hailed as her “breakout” books—the most entertaining, fun, and commercial of her novels to date. Promotion for Keeping it Real includes a special music track by The No Shows (www.thenoshows.com)—the hottest rock band of 2021.

In May, it’s “Bladerunner in the tropics” with Brasyl by Ian McDonald, the writer the Washington Post said is “becoming one of the best sf novelists of our time.” McDonald moves from India (River of Gods) to past, present, and future Brazil, with all its color, passion, and shifting realities, in a novel that is part SF, part history, part mystery, and entirely enthralling.

Pyr has already begun developing a reputation for publishing “smart” science fiction. But in September 2007, Pyr gets fantastic with its first straight-up commercial epic fantasy novel: The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. This book will lead Pyr’s Fall-Winter 07-08 season and be launched at Book Expo America in June 2007.

In other 2006 year-end awards, the blog Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist called Pyr “a breath of fresh air in both the fantasy and science fiction genres” and gave the imprint the creatively named and gratefully accepted “Best Thing Since Sliced Bread Award.”

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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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Best of the Season, Best of A Thousand Years

Michael Berry of the San Francisco Chronicle offers his list of the Best Books of the Season, a suggested shopping list for SF&F fans. We’re delighted to see Ian McDonald’s masterwork, River of Gods, among the ten books listed:

“The author of King of Morning, Queen of Day and Kirinya delivers a panoramic tale of India on the brink of civil war as its 2047 centenary approaches. Set during a drought that threatens to tear the country apart, the intricate story is told from at least nine distinct viewpoints. The principals include a street thug who traffics in stolen ovaries, a stand-up comic who suddenly finds himself running an energy corporation on the brink of a world-altering breakthrough, a fugitive American expert on artificial intelligence, a cop who battles renegade software and a politician with an explosive obsession. As these characters interact with victims, rivals, lovers and family members, they also play their roles in a drama with cosmological consequences, facing off against deities — or the next best thing.”

Meanwhile, a slightly more ambitious list, blogger William Lexner lists his Best Books of the Millenium (so far). Happy to see two Pyr titles make the list:

“45. Infoquake by David Louis Edelman: Perhaps the best recent take on the dangers of widespread capitalism. A wonderous and scathing debut novel.

“5. River of Gods by Ian McDonald: The veritable proof I was searching for that science fiction is not dead.”

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Waterstone’s Top Ten SF Titles of 2006

Michael, the Science Fiction and Imports Buyer for the UK’s Waterstone’s books, has just posted his Top Ten SF Titles of 2006. I’m very gratified to see two Pyr titles making the list, Chris Roberson’s Paragaea and Joel Shepherd’s Crossover. Michael writes:

“Shepherd’s book is a high action, gritty techno thriller that reads like a cross between Ghost in the Shell and Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon, introducing the artificial human Cassandra Kresnov in her fight for the right to survive. Chris Roberson’s Paragaea is a wonderful homage to the planetary romances of authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs and features a Russian cosmonaut who crashes on an alternate world and ends up adventuring with a Napoleonic era British naval officer and a humanoid Jaguar man. Retro in every sense of the word, this is a wonderful story, beautifully realised and hugely entertaining.”

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