Press Release

PRESS RELEASE –TWO-BOOK US RIGHTS DEAL FOR BRITISH NOVELIST

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From the press release:

Helen Edwards, Rights Director at Transworld UK, has sold US rights in two historical vampire novels by UK novelist Jasper Kent for a good five-figure sum in US dollars.

World rights in the novels, which open with Jasper’s debut TWELVE, published very successfully in the UK by Transworld in January 2009 (it is the second-highest-selling trade paperback debut novel right across UK publishing in 2009), were acquired by Simon Taylor from John Jarrold in 2008. The sequel, THIRTEEN YEARS LATER, will appear in the UK in March 2010.

‘I’m thrilled to be welcoming Jasper Kent into the Pyr fold,’ says editorial director Lou Anders. ‘TWELVE is a magnificent blend of a historical novel and a dark fantasy novel, that could appeal equally to readers both in and out of genre. Jasper is a skilled storyteller, whose compelling prose had me hooked from his opening chapter. The book is “un-put-downable,” and I love that he has brought back a real sense of threat and danger to the classic monsters, something that has been lacking with too many vampires lately. I cannot wait to spring this on US readers.’

‘Jasper and I are delighted with this deal, and looking forward to working with Lou and his colleagues,’ said John Jarrold. ‘Pyr is a terrific company, who publish many of my favourite authors, and Lou’s enthusiasm has to be seen to be believed!’

Contact Helen Edwards or John Jarrold for further information:

Helen Edwards: e-mail: H.Edwards@transworld-publishers.co.uk phone: 020 8579 3652

John Jarrold: e-mail: j.jarrold@btinternet.com phone: 01522 510544.

29th October 2009

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Pyr Honored with Four Major Award Nominations

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 24, 2008

CONTACT: Jill Maxick

800-853-7545, jmaxick@prometheusbooks.com

Pyr Honored with Four Major Award Nominations

Pyr Gets Two Hugo® Nominations plus Two Authors up for

John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award!

Amherst, NY—Pyr, the highly acclaimed science fiction and fantasy imprint of Prometheus Books, is proud to announce that its Editorial Director, Lou Anders, and three of its authors have been nominated for highly esteemed awards in science fiction:

  • Lou Anders for Best Professional Editor, Long Form Hugo® Award
  • Ian McDonald’s Brasyl for Best Novel Hugo® Award
  • Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself) for John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award
  • David Louis Edelman (Infoquake) for John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award

The Hugo® Award is the leading award for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy. For the second year in a row, Pyr Editorial Director Lou Anders has been nominated for the Hugo® for Best Professional Editor, Long Form in recognition of his ability to produce a high-quality and intelligent line of science fiction and fantasy titles. Anders says, “I am personally very honored to be nominated for a second year in a row… but when one honors an editor, what they are really doing is sending along an endorsement of that editor’s tastes, so I am over the moon to see a book from Pyr in the ‘Best Novel’ category and two Pyr authors on the Campbell list.”

USA Today called Ian McDonald’s Brasyl—up for the Hugo® for Best Novel—“the most rewarding science fiction in recent memory.” McDonald, hailed by Asimov’s Science Fiction as “one of the most interesting and accomplished science fiction writers of this latter-day era, indeed maybe the most interesting and accomplished,” comments on this nomination: “As they say, the honor is simply being nominated. I’m thrilled to have been nominated for Brasyl (even if, as umpteen Brazilians have told, my spelling is terrible!) —but what’s especially exciting is that it’s a double whammy: for me, and for Lou Anders as editor (and a real old school hands-on editor) as creative director of Pyr. This, I hope, is the first of many for the ballsiest imprint in SF.”

The John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award is given to the best new writer whose first work of science fiction or fantasy appearing in a professional publication was published in the previous two years. Nominee Joe Abercrombie’s best-selling fantasy debut The Blade Itself: The First Law: Book One has earned him much praise and the designation by Locus as “a rough-and-tumble, bold new voice in the heroic fantasy ranks.” With the same dark wit that colors his novels, Abercrombie says, “I’m delighted to have been nominated, especially at a time when there are so many great new authors coming out. My Uruk Hai hit squad are already on their way to Wisconsin to ‘dramatically reduce’ the chance of a Scott Lynch victory. They may well stop by David Anthony Durham’s house on the way back …”

David Louis Edelman is also up for the John W. Campbell Award: “I’m beyond thrilled to be nominated for the Campbell Award. It’s an honor to even be mentioned in the same sentence as the other esteemed nominees. I feel especially honored considering I only had one eligible published work, Infoquake, during the 2006-2007 time period.” SFF World called Infoquake “A stunning debut novel by a lucid, precise, and talented new voice…This may be THE science fiction book of the year.”

Prometheus Books and Pyr congratulate Lou Anders, Ian McDonald, Joe Abercrombie and David Louis Edelman for their outstanding work. We are proud to be associated with such talent and quality.

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BoingBoing presents Paul Di Filippo’s “Wikiworld”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 24, 2007
CONTACT:Jill Maxick
1-800-853-7545
jmaxick@prometheusbooks.com
Pyr, an imprint of Prometheus Books

BoingBoing presents Paul Di Filippo’s “Wikiworld”
In a Sneak Peek From FAST FORWARD 1 Anthology

Amherst, NY — At BoingBoing.net, Cory Doctorow has posted a wonderful review of the soon-to-be-published (February 13, 2007) FAST FORWARD 1, an anthology Publishers Weekly called “outstanding” in a starred review.

Cory Doctorow—the digital rights activist and popular science fiction writer whose short story collection Overclocked is reviewed in the current issue of Entertainment Weekly (”Doctorow is rapidly emerging as the William Gibson of his generation.”)—was just named by Forbes as one of the top 25 “Web Celebrities” for 2007. He’s the co-editor of BoingBoing.net, a very popular and hugely influential weblog about technology, culture, and politics that ranks in Technorati’s top 10 and averages over 300,000 actual unique visits a day.

In addition to praising FAST FORWARD 1 as a whole (and the very idea of the new series it launches), Doctorow directed BoingBoing readers to “one absolute knock-out story…that is among the most exciting pieces of fiction I’ve read in years”: Paul Di Filippo’s “Wikiworld.”

Pyr has offered “Wikiworld” online as a tasty sampling of what’s in store for those who buy the complete anthology FAST FORWARD 1. BoingBoing.net linked to it here.

See “Wikiworld” online here.


To read Lou Anders’ introduction from FAST FORWARD 1, see The Eternal Night’s posting.


Enjoy these samples until next month’s publication of FAST FORWARD 1, available now for pre-order. Media review copies will be available next week.

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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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Science Fiction Gets Global with Two Novels of 21st Century India

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 13, 2006

CONTACT: Jill Maxick
800-853-7545 or jmaxick@prometheusbooks.com

Science Fiction Gets Global with Two Novels of 21st Century India

Amherst, New York—Science fiction authors have always been a forward-thinking group, so it shouldn’t be any surprise that they are turning their attentions to addressing the technological rise of the nation of India. Now, Pyr, the SF&F imprint from Prometheus Books, has published not one but two novels set in this emerging superpower.

Ian McDonald’s Clarke- and Hugo-nominated River of Gods, published March 2006, has been hailed as “a major achievement from a writer who is becoming one of the best SF novelists of our time” (Washington Post, May 28, 2006). Set in the year 2047, on the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of a nation, River of Gods teems with the life of a country choked with peoples and cultures—one and a half billion people, twelve semi-independent nations, nine million gods. McDonald’s novel, like the best of speculative fiction, projects the India of today forward to the middle of the 21st century, to a time when artificial intelligences of almost godlike capabilities exist amid a country still torn between ancient superstitions and fantastic technologies.

As for his reasons for setting his science fiction in South Asia, McDonald says, “Sometimes you just stand up like a meerkat and see where the future is coming from. In this case: one billion English-speaking people, the world’s biggest democracy, education education education, a vibrant enterprise culture and six thousand years of history . . . Jai Hindustan!”

Best-selling author Alan Dean Foster brings his vision to bear on an even-nearer future. With its subtitle “A novel of Near-Future India,” Sagramanda (to be published October 3, 2006) presents a fast-paced and gripping techno-thriller set in an India just around the corner from today. Foster imagines the fictional city of Sagramanda, city of 100 million—this is the story of Taneer, a scientist who has absconded with his multinational corporation’s secret project code and who is now on the run from both the company and his father. Sure to appeal to both SF fans and mystery/suspense enthusiasts, Sagramanda has been described as an “unpredictable thriller, whose multiple threads Foster juggles like the professional he is” (Publishers Weekly, August 21, 2006).

“One sixth of humanity lives in India and the other five-sixths hardly know anything about it,” says Foster. “I thought people should. They’d better.”

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