River of Gods

2 Years, 4 Months and Counting…

…since we launched in March, 2005. For my edification, and not meant to be comprehensive by any means, I put together this round-up of awards, notable recommendations, recent news etc… that I could have to hand and we could file under “why we’re hot.” This is what I came up with, which looks so nice laid out in one place like this I had to post it:

“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

  • Boing Boing: “…his finest novel to date”
  • Salon.com: “…you will delight in Brasyl.”
  • Amazon’s Bookstore Blog: “McDonald deserves to be going up against most of the world’s top fiction writers, period.”
  • Sci Fi Weekly: “…hot and tropical and full of music.”
  • Publishers Weekly: “Chaotic, heartbreaking and joyous, … must-read”
  • Locus: “…without doubt one of the major SF books of 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

  • Washington Post: “…a major achievement from a writer who is becoming one of the best sf novelists of our time.”
  • Library Journal: “Highly Recommended.”
  • Asimov’s: “A literary masterpiece.”
  • San Francisco Chronicle: “…one of the best science fiction novels published in the United States this year.”
  • Publishers Weekly: “…sure to be one of the more talked-about SF novels of the year.”

Justina Robson’s Keeping It Real (Quantum Gravity Book One)
Locus Recommended Read, Starburst Five Star Review

  • Entertainment Weekly: “”For fans of Tolkien, had he gone electric, dropped acid, and discovered tantric sex.”
  • Ain’t It Cool News: “This isn’t SF for SF readers. This is SF for a generation raised on anime, manga, and MMORPGs. This is SF for the Wii gamer. ”
  • Monsters & Critics: “This action-packed futuristic sci-fi that will appeal to techies and fantasy fans alike.”
  • Library Journal: “…skillfully builds a seamless connection between sf and fantasy in this fast-paced series opener featuring a strong, action-oriented heroine and a unique world setting.”
  • SFX: “…a novel packed with memorable characters and ideas but that doubles as holiday-reading escapism.”

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

  • Publishers Weekly: “Kenyon’s vision of a unique universe ranks with those of such science fiction greats as Frank Herbert and Orson Scott Card.”
  • Sci Fi Weekly: “”a bravura concept bolstered by fine writing; lots of plausible, thrilling action; old-fashioned heroism; and strong emotional hooks.”
  • Booklist: “…a fascinating and gratifying feat of worldbuilding… a grand epic, indeed. “
  • Library Journal: “Reminiscent of the groundbreaking novels of Philip K. Dick, Philip Jose Farmer, and Dan Simmons.”

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

  • Publishers Weekly: “Bursting with invention and panache.”
  • B&N Explorations: “The love child of Donald Trump and Vernor Vinge.”
  • SFFWorld: “This may be THE science fiction book of the year.”
  • Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show: “Like a more accessible Charles Stross.”
  • Asimov’s: “A high-speed, high-spirited tale of capitalist skullduggery.”

Mike Resnick’s Starship: Mutiny and Starship Pirate (5 book Starship series):
B in Sci Fi Weekly

  • Publishers Weekly: “Readers craving intelligent, character-driven SF need look no further.”
  • Analog: “…a fast, smooth, utterly effortless read.”
  • SF Reviews: “…simply pure escapism, impossible to resist by anyone who still remembers that good old fashioned sense of wonder.”
  • Sci Fi Weekly: “…good old-fashioned space adventure.”
  • Library Journal: “Snappy dialog, intriguing human and alien characters, and a keen sense of dramatic focus.”

Recent Awards & Nominations for Pyr:

  • 2007 Quill Award nominee: Ian McDonald, Brasyl
  • 2007 Hugo Award nominee – Best Professional Editor – Long Form – Lou Anders
  • 2006 World Fantasy Award nominee – Special Award, Professional – Lou Anders
  • 2006 John W. Campbell Award for Best Novel nominee – David Louis Edelman, Infoquake
  • 2006 Independent Publisher Book Award winner – John Meaney, Paradox
  • 2005 Philip K Dick Award nominee – Justina Robson, Silver Screen
  • 2006 John W Campbell Best New Writer nominee – Chris Roberson
  • 2005 John W Campbell Best New Writer nominee – Chris Roberson

Recommendations/Endorsements:

  • Locus magazine’s Recommended Reading: 2006 : Joe Abercombie – The Blade Itself, Justina Robson – Keeping It Real
  • 3 Pyr Books included in the B&N Editor’s Choice: Top Ten SF&F Novels of 2006: David Louis Edelman – Infoquake (#1), Sean Williams –The Crooked Letter, John Meaney – Resolution
  • 2 Pyr Books included in Waterstone’s Top Ten SF for 2006: Joel Shepherd – Crossover, Chris Roberson – Paragaea: A Planetary Romance
  • 3 Pyr Books included in Bookgasm’s Top Five SciFi Books of 2006 – Ian McDonald – River of Gods (#1), Joel Shepherd – Crossover, David Louis Edelman – Infoquake
  • Sean Williams, The Hanging Mountains selected as a BookSense Notable Book for July
  • Kay Kenyon, Bright of the Sky – one of four novels selected by ReaderCon “the con that assigns homework” for their attendees to read pre-convention
  • Justina Robson, Silver Screen selected for Kirkus Reviews Best SF&F Books of 2005
  • John Meaney, Paradox – #2 on Barnes & Noble’s Editor’s Choice: Top Ten SF&F Novels of 2005

Foreign Awards given to Pyr books for their overseas editions:

  • 2007 Arthur C Clarke Award nominee – Adam Roberts, Gradisil (Gollancz)
  • 2005 Arthur C Clarke Award nominee – Ian McDonald, River of Gods (Simon & Schuster)
  • 2004 British Science Fiction Association Award winner – Ian McDonald, River of Gods (Simon & Schuster)
  • Spain’s Xatafi-Cyberdark Awards. nominees: Mike Resnick, New Dreams for Old and Ian McDonald, River of Gods.

2 Years, 4 Months and Counting… Read More »

Trolls Play With Conventions, River Flows On

One of our very first offerings, Charles Coleman Finlay’s The Prodigal Troll gets a new review on SF Crowsnest from reviewer Tomas L. Martin. Martin, who admits a bias towards science fiction over fantasy, admits, “This is a good book because it plays a little with genre conventions. The societies are slightly different to what you’d expect and the fight scenes involving a small rebellious tribe are reminiscent of a fantasy Vietnam amongst the trees. The main character and the knight at the beginning are well drawn. Finlay writes with an extremely enjoyable style and this is one of those books that flies by quickly. The trolls are fun and poignant in equal turns…”

Meanwhile, Magill Book Reviews reviews Ian McDonald’s River of Gods: “…McDonald skillfully weaves the characters’ narratives into a cohesive whole, providing a thought-provoking look at a possible future world in which non-Western influences play just as large a role as their Western counterparts.”

And, while we’re talking about Ian McDonald, we’re thrilled to report that his latest, Brasyl, ranked # 5 on the bestselling hardcover list at San Francisco-based independent genre bookstore Borderlands Books for May 2007!

Incidentally, all three of the above works – The Prodigal Troll, River of Gods and Brasyl, are available from Borderlands right now. And as you all know buying from independents is guaranteed good for your karma.

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Spain’s Xatafi-Cyberdark Awards

Two Pyr books, or at least foreign translations of books Pyr published in English, are nominations in Spain’s Xatafi-Cyberdark Awards. The books in question are Mike Resnick’s New Dreams for Old and Ian McDonald’s River of Gods. They are joined by Axiomatic by Greg Egan, Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch; Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, and Kafka in the Shore by Haruki Murakami. Congratulations to all nominees!

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Vater Ganges

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The May edition of German site Phantastik-Couch.de has a review of Ian McDonald’s River of Gods (or “Vater Ganges”) by Frank A. Dudly.

Frank helpfully sent along his English-language summation:

“This book asks for a lot of reading stamina but ultimately rewards everyone who has it. After the quite demanding first third, the story’s fractal mosaic forms a breathtaking picture you don’t forget. McDonald’s frequent jumps from character to character, from strand to strand become a clear pattern and a look through a kaleidoscope of curry and computers.”

Which was very nice of him. Because, while Babel Fish is amazing, and I was able to follow it’s translation and get the gist, you still get gems like this:

“After this conceptionally demanding and elaborierten Parforceritt by the Indian future – one just as in parts often turns back as forwards – begins the amazing final, which requires still more attention and concentration than the exposition. Without doubt, this book requires the whole reader, not only once, but twice. It is as complex and more fully multilayered as the country to course: To understand more recompencing for inhabitants western hemisphere at first exerting and only with difficulty, but the, if one gets involved in it.”

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India’s National Newspaper on the River

Ian McDonald just emailed me to point out this review of River of Gods, and I couldn’t be happier. Ian’s been hailed so much already we’re almost jaded, but this one comes from The Hindu – India’s National Newspaper Online! In this article, “India in the Future,” Pradeep Sebastian begins by admitting that he passed up RoG on numerous occasions, assuming it was “one more lightweight take on India by a foreigner.”

But when he did pick it up, he quickly concluded that RoG was much more:

“Foreign writers have successfully used India as a backdrop for mysteries and thrillers: Barbara Cleverly’s period mysteries (The Palace Tiger), Paul Mann’s thrillers (The Ganja Coast) and one-off thrillers such as Leslie Forbes’ Bombay Ice and Gregory David Roberts’ Shantaram. River of Gods surpasses all of them easily to become not just the definitive thriller set in India but the most richly imaginative thriller about India.”

Sebastian concludes that RoG is “a compellingly realised future India.” As the Times of India previously said, “Not bad for a firang who has oodles of imagination and chutzpah.”

(And I was just kidding about being jaded – keep those good reviews coming!)

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Sagramanda on Cool SciFi

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Rich Horton posts his review of Alan Dean Foster’s Sagramanda, apparenlty orphaned from Locus magazine, over on CoolSciFi.com. He makes the inevitable comparison with River of Gods, though is fair in pointing out it really is apples to oranges in terms of authorial intent and scope, but seems to like Sagramanda none the less:

“Foster’s novel is not so brilliant as McDonald’s, and really it makes no attempt to be brilliant at that level. Rather, it is an enjoyable and fast-moving thriller – and quite successful as such…. It’s quite an exciting read. The plot moves sharply, and quite believably… The portrait of fairly near-future India is fairly well-done, though here the book truly does suffer by comparison with McDonald’s altogether more complex and deeper portrait. Sagramanda is no masterpiece, but it is fun and not without deeper shadings.”

I would add only that both McDonald and Foster were plugging into the zeitgeist at the same time and have produced two very different works, both valuable and enjoyable in their own rights and for their own reasons. Where McDonald’s work is sort of a futuristic Kim, Foster’s is a technothriller enhanced by the experience of a nonWestern setting. Obviously, I enjoyed both enormously, but then, I would. I think you will too though.

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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)

2 Comments /

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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India comes to San Antonio

“Ian McDonald’s newest novel is one of the best blends of literary and science fiction writing I’ve read. River of Gods is full of the descriptive writing that permeates literary novels. For instance, it opens and closes with garlands of sun-colored marigolds swirling among the debris and corpses that fill India’s holiest river. And yet the book is also a vision of India madly in love with computers. Not surprisingly, McDonald, a previous Philip K. Dick Award winner, snagged the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel when River of Gods debuted overseas and was nominated for the Hugo and the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2005…McDonald unveils the plot in flashes of evocative phrasing, such as ‘the couple of generals gorgeous as parakeets in their full dress.’ He can be succinctly biting, as with ‘the guilt and thrill of a really good class system.’ But the novel’s true richness comes from offering an immersion in Hindu and Muslim mythology and social norms…McDonald offers a glossary to ease reading…River of Gods is so dense that I suspect a second reading will offer lots more meaning than first perceived. And it’s worth the challenge to dip into a realistic vision of a future driven by technology.” –San Antonio Express-News, Nov. 12, 2006

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