SF Reviews

SF Reviews.net chooses its Publisher of the Decade 2000-2009. Thomas M. Wagner writes:

…if I had to boil it all down to one, there has been an imprint whose output and dedication has impressed me — not necessarily more than all the others, but in a way that has made them stand out boldly in a publishing field often marked by conservative (if not outright craven), bottom-line-driven choices. And that would be these folks.

Some of the many nice things Thomas M Wagner says about us are…

Pyr has risen in about 5 years to becoming one of the genre’s true successful stories.

And most commendably, Anders has done this by bucking conventional wisdom at every turn, choosing a merit-based strategy for the books he adds to Pyr’s catalog that has skirted the easy paths to bestsellerdom that bigger publishers, with their higher overhead, find it hard to ignore. If Lou thinks the book is really really good, it’s in, pretty much….

…I have no end of admiration for what he’s doing with Pyr instead. It’s all down to writers and their original works. He’s making it Pyr’s business to import talented names from outside the US, who have until now found it hard to get a toehold in the US market. He’s kept the careers of hard SF writers like Paul McAuleyand humanist SF writers like Kay Kenyonafloat, publishing some of their career-best work. He’s revived the occasional lost nugget of obscure genius, like Jack Dann’s The Man Who Melted…. And the quality bar has been uniformly high in a way that most publishers can only dream of.

So with all of my love for all my other publishers out there in the open, and without taking anything away from them, allow me to anoint with my mighty +4 sword of critical mightiness… Pyr SF, Publisher of the Decade 2000-2009! Now all of you out there start buying their stuff. And Pyr, once your victory lap is out of the way, do kindly get back to work! Think you can rest on your laurels now? Oh no you don’t. The pressure’s on. We all want more! We’re geeky that way.

Deeply humbled and appreciative of this. Love my +4 sword. Working ass off to make our five year anniversary year the best yet. Pretty confident it will be! Thanks!