Pyr Editorial Director Wins Hugo Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Cheryl Krajna
1-800-853-7545
ckrajna@prometheusbooks.com

August 23, 2011

Pyr Editorial Director Wins Hugo Award
Lou Anders Recognized

Amherst, NY– Pyr, a science fiction and fantasy imprint of Prometheus Books, is proud to announce a 2011 Hugo Award win by Editorial Director Lou Anders.

Anders received the trophy for “Best Editor–Long Form” at a ceremony on August 20 at the Peppermill Hotel and Casino in Reno, Nevada. Jay Lake and Ken Scholes presided as masters of ceremony, with additional presenters including Renovation Guests of Honor Tim Powers, Boris Vallejo, and Ellen Asher, along with leading genre writers George R. R. Martin and Robert Silverberg.

The Hugos are international, fan-voted awards. All members of the World Science Fiction Society are eligible to vote.

This was the fifth consecutive nomination and the first win for Anders in the category.

“Words cannot express what an honor this award represents to me,” Anders said. “But what I can express is how privileged I feel to work every day with the host of brilliant authors who have made Pyr what it is.”

“Lou’s taste, vision, and stewardship have been instrumental in shaping the Pyr brand,” said Prometheus Books President Jonathan Kurtz. “We’re extremely pleased and grateful for the tremendous reception Pyr has received since its inception.”

Prometheus Books, an independent publisher of thoughtful nonfiction, launched the Pyr imprint in March 2005. Since then, it has become a brand known for books with quality both inside and out, from rich, engrossing narratives to award-winning cover art and design. Although technically an imprint, Pyr was called “one of a very few publishers I know of who have no bad books to their name” by a BiblioBuffet writer, and “one of the most exciting publishers in the business” by Black Gate magazine.

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Robert Silverberg on “Are the days of the full-time novelist numbered?”

Science Fiction Grandmaster Robert Silverberg (whose Star of Gypsies and Son of Man we reprinted), at the Black Gate blog:

"Now we are back to the same situation that obtained in the golden era of the Fifties — s-f is mainly a field for hobbyist writers, with just a few able to earn a living writing just the real stuff and nothing but. (It is different, of course, for those who write pseudo-Tolkien trilogies, vampire novels, zombie books, and other sorts of highly commercial fantasy.) For a while, in the late 70s and early 80s, the money flowed freely and all sorts of people set up in business as s-f writers full time. I remember Greg Bear, president of SFWA somewhere back in the mid-80s, warning the writers at the SFWA business session not to quit their day jobs, because the good times were just about over; and was he ever right!"

An Interview with Robert Silverberg (by Jacinta Meyers)

Son of Manis a tour de force, a very powerful and provocative futuristic narrative that was first published in the early 1970s. There is much to be said of the influences and themes in it from that time period. I know I've discussed the sort of "new age" science fiction with Lou Anders, and this book could certainly be described in that category. The philosophy, history, sociology, and psychology woven into this book make it such a unique and intriguing gem.

The end of the 1960s was characterized by hippy and peace movements, free love, and racial and class struggles. I can see something of that in this book. I know that it ends with a Bible verse and certainly has a title with certain connotations, but reading this I was reminded of something out of Dante or of Joseph Heller's Catch-22 when Yossarian is entering Rome through successively alienated images and events. There was something of magical realism in this novel also, which is well suited to science fiction. Was it challenging to portray an alien Earth so far into the unforeseeable future?

Mr. Silverberg: It’s always a challenge to invent a far-future world. But this was a challenge I was glad to accept, because it allowed me such freedom of invention.

Was there a pattern in your conceptions about how humanity, or any other species for that matter, would evolve? Where did your chief inspirations come from?

Mr. Silverberg: I had no pattern in mind in the evolutionary conceptions. The book was intended as a dreamlike vision, a surreal portrait of the future, not as a scientific text. One of my chief inspirations was a book called A Voyage to Arcturusby David Lindsay, which has some of the same emphasis on color and free imagination. But mainly the imagery came from my own dreams. I found that I was actually dreaming scenes from the book each night; I jotted them down when I awoke and wrote them later in the day.

People have always been intrigued by the fact that man seems to be the only thinking, sentient creature in the universe. However, in the distant future of Son of Man, mankind shares its sentience with seemingly innumerous different creatures. I took this to be the quality of humanity shared by everyone. In many ways, this seems like part of an ideal vision for Earth. Do you think this is a possible concept, evolutionarily speaking, or was it merely a vehicle of symbolism?

Mr. Silverberg: Most of those creatures are, in the novel, described as direct descendants of man – our gene pool undergoing vast diversion over the eons to come. My intentions were literary, but I also think it’s a very possible concept: despite today’s current anti-scientific attitudes toward genetic manipulation, we are destined to see such vast changes in the physical form of the human race in the next five thousand years (let alone a couple of billlion!) that we would not be able to recognize our descendants as human.

Sex is still of some importance, mentally, emotionally, and symbolically in this future world. But there are exceedingly few instances of procreation; I recall the young of the ferret creature in the wild part of the underground city. The Skimmers, Interceders, Eaters, and so forth, all seem immortal (or at least capable of living long past our concepts of mortality). Is procreation something that has been lost by the sons of men?

Mr. Silverberg: Some sort of reproduction is probably still going on, since even long-lived people like those in my book are not truly immortal. But the normal life-span has become so long that procreation is minimal, just enough to continue the species.

The descriptions were exceedingly beautiful. In many places, you captured the tragedy of loss. I am thinking of the moments when Clay is mourning the triumphs of his species and how utterly they have vanished with time. Are these the things that you, as an accomplished author, feel are mankind's greatest achievements?

Mr. Silverberg: Yes.

You have a long and illustrious career. Has the process and subject matter of writing changed for you over the years? Have your interests changed?

Mr. Silverberg: Not as much as one might think. The process of writing became much slower for me as the years went along, but my interests remain quite consistent.

Is there anything new coming up that we should look for on bookshelves soon?

Mr. Silverberg: I haven’t written a new novel in some years. I do have a pair of short stories coming up in anthologies edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois.

John Picacio produced the cover artwork for this Pyr edition of Son of Man. We thought it suited the book well. How do you like it?

Mr. Silverberg: Very handsome. He’s a splendid artist.

I have heard many people say we are living in a strange age now. Son of Man is as relevant as ever for this reason. Do you have any words of wisdom to impart to sci-fi readers at this point in time?

Mr. Silverberg: No. Whatever wisdom I have available is to be found in my novels.

Thank you so much for participating in this interview, Mr. Silverberg! We appreciate the wonderful insight into the writer's mind.

For more information on Robert Silverberg and this book, Son of Man, visit the Pyr page. Interview conducted by Jacinta Meyers.

Behold the Son of Man

John Picacio has turned in the final artwork for the forthcoming Pyr reissue of Robert Silverberg's classic Son of Man.He talks about the process of creating the preliminary sketches here, with a rare glimpse at some of his pencils, and the final work done on the finished painting here. (I'm intrigued by his Jimi Hendrix comments.)

Son of Man is one of my favorite SF book of all, so I'm thrilled to be reissuing it under the Pyr banner. And Silverberg and I both knew that John was the perfect illustrator for this job. For those who know the book already, I think you'll agree that Picacio has done an incredible job picking up on both the messianic and the sexual overtones, and has managed to get that 60s/70s psychedelic feel without feeling at all like he was going retro or pastiche. Here's the full wrap-around painting:

John Picacio: Son of Man Sketch

This is a first. And probably a last. John Picacio has posted his preliminary sketch for our upcoming reissue of Robert Silverberg's Son of Man (due out Spring, 08). Son of Man is one of my all time favorite science fiction works. In a field that ostensibly celebrates mind-expansion, alienation, estrangement, change, the impermanence of any social institution, the wonder and terror of the universe, the fundamental truth that today is not like yesterday and tomorrow will not be like today, Son of Man shines (even and especially today) as the vanguard of that perspective. John and I have been talking a lot about how to convey this in art, as well as how to convey certain other aspects of the book. In a totally unprecedented move, he's put the work in progress up on his blog, so please - go, see, comment!