For Your Viewing Pleasure: Empire in Black and Gold

Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Cover Illustration © Jon Sullivan

Jacket Design by Jacqueline Cooke

The city states of the Lowlands have lived in peace for decades, bastions of civilization, prosperity and sophistication, protected by treaties, trade and a belief in the reasonable nature of their neighbours.

  But meanwhile, in far-off corners, the Wasp Empire has been devouring city after city with its highly trained armies, its machines, it killing Art . . . And now its hunger for conquest and war has become insatiable.

  Only the ageing Stenwold Maker, spymaster, artificer and statesman, can see that the long days of peace are over.  It falls upon his shoulders to open the eyes of his people, before a black-and-gold tide sweeps down over the Lowlands and burns away everything in its path.  

But first he must stop himself from becoming the Empire's latest victim.

More Recommendations for Holiday Reading...

The love just keeps flowing it. And it is the season for giving...

Diving into the Wreck

“The pacing is perfect, the choices and decisions made by the major characters feel authentic and leaves readers looking for more.”  -Monsters and Critics

Sasha (A Trial of Blood and Steel)

“Sasha is an excellent opening to A Trial of Blood & Steel. The interweaving of war, politics, religion, geography, family and a non-human race are skillfully done. Anyone who likes his or her fantasy to be as intellectually complex as it is entertaining would do well to pick up this book.”-SF Signal

“Sasha reads like a pleasant melding of The Lord of the Rings, medieval-style warfare and intrigue mingled with the political and religious wranglings of Dune. In fact, Sasha makes a nice parallel to Dune’s Paul Atreides. With a galloping plot and plenty of swordplay, honor, dishonor, treacheries, and victories, Sasha is a worthy addition to the heroic fantasy genre.” -Sacramento Book Review

“Sasha’s torturous path to maturity, complete with painful missteps, is sensitively conveyed, and while I definitely cheered for her, I also found myself arguing with her—and in a way, that’s a higher compliment to pay an author… The second book, Petrodor, will likely be on the shelves by the time you are reading this. Go pick it up—I know I will.” Realms of Fantasy

The Quiet War

“This is an impressive novel. More science fiction needs to be like this.” -Adventures in Reading

“Meanwhile, McAuley gives us three other point-of-view characters and does a professional job of melding all of them into a satisfying climax. He's also left the door open for a possible sequel, and given how much I enjoyed The Quiet War, I hope he follows through. The book won't change your world, but it's more than just a by-the-numbers space opera, and fans of this neglected genre now have something to add to their collections.” -San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costa Times

The Silver Skull (Swords of Albion)

“The scary nature of the Otherworld adds a nice edge to this well paced spy thriller that promises more jolly adventures in the Swords of Albion series as it pits humanity against the Faerie. This is a place where the things that go bump in the night are best left alone and the important issues of the day echo today’s headlines making for an interesting alternative reality read.”-Monsters and Critics

Starship: Flagship

“Read Starship: Flagship as a fitting end to the series and to mark the end and to mark the end of the human Republic in the Birthright universe time-line. Mike Resnick and Orson Scott Card breathe new life back into military sci-fi, and pay close attention to the seeds of a sequel put fourth at the very end… what will be the ultimate fate of the galaxy and man?” -AstroGuyz.com

The Martian General's Daughter

“… a well-researched and engaging novel, with a vibrant milieu, and definitely worth a look.” -Strange Horizons

Avatar

In 1912, a pencil-sharpener salesman named Edgar Rice Burroughs published in a short novel ‘Under the Moons of Mars’ in All-Story Magazine. Republished in longer form in 1917, as A Princess of Mars, it was the first in the Barsoom series, kickstarted the planetary romance genre, and imprinted science fiction with a set of primitive but deeply felt tropes. James Cameroon’s Avatar is nothing less than a return to the primal urges of full-blown planetary romance in the style of Burroughs, Ralph Milne Farley, Homer Eon Flint and Otis Adelbert Kline: a glorious romp through the wonders and perils of an alien world, and a love story featuring a nearly naked alien princess. If you were a fifteen year old kid living in the 1970s and grokking sf, Tarzan of the Apes, and prog rock, a glimpse of Avatar in big-screen 3D and SurroundSound would blow your everloving mind.

Let’s get the story out of the way first. It’s 2154, a mining colony on Pandora, the Earth-like moon of a gas giant orbiting Alpha Centauri-A, source of a vital mineral, unobtanium (a nice, geeky joke: we could have done with a few more). Jake Sully is a paraplegic ex-Marine who volunteers to take the place of his dead twin brother as a driver of an avatar, a hybrid creature fettled up from human DNA and the DNA of the Na’vi, the blue-skinned ten-foot tall natives of Pandora. Sully is part of the science team, led by Sigourney Weaver’s Grace Augustine, that’s using the avatars to study and negotiate with the Na’vi; after his avatar is separated from the others, Sully encounters a Na’vi female, Neytiri, and is accepted into her clan, a major scientific coup. But Sully’s loyalty is torn between the scientists and the Na’vi, and former Marine Colonel Miles Quaritch, head of the colony’s security, who plans to evict the Na’vi clan from their home, which inconveniently sits on a motherlode of unobtanium. Quaritch promises Sully that if he can deal with the Na’vi, he’ll get treatment to restore use of his legs; but Sully has fallen for the Na’vi way of life, and with Neytiri . . .

Well, you get the idea. Like the pulp planetary romances, Avatar’s story is achingly simple and laid on with broad strokes. In the first half Sully gets to learn survival skills; in the second, he gets to use them; threaded through his pilgrim’s progress is a plunkingly obvious allegory about greed and uncontrolled capitalism destroying nature’s harmony, and a love story across the divide between two species. The bond between Sully and Na’vi is undeniably affecting, in parts, but it’s also in parts silly and sentimental, the characterisation and dialogue (especially Colonel Quaritch’s - GI Joe had better lines) is basic, the plot twists are utterly predictable, and the film lacks the heart and human qualities of smaller scale sf films like Moon or District 9. But what you take home from Avatar isn’t so much the story as the setting. And the setting, and its rendering, is amazing. Stunning.

There’s a nice scene near the beginning of this very long film where Sully first drives the body of his avatar, and realises that he can walk again, and breaks free from the technicians and the base and joyfully canters through a garden of native plants: that sense of freedom and awe is evoked over and again as the camera floats and zooms through Pandora’s forest. The 3D is crystal-clear and Cameron seamlessly blends live action characters, CG motion-capture characters and CG scenery, using a computer-camera system that allows him to zoom in and twist around anybody and anything. And Pandora itself is the best and most fully-detailed rendering of an alien world ever seen, a forest reimagined as a coral reef, with drifting medusa-like seeds, barracuda-like wolves, shark-like tigers, hammerheaded buffalo. . . In short, an entire, self-consistent biome packed with eye kicks and explored in beautiful and thrilling set pieces: Na’vi leading Sully through the luminescent galaxy of the night-time forest; the ascent of a chain of floating rocks to a floating mountain peak (straight from one of Roger Dean’s album covers); an aerial battle amongst those same floating mountains between helicopters and lumbering transports and a flock of warriors mounted on manta-ray dragons. . . And so on, and so on.

Sure, Cameron has spent enough money to reforest half of the Amazon Basin on a film with a by-the-numbers story that mixes tropes from ancient pulp fiction and the greatest hits from his previous work. But it also conjures, over and again, that heady, full-blown, good old-fashioned sense of wonder: it is, shamelessly, gleefully, a science fiction epic. What it isn’t, is a groundbreaking film, in the way that 2001: A Space Odyssey or Star Wars were. But it is a major envelope-pushing advance in terms of what is now possible. Because what’s possible now, thanks to the techniques Cameron has developed, is that anything we can think of can be thrown up on the cinema screen. Think about that: anything at all.

Two Great Reviews for Enge and Shepherd

"Readers who are game for a different approach, and a main character who's neither a misplaced savior-prince or a sassy huntress of things that go moan in the night, will likely find much to enjoy in the niche Enge has fashioned between traditional sword-and-sorcery and the 'New Weird.' Whereas old-school S&S heroes battled in maelstroms of 'blood and thunder' (or 'thud and blunder,' in the less-stellar tales), the cerebral, taciturn Morlock — a blend of Solomon Kane, Gandalf, Mr. Spock, and something wholly his own — survives by both "blood and ponder(ing).) Like Blood of Ambrose,This Crooked Wayis an intelligent and unique example of modern sword-and-sorcery fiction. It won't appeal to everyone, but fans of sword-and-sorcery or non-stereotypical fantasy should definitely give it a look." Fantasy Literature

"Sashareads like a pleasant melding of Lord of the Rings, medieval-style warfare and intrigue mingled with the political and religious wranglings of Dune. In fact, Sasha makes a nice female parallel to Dune’s Paul Atreides. With a galloping plot and plenty of swordplay, honor, dishonor, treacheries, and victories, Sasha is a worth addition to the heroic fantasy genre." - Michelle Kerns for the San Francisco & Sacramento Book Review 

No, spelled "Y, E, S"

Thanks much to Lou for inviting me to participate in this blog. My name's Ari Marmell, and while I've been writing for a decade, I'm still learning how to navigate the ins and outs of publishing. Up until a couple of years ago, most of my writing was freelance work in role-playing games while I tried to build up my fiction chops. I've done some shared-world fiction, tied to the Vampire: the Masquerade, Dungeons & Dragons, and Magic: the Gathering games, but my first wholly original novel, The Conqueror's Shadow, is just coming out this coming February from Spectra.

Any way, all of this is by way of saying, I'm still learning how to interact with editors and publishers. So when I hear "Gee, I really can't buy this book from you, but I like your work and I'd like to do something else with you," I tend to see the "Can't buy this book" and not really the rest of it.

(We writers are a neurotic bunch at the best of times.)

Thankfully, Lou decided to prove me wrong.

See, the novel that he's publishing--The Goblin Corps--wasn't the first book of mine that he saw. My agent first sent him another fantasy novel that simply wound up being too short for Lou to be comfortable publishing. That's fair enough, but I'll admit that, even though he raved about it and specifically said he wanted to work with me on something else, I didn't have a lot of hope when we sent him TGC. Yet, here I am, a new member of the Pyr stable. (Neigh. Winnie. Snort.) And very happy to be here.

Funny thing is, that's actually how I got my start with my freelancing, too. I submitted a book idea for the Vampire: the Masquerade roleplaying game to White Wolf Publishing. Not a proposal, the entire book, which I'd written in my spare time. The line developer at the time, Justin Achilli, couldn't use the book itself, but he liked it enough to hire me on for something else.

All of which means that I should probably start being more optimistic, and start believing people when they say "I can't use this, but..." I should--but then we're back to the whole "writers are neurotic" bit.

But if any of you reading this are up-and-comers, looking at selling your first work, consider this a gentle bit of support: Sometimes "No, but..." means "but" more than it means "no."

Thanks for the reminder, Lou.

Giving Thanks

Since we're in the middle of the holiday trifecta (TG, Xmas, and NYE), I want to take a moment to give thanks for all that I have received this year.

I'm thankful for my family, my wife, Jenny, and our son, Logan. I never thought life could be so rewarding, but every day is better than the last.

I'm thankful for our extended family; our parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins. So many have volunteered their time and energy to help us as new parents. It's marvelous to witness how Logan has brought our entire family closer together.

I'm thankful for Lou Anders and Pyr Books for giving me an opportunity to share my writing with the world. One of my main New Years wishes is to make them very glad they chose me. I'm also grateful to all the other publishers who have taken on the book, and to all those who jump on the Shadow-Train in the coming year.

I'm thankful to my agent, Eddie Schneider, and his (professional) partner, Joshua Bilmes, at JABberwocky for taking in a poor wretch like me. Likewise, I aim to prove myself a wise investment of their time and talents.

I'm thankful for our friends, for their love and support. They make our lives richer.

I hope all of you have a safe and merry holiday season, and a wonderful new year.

Burton & Swinburne: An Introduction

Greetings all, and thanks to Lou for allowing me to contribute to the Pyr-o-mania blog.

Have a look at this guy:


His name is Sir Richard Francis Burton and he's the hero of my alternate history steampunk series, THE BURTON & SWINBURNE ADVENTURES. I want to take this opportunity to give you a little taster ... without giving too much away, of course!

First off, some of you may know me from my BLAKIANA website. Back in 2000 I discovered Sexton Blake, the second most written about character in the English language (the first is Nick Carter). Blake is a sort of cross between Sherlock Holmes and Indiana Jones, and his stories (approx. 5000 of them!) are simply terrific ... and until this year, none remained in print. So I decided to blow the dust off the old fellow and celebrate his adventures with a huge website. This attracted the attention of such luminaries as Mike Moorcock (whose first published novel was a Blake) and George Mann (who edited the recent Blake anthology) and through these good souls I was fortunate enough to attract the attention of publishers and thus get Burton & Swinburne off the ground.

The first book in the projected series is currently entitled THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF SPRING HEELED JACK, and the style is very Blakeian -- the emphasis is on mystery and adventure and, well, BRITISHNESS, I guess!

This is alternate history, folks, so a great many of the characters that appear in the story were real Victorians (howcome famous Victorians had such cool names?). I freely admit, I have walked over their graves, then backed a car over them, then sprayed graffiti on their headstones, then dug 'em up and danced on their bones, then painted a clown's face on their mouldering corpses. In other words: MASSIVE DISRESPECT! I've made Darwin a criminal mastermind, Florence Nightingale a ghoul, Lord Palmerston a freak and Isambard Kingdom Brunel a ... well, you'll have to wait and see.

How do I justify this treatment of Britain's national heroes? With a simple phrase:

"When one man changes Time, Time changes everyone."

It's the ripple effect. One event turns out differently, and from it new opportunities and challenges are born, and in meeting them, people travel different paths to those we've recorded as history.

So what can you look forward to? I can promise you a complex hero who very definitely ain't as pure as the driven snow, a wildly eccentric sidekick who gets an erotic thrill out of pain, a pub crawl in London's worst stinkhole, missing chimney sweeps, The Beetle, werewolves that spontaniously combust, a panther-like swordstick-wielding albino who is NOT Elric, and, of course, Spring Heeled Jack.

The latter, who is surely one of the weirdest and most mysterious figures in British folklore (Google him!) is fully explained in my tale, and I've managed to stick pretty damned close to historical records as far as his exploits are concerned. But man, I wish I knew the truth!

Okay, so let's say my total disrespect for British history's great and good is PUNKY; where does the STEAMY come into it? I have to admit, at this point in the story (I'm about 80% done), Burton's relationship with Nurse Raghavendra of the Sisters of Noble Benevolence has become far more steamy than I'd planned ... but we want TECH, don't we? Sorry to disappoint, but there aren't any airships of the dirigible variety. I do, though, have rotorcars, communication pipes, velocipedes and steam-horses. There's a good deal of copper, brass, studded metal bands, dials, levers, flywheels, gyroscopes, cogs, funnels and crankshafts. I'd love to show it to you right now but a London Peculiar has settled over the city and I can barely see the end of my hand.

So, tally ho, what! THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF SPRING HEELED JACK is scheduled for publication in the UK in April and in the US in the Fall (-ish).

End of ad. Anyone for jellied eels?

For Your Viewing Pleasure: Geosynchron

Geosynchron© David Louis Edelman

Cover Illustration © Stephan Martiniere

Design by Jacqueline Cooke

The Defense and Wellness Council is enmeshed in full-scale civil war between Len Borda and the mysterious Magan Kai Lee. Quell has escaped from prison and is stirring up rebellion in the Islands with the aid of a brash young leader named Josiah. Jara and the apprentices of the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp still find themselves fighting off legal attacks from their competitors and from Margaret Surina's unscrupulous heirs -- even though MultiReal has completely vanished.

The quest for the truth will lead to the edges of civilization, from the tumultuous society of the Pacific Islands to the lawless orbital colony of 49th Heaven; and through the deeps of time, from the hidden agenda of the Surina family to the real truth behind the Autonomous Revolt that devastated humanity hundreds of years ago.

Meanwhile, Natch has awakened in a windowless prison with nothing but a haze of memory to clue him in as to how he got there. He's still receiving strange hallucinatory messages from Margaret Surina and the nature of reality is buckling all around him. When the smoke clears, Natch must make the ultimate decision - whether to save a world that has scorned and discarded him, or to save the only person he has ever loved: himself.

Coming February 2010

More Books Than You Can Shade a Stick At

I've spoken recently on here and around the net about several acquisitions.  So you may have heard about Clay & Susan Griffith's marvelous Vampire Empire trilogy, an alternate history novel which blends pulp adventure with romance and a touch of steampunk. (Think swashbuckling with bloodsuckers across a fleet of flying airships). I've hinted at The Buntline Special, Mike Resnick's first foray into the Weird West (think steampunk OK Corral with zombies. The interior illustrations, by Seamas Gallagher, are already in and can I just say, "wow!") And you've heard about Jasper Kent's historical Russian fantasy, Twelve, (and it's sequel, Thirteen Years Later), a vampire novel that brings the monsters back to their, well, monstrous roots, and does so against Napoleon's invasion of Russia. We've also talked about Mark Hodder's Burton & Swinburne in The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack, a brilliant piece of alt history Victoriana that does what a lot of books which use the iconography of steampunk fail to do, and that is think out its whole world as an amazing exercise in uchronia where every set piece has been built up as a naturally-occurring result of the one before, all the way back to the moment of change between their world and ours. And, of course, you may have seen on Twitter where we are gearing up to publish Legends of the Raven, the second "Raven" trilogy from James Barclay.

Well, those weren't the only titles I was busy acquiring. I can now tell you about:

Pierre Pavel's The Cardinal's Blades, a fantastic bit of swashbuckling historical fantasy slash swords and sorcery that I am head over heels about.

Welcome to seventeenth century Paris, where intrigue, duels and spies are rife and Cardinal Richelieu’s men may be prevailed upon to risk life and limb in the name of France at a moment’s notice. And with war on the horizon, the defense of the nation has never been more pressing.

Danger is rising from the south—an insidious plot which could end with a huge dragon- shaped shadow falling over France. A shadow cast by dragons quite unlike the pet dragonets which roam the cities like stray cats, or the tame wyverns men ride like horses, high over the Parisian rooftops. These dragons and their descendants are ancient, terrible and powerful... and their plans contain little room for the lives or freedom of men.

 Cardinal Richelieu has nowhere else to turn; Captain La Fargue and his elite group of men, the Cardinal’s Blades, must turn the tide. They must hold the deadly Black Claw cult at bay, root out traitors to the crown, rescue prisoners, and fulfill their mission for the Cardinal, for their country, but above all for themselves.

 It’s death or victory. And the victory has never been less certain.

The Author, Pierre Pevel, is one of the foremost writers of French fantasy today. The author of seven novels, he was awarded the GRAND PRIX DE L'IMAGINAIRE in 2002 and the PRIX IMAGINALES in 2005, both for best novel. (The image here is from the UK edition, but we've already contracted with our friend and fantastic artist Jon Sullivan to use the same image. Why tamper with perfection?)

And building on his success with The Quiet War (and the expected success of the forthcoming sequel Gardens of the Sun), we've gone back and picked up Paul McAuley's absolutely fabulous Cowboy Angels, because, dammit, American's need to read this one too:

America, 1984 - not our version of America, but an America that calls itself the Real, an America in which the invention of Turing Gates has allowed it access to sheaves of alternate histories. For ten years, in the name of democracy, the Real has been waging clandestine wars and fomenting revolution, freeing versions of America from communist or fascist rule, and extending its influence across a wide variety of alternate realities. But the human and political costs have proven too high, and new President Jimmy Carter has called an end to war, and is bringing troops and secret agents home. Adam Stone is called out of retirement when his former comrade, Tom Waverly, begins to murder different versions of the same person, mathematician Eileen Barrie. Aided by Waverly's daughter, Linda, Adam hunts for his old friend across different sheaves, but when they finally catch up with Waverly, they discover that they have stumbled into the middle of an audacious conspiracy that plans to exploit a new property of the Turing Gates: it will change not only the history of the Real, but that of every other sheaf, including our own. Cowboy Angels combines the high-octane action and convoluted plots of the TV series 24 in a satirical, multi-layered alternate reality thriller.

(As we speak, Sparth is at work on the cover.)

Now if you have really been paying attention, you may already know that we have signed debut author Sam Sykes's fantasy trilogy, The Aeon's Gate, which begins in 2010 with Tome of the Undergates. The forthcoming UK edition is already generating huge buzz (but you'll wait for our edition, yes?) The book is tremendous, and sits tonally very nicely between Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch. It's 180,000 words of action and great character banter that hits hard from chapter one and doesn't let up. Here's the description:

Lenk can barely keep control of his mismatched adventurer band at the best of times (Gariath the dragon man sees humans as little more than prey, Kataria the Shict despises most humans, and the humans in the band are little better). When they’re not insulting each other’s religions they’re arguing about pay and conditions.

So when the ship they are traveling on is attacked by pirates things don’t go very well. They go a whole lot worse when an invincible demon joins the fray. The demon steals the Tome of the Undergates – a manuscript that contains all you need to open the undergates. And whichever god you believe in you don’t want the undergates open. On the other side are countless more invincible demons, the manifestation of all the evil of the gods, and they want out.

Full of razor-sharp wit, characters who leap off the page (and into trouble) and plunging the reader into a vivid world of adventure this is a fantasy that kicks off a series that could dominate the second decade of the century.

Finally, we've just shook hands yesterday afternoon with Ari Marmell on his brilliant fantasy novel, The Goblin Corps, a very dark and very humorous novel where the bad guys are the protagonists. The novel follows a squad of goblin soldiers--an orc, a troll, a kobold, etc.--during what might be the final days of an evil empire facing attack from the combined forces of humanity and the other “good” races. I cannot begin to communicate how excited I am by it. But those looking for a taste of Ari's writing can check out The Conqueror's Shadow, coming this February 2010 from Bantam Spectra. The Library Journal describes it thusly: "Superior storytelling and deft dialog make this a top-notch choice for fans of Glen Cook and James Barclay." Works by me.


So yes, I've been busy.

Her Sword is Her Power

My conversation with Sasha (A Trial of Blood and Steel)author Joel Shepherd is up at Tor.com. As I say there, "...on top of creating a brilliantly-realized, believable world, Joel also excelled in peopling that world with believable characters, most of them strong, confident women, and telling their tales in a politically-nuanced way that made a lot of his contemporaries efforts seem naive by comparison."

Here is a taste:

Lou: So, tell us a little bit about Sasha, and how you came up with her.

Joel: Again, I like characters who break convention, and Sasha breaks a whole bunch. Firstly, she’s a fantasy character who reverses that old cliche of the common peasant who discovers they’re heir to royalty, or some other great destiny. Sasha was already royalty, but rejected it.

Secondly, she was born a princess but absolutely HATED everything that little girls are supposed to love about being a princess, and through a series of events becomes a warrior for a strange group called the Nasi-Keth. Not that she can ever stop entirely being a princess, and she still has relations with her family, but she’s certainly out of the power loop, to put it mildly. With too many little girls today still taught to love all princessly things, I found the idea of a princess who as a little girl would much rather play in the mud, ride horses (way too fast) and beat her siblings with a stick in pretend swordfights, just too irresistible. (I like to imagine Sasha sitting today’s little girls down and explaining that the fate of a princess in most realities is to a) marry someone old and ugly, b) spend all your life being told what to do by men of your family, your in-laws’ family (frequently including the mother-in-law from hell) and of course the priests of whatever dominant religion who will expect you to adhere to all their stupid, woman-hating beliefs, and c) to never ever have any fun at all).

And thirdly, I decided quite quickly that in order to become what she is in this patriarchal society, Sasha would have to be incredibly headstrong. That would make her a handful, to say the least, and some might say a nightmare, especially when she was younger. We see the personality type all the time today in top athletes— self-obsessed, almost pathologically competitive, and in Sasha’s case, prone to wild over-exuberance or temper. She can be a pain in the ass, but she has to be, because that’s the personality it takes to be what she is in this world. And I do think she manages to be lovable at the same time, because her heart’s always in the right place, and she’s absolutely selfless in her loyalty to friends and her belief in helping those who deserve it.

Read the whole thing here.