Author Archive
Adam Christopher Joins Angry Robot’s Four-Book Club
Posted by: | CommentsWe’ve got some fantastic news for all you fans of Adam Christopher‘s Empire State (and we know there are lots of you out there): we’ve signed him up for another two titles, including the sequel to Empire State.
Adam will be revisiting the world of the Empire State in The Age Atomic – which we’ll be publishing in May 2013 – with Hang Wire – a tale of ancient gods and serial killers – to follow within a year.
The deal was negotiated by Angry Robot editor Lee Harris and Adam’s agent, Stacia Decker of the Donald Maass Agency.
Adam said (in a press release quote stylee): “I’m delighted to be back for another visit to the Empire State! Rad Bradley is a character close to my heart, and as soon as he reappeared on the page and started throwing punches, I felt like an old friend had returned… albeit one I’m obliged to put through the wringer again! Angry Robot continue to impress with a kick-ass roster of authors and titles, and I’m thrilled that The Age Atomic and Hang Wire will be part of it.”
Our Lee added: “I couldn’t be happier to have more of Adam’s books on our list. Adam joins a very exclusive club – he is now one of only three authors to have placed four books with Angry Robot. His membership card is already being laminated.”
Don’t forget, you’ve still got Adam’s second novel Seven Wonders – to look forward to in September 2012 as well.
And check out a new interview with Adam over at Erik Lundqvist’s I Will Read Books blog for lots more inside info on both The Age Atomic and Hang Wire.
Another Award Win
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Late last week saw the annual IPG (Independent Publishers’ Guild) Conference, in Oxfordshire (and let’s face it, if you’re going to have something as English-sounding as a Guild in 2012, it should meet in a shire). Angry Robot was in attendance, along with other parts of the Osprey Group.
It was a great conference, with some fascinating panels and presentations, as well as a frank (and quite uplifting) keynote speech from Waterstones’ MD, James Daunt, who spoke about the obstacles facing the chain and the industry, as well as some of his company’s plans to address these same challenges.
Thursday night was the night of the annual Independent Publishing Awards, and the Osprey Group was shortlisted in two categories:
- * Specialist Consumer Publisher of the Year
- * Ingram Digital Publishing Award
Quite frankly, the competition in both categories was phenomenal, and (cliché warning, ahead) it was an honour just to be included in the same categories as the other nominees.
We were therefore shocked but, of course, absolutely delighted to have won the 2012 IPG Award for Specialist Consumer Publisher of the Year.
The Osprey Group includes Osprey Publishing, Shire, Old House and Angry Robot – four imprints with very specific specialist remits. This award honours all of the teams in each of the imprints, and we couldn’t be more grateful and humbled by it.
Computer Scientist Signs Two-Book Deal with Angry Robot
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Angry Robot has signed debut novelist, Ramez Naam for two books in a new science fiction series. The first title – Nexus – will be Angry Robot’s lead title in January 2013, with the sequel, Crux, to follow later in the year.
In the near future, the nano-drug Nexus can link mind to mind. There are some who want to improve it. There are some who want to eradicate it. And there are others who just want to exploit it. When a young scientist is caught improving Nexus, he’s thrust over his head into a world of danger and international espionage, with far more at stake than anyone realizes.
How awesome does that sound? No need to answer that - we’ll tell you: very!
The deal was negotiated by Angry Robot editor Lee Harris, and Naam’s agent Lucienne Diver of the Knight Agency.
Seattle-based Naam, a computer scientist who helped build Internet Explorer, Outlook and Bing for Microsoft is the HG Wells Award winning author of the non-fiction book More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement, and is a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Of his signing to Angry Robot, he said, “I’m ecstatic to be part of the Angry Robot family and to get my novels Nexus and Crux out to readers.”
But, of course.
Editor, Lee Harris stated “Every now and then I come across a submission that completely blows me away. Nexus is one such book – an intelligent science fiction novel written by one of the most exciting debut novelists I’ve had the pleasure to read.”
Meet us at the SFX Weekender
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Once again, we’re out in force at a convention near you!*
This coming weekend, Angry Robot authors and Overlords will be strutting their funky stuff (Oh, no!) to the musical stylings of Mr Craig Charles as well as lounging in various bars and appearing on panels and signing books – you know the drill.
Authors appearing:
Dan Abnett, Adam Christopher, Anne Lyle, Andy Remic, David Tallerman, Lavie Tidhar, Guy Haley and Ian Whates
And the Angry Robot office crew:
Marc Gascoigne, Lee Harris, Darren Turpin, and Amanda Rutter
These are the various panels/signings we’ll be taking part in (Angry Robots are listed in bold):
FRIDAY
12.00pm – The Bar is Open
3.00pm – Elf Preservation
Gav Thorpe, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Graham McNeill, Juliet McKenna and Joe Abercrombie ponder if it’s really fantasy if it doesn’t have magic and monsters. Jared Shurin hosts.
3.00pm – Signing: Dan Abnett and Adam Christopher
4.00pm – Using History
Adam Christopher, Paul Cornell, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Pat Kelleher and Maria Dahvana Headley talk about how the past can help your fiction. Hosted by Sandy Auden.
5.00pm – How do you put the Punk into Steampunk?
Lavie Tidhar, Stephen Hunt and Robert Rankin talk to Jonathan Green.
5.00pm – Signing: Guy Haley and Gav Thorpe
6.00pm – How to get Published
Anne Lyle, Anne Clarke and others. Guy Haley hosts the discussion.
6.00pm – Signing: Andy Remic and Lavie Tidhar
SATURDAY
12.00pm – Space Opera
Dan Abnett, Peter F Hamilton, Jaine Fenn, Michael Cobley and Aaron Dembski-Bowden ask if books are the only medium flying the flag for spaceships. Alastair Reynolds hosts.
1.00pm – Ready, Steady, Flash!
Lee Harris challenges Paul Cornell, Stacia Kane, Tony Lee and Juliet E McKenna to write short stories in just five minutes.
4.00pm – It’s not a Story – It’s a Map!
David Tallerman, Ian Whates, China Miéville and Gaie Sebold wonder: does fantasy place world-building over character? Juliet E McKenna hosts.
5.00pm – Signing: David Tallerman and Ian Whates
_____________
*Disclaimer: Applicable only to people near Prestatyn, Wales.
The Return of Open Door
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Yes, you heard correctly – we’re running another Open Door submission period this year.
Last year we relaxed our submissions guidelines, and opened the door to unagented authors who had written novels they thought would interest us. Throughout March we received an average of 32 submissions a day! And that’s in addition to all the great work we had being submitted through the usual channels!
So far we’ve contracted three authors (a minimum of six books) from that process:
Cassandra Rose Clarke (The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, The Assassin’s Curse)
Lee Collins (The Dead of Winter, She Returns From War)
Lee Battersby (The Corpse-Rat King, Marching Dead)
and we’re not quite finished, yet!
This year, we’re going to narrow the focus, somewhat. Angry Robot are specifically looking for classic fantasy (high, epic, medieval, magical, etc etc), and Strange Chemistry (our YA imprint) will be looking for all forms of sf and fantasy YA. The doors will be open from April 16th through April 30th.
Full details can be found here.
Matthew Hughes shortlisted for the Philip K Dick Award – short stories available
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Huge congratulations to Angry Robot author Matthew Hughes! His novel, The Other (published by Underland Press), was recently announced as one of the shortlisted titles for this year’s Philip K Dick Award.
The novel stars one of Matt’s most popular recurring characters – Luff Imbry (Old Earth’s foremost thief).
Luff has been around for a while, and Matt has written a whole bunch of great short stories starring this quite brilliant character, and to celebrate the novel’s shortlisting, Matt has given us some stories to make available in our eBook store.
There are 7 of Matt’s Luff Imbry short stories there, plus stories by many of our other authors. (Click on “Short Fiction” on the left-hand menu, or search for an author).
They’re only 59p each (or approximately US$0.79), but if you buy 10, you get them for just £3.49! (Approximately US$4.65) What a great deal!
What are you still doing here? Go, browse, download!
Empire State WorldBuilder is now live!
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You may remember we told you about our new WorldBuilder project, where we invite fans to create their own content set in the world of Adam Christopher’s Empire State.
Well, the website has now gone live, and to get the ball rolling we’ve commissioned a few pieces (with thanks to the mighty Mur Lafferty for helping to run the project).
The phenomenally talented JR Blackwell has provided us with stills from the (non-existent) 1946 noir movie adaptation of Empire State. There’s an example below, and you can find plenty more over at the main site (EmpireState.cc).
Also at the site is a short story from Hugo and Nebula Award winner, James Patrick Kelly. Empire State inspired his first ever superhero tale, The Biggest.
“The Biggest” by James Patrick Kelly
Big, known to his dear departed mother as Filbrick Van Loon, was startled out of his reverie when a heavy in a cheap gabardine suit dropped into the seat in front of him like a piano falling out of a skyscraper. In his drowsy confusion, Big thought the train itself had derailed, but as he gathered his wits he realized that the Empire State Express was pulling out of Union Station, finally headed south to New York City.
“Guess who I just seen?” said the heavy.
“Can’t.” A woman’s voice oozed boredom. “Jimmy Cagney?”
The seatback shuddered as the heavy thrashed disagreement. “What would Cagney be doing in Albany?”
“Babe Ruth?” said his companion.
“Nope.”
“Rin Tin Tin? Judge Crater?
“The Governor.”
“Roosevelt?”
Big stopped feeling sorry for himself and leaned forward to eavesdrop, although the heavy had a voice they could probably hear him in Buffalo.
“How did you know it was him?”
“Been in the newsreels, hasn’t he? Believe me, this is the guy. He could barely walk cause of the polio.”
Big stood and pulled his suitcase off the overhead rack.
“They say he got better.” The woman was still skeptical.
“If that was better, I’d hate to see worse.”
We’d love for you to go and see what’s happening as part of our WorldBuilder project, and we’d love it even more if you were to join in. There are some free sample chapters from Empire State at the site, and the novel is available to purchase now in paperback, ePub and Kindle formats from your favourite stores.
SF Crime Twitter Competition – results
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This morning we announced a quick Twitter competition for UK readers* – the winners of which would receive a copy of the ARC of Dead Harvest by Chris F Holms. We asked you to come up with an SF title based on an existing crime novel.
There were some great entries (and some not so great). Where there were multiple entries based on the same novel we chose not to take the first entry, but the one we thought funniest or closer to the tone of the original title.
So, the runners-up (who all receive a copy of the ARC):
- @Pat_JG with A Scanner Darkly Dreaming Dexter
- @debutdrmag with Murder on the Orion Express and The Maltese Millennium Falcon
- @Stephenwest with Evil Under Twin Suns
and
- @erik_lundqvist with Murder She Blogged (yes, it’s not SF, but we liked it, and it’s our competition, so shut it!)
and the winner (who will receive a copy of the ARC plus something else from the Angry Robot cupboard of cool):
- @markhwilliams with The Girl with the Dragon Tatooine
Congratulations, everyone – your books should reach you before the weekend!
___
*Some international competitions, coming soon…
Giant Thief – it just gets better and better
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Plenty of love rolling in for David Tallerman’s energetic debut novel, Giant Thief:
SFX Magazine says:
Breathless pace… Damasco resembles a landlocked version of Jack Sparrow… The atypical backdrop,self-aware style and downplaying of magics bring to mind the contemporary fantasies of Scott Lynch and Joe Abercrombie.
Meanwhile, Starburst had this to say:
I’m finding it hard to dislike anything about this book. It’s a fun, entertaining read, everything a good story should be… David Tallerman’s first novel is a gripping yarn, one that is difficult to put down once started, and this reviewer is eagerly awaiting the next tale of Easie Damasco.
Over at A Fantastical Librarian, they confidently state that
If you’re up for a fun, fast-paced adventure featuring rogues, giants and lots of fighting, you won’t want to miss it!
and Publishers Weekly tells us:
“Best known for an eclectic variety of short stories, Tallerman debuts with a breezy novel of a man with his eye on the prize … Tallerman’s charming, devil-may-care hero has plenty of swashbuckling roguishness to carry him through the planned sequels.”
And Fantasy Nibbles was impressed, too:
This really is a fun read. Saltlick is adorable, I want one! It’s straightforward, linear, smack down the middle fast-paced goodness.
Giant Thief is released in mass market paperback in the US and Canada on January 31st, and in the UK on February 2nd. The eBook is released worldwide on January 31st in ePub and Kindle formats.
Empire State Launch/Signing News
Posted by: | CommentsWith a London launch at the Forbidden Planet Megastore last week (get your signed copies, here), and a signing in New York tomorrow night, Adam Christopher is keeping very busy!
Adam reads from Empire State at the UK launch
The launch for Adam’s Empire State at Forbidden Planet on Thursday last week was a great success. We’re still waiting for the firm numbers to come in, but FP have told us that it is one of the most successful launch/signings they have ever held there.
Which is nice.
A good time was had by all, and after reading a tantalising excerpt from the novel, Adam was kept extremely busy by the long queue of eager readers.
And if you missed the news at the weekend, the Financial Times said this of Empire State:
Suffused with a love for noir fiction and the golden age of American comic books, Christopher’s Empire State is something of a tour de force. If, somehow, Raymond Chandler and Philip K Dick had collaborated on a Superman story, they might well have produced this novel.
Congratulations to Adam on a fine launch, and our thanks go to Danie and the team at Forbidden Planet for making it all happen.
New Yorkers – don’t forget Adam’s signing at the Mid-Manhattan Library tomorrow evening from 6.30-7.30pm. (Details here, or click the image to the right).
Empire State is out now in paperback and eBook formats. Order a copy from your favourite indie, chain or online retailer.
