Zeno Literary Agency Ltd.

Betsy Mitchell, Editor-in-Chief at Del Rey has concluded a deal for US rights for the first three titles in Ben Aaronovitch’s RIVERS OF LONDON series, after an auction conducted by  John Berlyne and John Parker at the Zeno Literary Agency. The first two books will be published in Spring 2011.

RIVERS OF LONDON is a fresh and exciting London-based Urban Fantasy focusing on 20-something police constable Peter Grant who finds himself seconded – much to his surprise! – to a secret and arcane branch of the Met specialising in crimes of a supernatural nature, and thus apprenticed to the last wizard in Britain.

“Ben Aaronovitch is a new Del Rey darling,” Mitchell said. “Both male and female readers here were delighted by the character of Peter Grant and Ben’s new take on the urban paranormal genre.”

For more on Ben Aaronovitch, see this previous posting and visit his author page on the Zeno Web Site.

We’re delighted to announce that Zeno has taken on Indian author Samit Basu as a client.

Samit is a very much a rising star on the scene in India – his Gameworld Trilogy, hit the best seller lists over there and he joins Zeno having sent his novel Turbulence into us – a novel which both Johns absolutely loved. It’s an extremely clever and terrifically inventive take on the Superhero genre and one with a very fascinating Indian slant. Full of energy, intrigue, action and verve, Turbulence packs a serious punch and its central plot poses two key questions… How would you feel if you actually got what you wanted? And what would you do if you could really change the world? Turbulence is due to be published in the Autumn by Hachette India.

Instinctively creative, Samit is established in other markets too – he has had a number of works for children published by Scholastic and is extremely active in the world of comics graphic novels (with work published by Virgin Comics). He has recently completed a GN project with Mike Carey and is working on a number of Bollywood screenplay projects.

We’re very much looking forward to working with Samit and to introducing his wonderful work to a wide international audience.

• Visit Samit’s Page on the Zeno Web Site

Updated 23rd February 2010 : CLOSED. We know it seems that we’re perpetually closed for submission, but bear with us folks.  We’re hoping to have a window soon. Meantime, please don’t query us or send in your submission until this status changes. Subscribe to our RSS feed which is provided to help you in this respect. When this status does change (and it does… occasionally!) make sure you’ve carefully read through and followed our Submission Guidelines.  Folks who send stuff in without having done this are wasting their time and ours.

Following their wonderful success with Ian R. MacLeod’s 2009  Campbell and Arthur C. Clarke award winning novel SONG OF TIME, Peter Crowther at PS Publishing has acquired limited edition rights from John Berlyne at the Zeno Agency for MacLeod’s brand new novel WAKE UP AND DREAM and will publish in the latter part of 2010. The PS edition will feature cover art by Dirk Berger.

“Hollywood, 1940. It’s the Golden Age of the Feelies. All one-time actor and unlicensed matrimonial private eye Clark Gable has to do is impersonate a wealthy scriptwriter for a few hours, and sign the contract for the biopic of the inventor of a device which has changed entertainment forever. What could go wrong? Already, he’s seeing ghosts — but that’s nothing unusual. Europe is devastated by war and America is sleep-walking into Fascism — but what’s that got to do with him? By turns wry and romantic, but always gripping, multi-award winning writer Ian R MacLeod’s latest novel is a dazzling collision of science, fantasy and history. Like the feelies themselves, WAKE UP AND DREAM is film noir with Technicolor wraiths.”

Peter Crowther says ‘After the wonderful smorgasbord of emotion that was the multiple-award-winning SONG OF TIME, Ian Macleod could have gone two ways: the familiar and workmanlike approach of not taking any chances, or the bold sweeping-clean of the planning table in order to come up with something set to blow readers totally out of the water. Well, WAKE UP AND DREAM is that latter…  in spades. It’s alternate reality Hollywood steeped in film noir, Dick meets Hammett…  a truly mesmerising word-trip that melds science, history and fantasy in  equal parts — and you know, you just can’t see the joins. We’re thrilled that Ian has allowed us to publish it — it’s a book that will take the genre’s readers by storm.’

Here’s a quick snap of John (Thomas Blackthorne) Meaney and Aliette De Bodard at the Forbidden Planet signing last Friday evening (12th Feb). Having signed lord knows how many copies, John is texting his physiotherapist to book a treatment for stressed autographing ligaments, whilst Aliette is in the midst of a video interview with Nick Butler (aka blogger extraordinaire, Loudmouthman).

Signed copies!! Grab them while you can. (And you can, whilst stocks last, by following this link for EDGE and this one for SERVANT OF THE UNDERWORLD).

… for our Angry Robot authors!

Thomas Blackthorne’s EDGE gets five stars over at the Science Fiction and Fantasy blog, which the reviewers calling the book ‘…an intelligent, slick and brilliantly executed novel with a quite unexpected but superbly scripted ending.’ Full review here.

THE BOOKMAN has received yet another glowing review, this time on the Only The Best SciFi/Fantasy blog. ‘[THE BOOKMAN is] a boisterous mix of steampunk, Victorianna, mystery, travel story, thriller, adventure, partly coming of age story…Lavie Tidhar knows how to keep you in suspense… a shining steampunk bijou, brims over with allusions and cameos, vibrant, gorgeous depicted, clever constructed, compelling …  steampunk in 3D! Highly recommended from the bottom of my heart.’ Full review here.

And finally the Lateral Books blog loudly hails Aliette De Bodard’s SERVANT OF THE UNDERWORLD as ‘…a book I was very excited by… It is a book which is like a fresh breeze of crisp air….I fully expect Ms De Bodard’s name to be huge‘. Full review here.

John Berlyne will be attending this year’s Writing Industries Conference which takes place on Saturday 6th March 2010 at Loughborough University and is run by the University in association with Writing East Midlands.

The programe is varied and extensive and is designed to ‘bring together writers from across the East Midlands and beyond with professionals from the writing industries to share knowledge, develop skills and make new contacts. The conference is open to anyone with an interest in writing, from unpublished writers who want to learn more to bestselling novelists.’

One of a number of industry professionals in attendance, JB will be conducting a number of 1-2-1 sessions with writers, as well as participating in a panel entitled “Everything You Ever Wanted To Ask An Agent”!

Whilst you’re thinking up any number of fiendish questions, you can find out more about the conference at www.writingindustries.com

Our client Professor Richard Weston, one of whose current projects involves working with images of natural materials and minerals in in the context of fashion and interior design, has sent of news of a recent triumph…

‘Following the Best of British Open Design Call held at Liberty of London on 6 February, which attracted almost 1,000 entrants, I have been chosen to supply a collection of silk scarves. I will also be appearing in a BBC2 series showing products develop from idea to high street shelf, to be presented by Dragons’ Den star Theo Paphitis!‘

For the last five years Richard has been developing a digital database of high-resolution images from natural materials such as minerals and rocks with which to make everything from fashion fabrics to jewellery, architectural glass to rugs and carpets. He comments: ‘I’m delighted at this opportunity because I’ve always seen Liberty as the ideal outlet for much of what I do. But getting into a store of its stature was next to impossible until this radical new approach to finding talent, which was pioneered in New York by Ed Burstell, their new Director of Buying.’

The image above right shows a dress from the “Tectonica” Collection by Sophie Shardelow, made using silk printed with designs from agate.

Terrific crits from Eric Brown, writing in last Saturday’s Guardian - see this link – for two of our Angry Robot authors.

On Lavie Tidhar’s THE BOOKMAN, Brown writes ‘THE BOOKMAN is a delight, crammed with gorgeous period detail, seat-of-the-pants adventure and fabulous set-pieces. And there’s more to come from this Israeli writer…‘ Indeed there is! For Lavie has just delivered the sequel CAMERA OBSCURA to his rather chuffed editor Marc Gascoigne.

Of Thomas Blackthorn’s EDGE, Brown says ‘…What lifts the novel far above the norm is that Blackthorne is such a fine writer. [Protagonist] Cumberland leaps off the page, a trained killer whose anger and grief at his daughter’s condition is brilliantly portrayed; the depiction of his simmering rage, barely held in check, and how he channels it, provides a masterclass in characterisation.’

That link again, for the full reviews is right here!

There’s some great bits of free online fiction by Zeno clients to be found out there. Check out the following…

• Ian R. MacLeod: Multi-award winner Ian R. Macleod’s story Second Journey of the Magus is the main featured fiction in the Winter 2010 issue of Subterranean Online.

• Elizabeth Moon: A long excerpt from SHEEPFARMER’S DAUGHTER (the prologue and first two chapters, no less!) the first in the DEED OF PAKSENARRION series, is available at the Orbit web site, promoting their recently released omnibus edition (see this previous post).

• Lavie Tidhar: The Feb 2010 #41 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine has Lavie’s brand new story The Language of the Whirlwind. There are also back issue links to two other stories by Lavie, The Dying World and 304 Adolph Hitler Strasse. And if you want more by Lavie, check out this link at Free Speculative Fiction Online, which should keep you going for a bit!

• Aliette De Bodard: Aliette has a page on her website with a fistful of links to stories she has dotted about the internet. Well worth the effort.

It’s entirely possible that we’ll be opening for submission at some point soon, so anyone considering sending stuff in to us should be sure to take careful note of our Submission Guidelines. We get so many queries – almost simultaneously – when we open the gates, that authors would be wise not to count themselves out by simple errors of formatting and suchlike.

I just recently came across this post – The Top 10 Query Mistakes – as posted on the blog of US agent Rachelle Gardner. Read and learn, people.

I’ve added Rachelle’s Web Site to our Resources page under the ‘Agents Who Blog’ heading. If anyone has a writer’s resource they feel should be on our resources page, so please le me know via the comments.

I finally got round to adding a Zeno author page for Matthew Hughes (sorry it took so long, Matt!), but my timing is fortuitous, for I bring news of a wondrous Matthew Hughes related give-away – one which I am seriously wanting to win all for myself!

To celebrate the release of the third of Night Shade Books‘ Hengis Hapthorn novels, HESPIRA, the publisher  are giving away two complete sets of these books in a competition over at Fantasy Book Critic. There are other wonderful items in the prize fund too – not least *slipcased editions* of Subterranean’s SONGS OF A DYING EARTH (signed by all the contributors) in which Matt has a story, plus TEMPLATE and POSTSCRIPTS 15 both published by PS Publishing (again, these are signed copies).

To enter follow this link to Fantasy Book Critic and follow the instructions. the competition closes on February 24, 2010 – 11:59AM PST.

Good luck!

Eamonn Murphy has posted a glowing review of Michael Cobley’s SEEDS OF EARTH over at the SFCrownest web site. He saysof the novel…

“This is really a fine piece of work and could, when it’s all finished, be up there with the aforementioned Tolkien or Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ series as one of the all-time greats.”

• Read the full review here

We just got a graphic in showing the German cover of Michael Cobley’s SEEDS OF EARTH, or, to be accurate, DIE SAAT DER ERDE, due to be published by Heyne in August 2010.

Shiny spaceships!

And here’s a link to a recent review over at NextRead for SEEDS OF EARTH.

‘A great first attempt… Cobley has a strong confident voice with a intriguing and different tale to tell. I’m wondering what layers he’s going to peel back in THE ORPHANED WORLDS.’

Elizabeth Moon’s The Deed of Paksenarrion omnibus has just been published by Orbit. This bumper release collects together Elizabeth’s three epic fantasy novels ;  The Sheepfarmer’s Daughter, Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold. Great to see these reissued at long last, and in such an impressive package too.

‘Paksenarrion wasn’t planning to submit to an unwelcome marriage and a lifetime of poverty, so she left her village with a plan and her grandfather’s sword. And a few weeks later, she was installed as Duke Phelan’s newest recruit in a company of soldiers for hire, her arms training about to begin. But when Paks sees combat, she’s stabbed with an ensorcelled knife and barely survives. Then the near-misses start mounting up, raising questions about this young fighter. Is she attracting evil because she is a danger to them all? Or is there another reason malignant forces seek her life? Paks will face the spider-minions of the Webmistress Achrya, orcs and the corrupted men who serve blood mage Liart, Master of Torments. She will also earn the gratitude of elves and of her Duke. And through conflict she will learn she has powers of her own and a destiny. To become a gods-chosen Paladin of Gird, and a target for the ultimate torture.’

Be sure to check out the Orbit blog where Elizabeth has recently contributed this guest post.