Zeno Literary Agency Ltd.

Ian McDonald‘s superb novel THE DERVISH HOUSE has scooped yet another accolade. The author adds this year’s John W. Campbell Award to the BSFA Award and the nominations the novel has received for both the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Hugo.

Even though Zeno has only been in business for three years, this is the second time a Zeno client has won this coveted prize… in fact, it’s the second time a client called Ian was won it! (See here) – not a back track record, eh?

Huge congratulations to Ian and to publishers, Pyr and Gollancz, who have done such a wonderful job with the novel. Note the UK mass market edition is due out on July 29th.

Following last year’s experiment, we are once again opening submissions specifically for folks who will be attending Renovation, this year’s Worldcon being held in Reno, Nevada from the 17th to the 21st August, 2011.

John Berlyne will be attending and will also be appearing on a number of panels. Here are the relevant and *very specific criteria* for submitting. If you can’t tick ALL  these boxes, unfortunately we will not be able to to consider your work…

• This submissions window is open *ONLY* for people who are attending Renovation. Please include your membership number in your covering email. If we don’t find you on the membership list, we won’t be able to consider your work. Telling us that you are ‘intending to attend’ won’t cut it – sorry!

• Please follow our submission guidelines. If you are unable to follow the guidelines, we will be unable to consider your work.

• We’re looking for all shades of  commercial genre fiction – be it SF, Fantasy or Horror or any such permutations thereof (there are many). That said,  the most important factors for us are the excellence of the writing and the commercial hook, rather than how many rockets or wizards or ghosts appear in the story, so look to our Submission Guidelines and the About Zeno page to gauge our tastes.

• You should submit ONLY if you have a finished novel-length manuscript to send, should we wish to see it. We’re not interested in reviewing your work-in-progress or the novel you’ve written a bit of.

• Did we mention you should look at our Submission Guidelines?

• Note that we reserve the right not to ask to see your work should your pitch email not appeal.

Good luck! See you in Reno!

Zeno Literary Agency is delighted to announce our first sale to Subterranean Press, who will publish James P. Blaylock‘s YA novel, ZEUGLODON in 2012, following a deal negotiated by John Berlyne.

‘A skeletal hand clutching an iron key lies hidden within a mermaid’s wooden sarcophagus; a hand-drawn map is stolen from beneath the floorboards of an old museum; an eccentric sleeping inventor dreams of a locked passage to the centre of the hollow earth, and by dreaming of the passage, brings it into being…

Pursued by kidnappers thinking of riches and murder, Katherine Perkins and her two cousins, junior members of The Guild of St. George, must descend into the depths of the earth in order to return the Sleeper to his ancestral home on the shores of Lake Windermere.  But to awaken him would mean the end of the dream, the closing of the passage, and the three intrepid explorers marooned in a savage land forgotten by time itself…’

Subterranean have a long and fruitful relationship with Blaylock having for some years published a good deal of his work in beautiful premium, collectable editions. Bill Schafer says “We at SubPress are more than pleased to add that most Blaylockian of novels, ZEUGLODON, to our schedule next year. It’s vintage James P. Blaylock, set on the same fictional map as his classic novel, THE DIGGING LEVIATHAN, with all the mystery, charm, and whimsy one could want.“

Gosh, anyone would think it’s awards season! And the latest wonderful news we have to impart in this department  is that Brandon Sanderson‘s THE WAY OF KINGS has just scooped this year’s David Gemmell Legend Award. WOOT!

A recent arrival in the awards calendar, the Legend award is three years old now, and is decided by popular vote rather than by a jury. There are three categories – for best newcomer, best artist and the Legend award itself, which is given to the best fantasy novel.

We are absolutely delighted for Brandon and publisher Gollancz who have done a really wonderful job with this thwacking great novel. And Brandon is hard at work on the second volume. Let’s hope the arrival of the very large “Snaga” axe he just won doesn’t distract him!

Two Zeno clients have just been short listed for major genre awards …

First up, as previously announced here, Ian McDonald‘s novel THE DERVISH HOUSE has already been short-listed for the BSFA Award (which he won!) the Arthur C. Clarke award (which he didn’t) and the Hugo Award for best novel (which he still might).

Yesterday came the news that THE DERVISH HOUSE is one of those novels short-listed for this year’s John W. Campbell Award – a major industry award given annually in the US for the best SF novel and which was recently won (in 2009) by another Zeno client, Ian R. MacLeod.

Also announced yesterday was the short list for this years Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, given for the best short short in the genre in a given year. Many congratulations to Lavie Tidhar, whose story THE NIGHT TRAIN,  published at Strange Horizons, has deservedly  made it onto the short list. You can read the story by following the link above.

Winners will be announced for both awards in July at this year’s Campbell Conference Banquet in Lawrence, Kansas – further details can be found here.

Zeno Agency is delighted to announce that film and television rights to Ian McDonald‘s award winning novel THE DERVISH HOUSE have been optioned by Warp Films. The deal was negotiated by Zeno’s John Richard Parker who says, ‘As with all Ian’s books THE DERVISH HOUSE is very much cinematic as well being  an imaginative tour de force. I have always believed it has the qualities that  make it eminently suitable for film and I am sure that with Warp’s enthusiasm for the project and their fantastic track record, all the ingredients are in place to put together something very special indeed.’

Warp Films have had notable successes recently with SUBMARINE and FOUR LIONS and Executive Producer Peter Carlton says ‘We’re delighted to have the chance to adapt THE DERVISH HOUSE for the screen, set in that most iconic of cities, crossroads of east and west, past and future, Istanbul. It starts with an explosion on a tram and ends in a race to stop a terrorist plot, but in the meantime Ian somehow weaves together speculative share trading, nanotechnology and Islamic microcalligraphy, to name but a few strands in this visual feast that has a narrative sweep and ambition all too rare in contemporary fiction.‘

It’s not too long (fingers and toes crossed) until we see Ian R. MacLeod‘s brand new novel, WAKE UP AND DREAM roll off the presses. To herald the coming of this event, PS Publishing have produced a short chapbook entitled HECTOR DOUGLAS MAKES A SALE, which is a kind of companion piece to the book and features a wonderfully insightful Afterword by the author.

Produced essentially for private distribution and in support of the pending release of the novel, copies of this piece of collectable MacLeod ephemera were only available at Eastercon and are thus extremely scarce, but I managed to swipe a few for the Zeno archives – including one signed by Ian.

Zeno clients triumphed at the BSFA awards, which were held at this year’s Eastercon, at the Hilton Metropole in Birmingham over the Easter weekend.

First up was Aliette de Bodard, who was on hand to collect the award for Best Short Fiction for her story The Shipmaker, which appeared in Interzone issue #231. I managed to snap this pic of her being dwarfed by David Weber, who was on hand the present the award. (The homeless man to the rear is Paul Cornell prior to the removal of his comedy charity beard – for which he raised an impressive amount of money for, ironically, Shelter!)

No sooner had the applause for Aliette died down than our own Ian McDonald took to the stage to accept for the award for Best Novel for THE DERVISH HOUSE (not ‘The Dervish Nights’ as the convention newsletter later reported!), his 2010 novel published by Gollancz in the UK and by Pyr in the US.

A further layer of coolness was added to these wins when we later learned that both Ian and Aliette have been nominated for this year’s Hugo Awards – this news adding to Aliette’s previously reported Nebula nomination for the same story, and Ian’s Arthur C. Clarke Award nomination.

Huge congratulations to both authors.

There were lots of other Zeno authors at Eastercon – I got to meet our latest clients Anne Lyle and David Tallerman, albeit all too briefly, and the mass signing of Angry Robot authors at Waterstones in the centre of Birmingham was almost a mini ‘Zenocon’ of its own. Present were Aliette, Colin Harvey, John Meaney – or was it Thomas Blackthorn? – and, in a rare UK appearance, one Lavie Tidhar (pictured here next to a banner proclaiming his novels in all their steampunky glory.)

Elsewhere at the con, at readings, on panels and if truth must be told, in the bar, one could find Freda Warrington, Susan Boulton, Michael Cobley and last but by no means least Ian R. MacLeod.

I did a panel called ‘Writing 102: Finding an Agent‘, which was well attended and along with Gollancz Editorial Director Gillian Redfearn, Gollancz author Stephen Deas and author Martin Owton, we fielded a number of excellent questions from the audience. Hope those who were there found it helpful.

Zeno Agency is delighted to announce that we now represent the estate of the late Algis Budrys. Furthermore, Darren Nash at Gollancz has recently acquired ebook rights to A.J.’s backlist and will be making these works available electronicaly for the first time. Publishing dates are still TBC.

In addition to this, A.J.’s best known work ROGUE MOON will be reissued in 2012 in the Gollancz SF Masterworks series and there are also plans afoot for an omnibus trade paperback edition of THE IRON THORN, MICHAELMAS and HARD LANDING – again dates TBC.

We’re delighted to announce debut deals with independent genre publisher Angry Robot for two of our newest clients, Anne Lyle, and David Tallerman.

Anne’s Elizabethan fantasy series entitled Night’s Masque features the adventures of disreputable swordsman Mal Catlyn. ‘Explorers have returned from the New World bearing strangely primitive natives – and their uncanny elders, regal beings straight out of the Norse myths who call themselves skraylings. Hired to protect these strangers … Mal … soon finds himself dragged into a world of conspiracy and dark magic. The first of the series, THE ALCHEMIST OF SOULS, is an irresistible combination of dashing swordplay and cunning alternate history from a natural born storyteller. It will be published simultaneously in the US and UK in March 2012.’

David’s novels focus on the notorious Easie Damasco, ‘a rogue and a thief and a scoundrel, who somehow always lives to see another day. In the first of his outlandish adventures, GIANT THIEF Damasco somehow manages to steal the wrong treasure and ends up with an entire army on his tail. Riotous swashbuckling adventure in the popular tradition of recent fantasy successes Scott Lynch and Joe Abercrombie, the Easie Damasco adventures will run to at least three books.’

Both deals are for three books and include ebook and audio rights. They were negotiated with  Angry Robot‘s Publishing Director Marc Gascoigne by John Parker and John Berlyne of the Zeno Agency, who represent all translation rights.

Marc Gascoigne says, ‘These are two very different fantasy series, but they share a common quality – thoroughly engaging storytelling. Both these authors have the that rare skill of grabbing the reader in an opening paragraph and taking them off on a wild, wild ride full of magic, swordplay and adventure.’

Congratulations to all.

…a shiny new copy of the shiny new edition of ON STRANGER TIDES – perhaps my favourite Tim Powers novel of all. This is a new reissue comes courtesy of Corvus, and just in time for a certain Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides film which is to be released next month. I can reveal that the similarities in the titles of these projects is not entirely coincidental.

Here is  the new Corvus edition placed against the original artwork for the first UK edition which just happens to hang in our office!

GREATSHADOW, the first in James Maxey‘s brand new fantasy series has sold to Jon Oliver at Solaris as part of a three book deal for world English rights that will also see sequels HUSH and SORROW published subsequently.

The deal was negotiated by John Berlyne of the Zeno Literary Agency for a nice five figure sum and Solaris will publish the first title in Feb 2012, with the sequels following in July 2012 and spring 2013 respectively. Translation rights are represented by Zeno.

‘James Maxey has barely taken his coat off here at Zeno towers,‘ says agent John Berlyne, ‘and so it’s with great delight that we’re able to announce this deal. GREATSHADOW is a complete riot…  fantasy super heroes, terrifying dragons and a deliciously unorthodox protagonist. I loved this high energy fusion of traditional fantasy colliding with  X-Men. It’s huge, seat-of-the pants fun.‘

Solaris previously published Maxey’s BITTERWOOD trilogy and editor-in-chief Jonathan Oliver says ‘It’s a delight to welcome back James to the Solaris fold. I was a big fan of his Bitterwood series of fantasy novels and it’s great to see more from this talented writer. James has to be one of the most innovative and entertaining writers of dragon fantasy around.’

In the wake of our recent submissions window and to prove that it does actually happen, we are delighted to announce that the following authors are now represented worldwide by Zeno. Welcome one and all …

• Naomi Foyle
• Amy Jeans
• Anne Lyle
• James Maxey
• Frank Morin
• David Tallerman
• John Theobald
• Rio Youers

Watch this space for exciting announcements for some of these folks in next few days and weeks.

We’re posting this somewhat belatedly, but our congratulations to Aliette de Bodard on her Nebula nomination (announced a couple of weeks ago by the SFWA) are no less heartfelt for our tardiness.

Aliette’s story ‘The Jaguar House, In Shadow’, originally published in the 7/10 issue of Asimov’s has been shortlisted in the best novellette catagory and we wish her the best of luck when the Nebula winners are announced  on May 21st 2011 at the Nebula Awards Weekend in Washington.

And you can read Aliette’s novelette for free right now over at her author web site  – follow this link – where you will also find plenty of other wonderful stories available.

CAMERA OBSCURA, the new novel by Lavie Tidhar is published next month by Angry Robot, and the author, rumoured by some  to be nothing more than a shadowy internet presence,  makes a rare visit to the UK to promote the release and will be attending – in person! – this year’s Eastercon in Birmingham, where he will appear on a number of panels. Whilst he’s in town, Lavie will be doing a number of events and signings, and so if you want to meet the man that LOCUS call an ‘emerging master’, citing five of his projects on their 2010 Recommended Reading List ( Count them, folks! No other author had more listings!), here’s where you’ll find him…

• Sunday 17th April :  12.00pm  – Waterstones, The Bentalls Centre, 9 Wood Street, Kingston Upon Thames, Surrey

• Tuesday 19th April :  18:00 -  Forbidden Planet, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue,London, WC2H 8JR

• Saturday 23rd April : 12.30pm  – Waterstone’s, 24-26 High Street, Birmingham. This is a group signing featuring Angry Robot authors, so if you turn up, besides Lavie, you’re likely to also run into (and get books signed by) other Zeno clients, Aliette de Bodard, Thomas Blackthorne (aka John Meaney) and Matt Hughes. John B will be there too – but won’t of course, be signing books!

And if you want to get a taste of Lavie’s new book, here’s a neat bit of code courtesy of the folks at Angry Robot…