Zeno Literary Agency Ltd.

Wow!! THE DESERT SPEAR, Peter V. Brett‘s brilliant follow up to his acclaimed début THE PAINTED MAN was only released yesterday, but the enormous interest in the book and the volume of pre-orders have resulted in  deservedly high bookscan figures and we’re all thrilled and delighted to see THE DESERT SPEAR in at #9 on the Sunday Times Bestseller List.  Here are a few relevant links…

• Peat’s ‘Peephole In My Skull‘ has a wonderful pictorial blog entry detailing his joy at hitting the Sunday Times list.
• Peat’s primary agent Joshua Bilmes at the JABberwocky Literary Agency considers the differences between the US and the UK markets in light of THE DESERT SPEAR‘s figures.
• Peat will be in London during the London Book Fair and will be signing at London’s Forbidden Planet flagship store on Friday April 16th at 18.00. Details here.
• He’s also lined up to sign at Goldsboro Books earlier that same day. Check out their website.
• And here are a few links to rave reviews of THE DESERT SPEAR…
  • Sacramento Book Review
  • SFF Chat
  • Superfast Reader

I’ll post further reviews in due course. Meantime, well deserved congratulations to Peat, Joshua, Emma and all the Voyager team.

A section of Stephen Volk’s powerful and richly written novel THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LAZARUS has been excerpted in EXOTIC GOTHIC 3: Strange Visitiations, published by the award winning Canadian outfit, Ash-Tree Press, who specialise in works of supernatural fiction.

LAZARUS is an extraordinary, ambitious and audacious piece, one that the author describes as ‘Part Jacobean revenge tragedy of epic proportions.  Part variation of the “Frankenstein” myth.  Part heretical alternative history.‘

Stephen Volk is a Bafta award winning screen and television scriptwriter – check out his page on the Zeno web site. You can order EXOTIC GOTHIC 3 by following this link.

Ash-Tree Press, Stephen Volk and Zeno Agency will all be attending this year’s World Horror Convention in Brighton in a couple of weeks. Feel free to come up and say “Boo!”

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).

• Zeno clients Aliette De Bodard and John Meaney (also known as Thomas Blackthorn) will be signing, respectively, SERVANTS OF THE UNDERWORLD and EDGE - their novels published (soon to be published in the case of Mister Meaney / Blackthorn) by Angry Robot. You’ll be able to meet both authors on Friday February 12th at 6pm at the flagship Forbidden Planet megastore on Shaftesbury Avenue.

• And be sure to check out this 5 Star review of Aliette’s novel, posted recently at www.sciencefictionandfantasy.co.uk.

• Prior to the above, John will be one of the participating authors at the SFX Weekender – a two day Sciffy fest taking place on the 5th and 6th of February at Camber Sands – see their web site (link above)  for details. Note that fellow Zeno client Justina Robson will also be in attendance.

• Still with John Meaney, those of you hungrily awaiting the arrival of his brand new space opera ABSORPTION, will, alas, no have to wait a little while long, as publisher Gollancz has had to reschedule the release date – you’ll be able to get hold of it from May 20th.

• And still with John M, he will be attending this year’s Eastercon (over Easter weekend of course) along with other Zeno clients, Susan Boulton, Aliette De Bodard, Michael Cobley, Freda Warrington, Ian R. Macleod and Colin Harvey.  John B will also be there and John P will be there for at least one day. Other clients are still to confirm.

Michael Cobley‘s superb space opera SEEDS OF EARTH receives its mass market paperback release, published by Orbit and priced at £7.99.  (See this entry made today on the excellent Orbit Blog).

If you came to the party early and picked this one up during its first outing in trade paperback, you’ll be excited to learn that the follow up, ORPHANED WORLDS is due out in April. Thank to the folks at Orbit for sending along the cover visual – what great artwork! Incidentally, we’ve already done a deal with Bragelonne for a French translation of this series and so more on that in due course.

Mike has dropped us a line to tell us about a tonne of other stuff he has going on too…

• A short story, BLACK FRAGMENTARIA, is published in the current edition of Postscripts Quarterly (PS 20/21) which is now available. Visit the PS Publishing web site for further details. Note that this edition also feature stories by Zeno clients Chris Roberson, Matthew Hughes and Lavie Tidhar. It should have been called the Zeno Edition!

• Another Cobley short, THE MAKER’S MARK, is to appear in the Conflicts anthology, edited by Ian Whates and Ian Watson, published by Newcon Press. This is scheduled for release in February/March 2010

• Michael is one of the featured authors taking part in the Aye Write festival, held in Glasgow March 5-13th. He’ll be participating in a panel entitled ‘The Early Days Of A Better Future’, along withother genre authors, Ken Macleod, Richard Morgan, Hal Duncan, Debbie Miller, and chaired by Andrew Wilson. This is a ticketed event.

• Finally Michael will be at this year’s Eastercon, which takes place at the Radisson Edwardian, Heathrow over Easter weekend.  Zeno will be there too, as will a host of other genre folks and fans. There’s still time to get your membership!

Benedetto, over at Iain Sinclair’s Official Unofficial web site has dropped us a line to say that he’s now got a mailing list to keep fans (and us!) up-to-date with Iain’s events diary.

• Sign up here.

This by way of Benedetto @ Iain Sinclair’s Official Unofficial Website…

Ledbury Poetry Festival – July 4th 2009, at 19.45 : Iain Sinclair and Brian Catling will give a Live Reading at this year Ledbury Poetry Festival, at the Burgage Hall

Space expert Piers Bizony, will be appearing at this year’s Hay Festival on Tuesday May 26th giving a lecture that “celebrates the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 with astounding images and and flight logs from the first manned mission to reach the moon.”

• Details and online booking here.

Amanda is to be interviewed by Roz Kaveney at the next BSFA monthly meeting. The event takes place at The Antelope Tavern at 7pm on April 22nd and you’d be a fool not to be there!

For those of you on Facebook, here is the event page.

There’s a wonderful short film on The Guardian web site in which Ian Sinclair takes us on a fascinating short walk around Hackney.

The piece – which you’ll find by following this link – offers a real flavour of Sinclair’s new book, Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire which is now at number #13 in the hardcover charts, is ranked in the top 250 Amazon sellers and has already been reprinted twice since its Feb 26th release!

Sue Hubbard will be reading from her recent short story collection Rothko’s Red on March 10th. The event takes place in the hospitality suite of the Hackney Empire and begins at 7.00pm. Entry is £5.00. The event is organised by “Fiction Writers in the Visual Arts”, you can get further details by calling 07967 161 291.

Here’s what The New Statesman had to say about Sue’s collection, published last October by Salt…

‘Each story in this, Hubbard’s first collection of short fiction is nominally centred around art. But what truly links the pieces herein is the themes of longing, loss and melancholy, and a sense that not even an intimate knowledge of the beautiful and the sublime can protect one from the daily tragedies of life.

While several of Hubbard’s protagonists ultimately find redemption, it is always at a cost to themselves; the academic who gets away with cheating on his wife, but not without being fleeced by his mistress; the widow who realises that she is content alone, but only after a disappointing sexual encounter with a man she meets on the internet; the middle-aged divorcee who has an affair with an immigrant you enough to be her son and who she regards with distant amusement.

With Hubbard’s background in art criticism and poetry, it is not surprising that her writing is painterly and vivid. She lingers on colours and textures, edges and scents: Mummy grew tomatoes, red gems, that what she called them… I remember that special smell when she watered them in the early evening after a day of sun.”

The collection is quiet, almost to the point of defiance, but in its understated, delicate descriptions of the mundane, Rothko’s Red has an acute power.‘

… according to Olympics minister Tessa Jowell in this article which aired last night on the Channel 4 news.

He’s only been a client for a day or two, but already Stephen Volk is out there flying the flag! Here’s a little something worth putting in your diary…

Stephen Volk is giving a talk on the creating and writing of his award-winning TV drama series Afterlife at ‘Fantastic Writing – science fiction, fantasy and magic: Writing the future, the past and other worlds‘, a one-day event for budding scriptwriters taking place on Saturday 7th March 2009 at De Montfort University’s Leicester City campus.

The day also includes a keynote speech from acclaimed novelist Graham Joyce (The Facts of Life, DOOM), Q&A sessions with guests such as Phil Ford (Sarah Jane Adventures, Dr Who, Torchwood) and James Moran (Dr Who, Torchwood, Spooks), and a presentation on writing for on-line drama.

Tickets for the event are £65 per person including lunch, refreshments and car parking. For more information or to book a place, please contact:

Promotion & Recruitment Centre
Faculty of Humanities

Tel–0116 250 6470
Email – pghums[at]dmu[dot]ac[dot]uk

And here is the direct link to the event web site.

Iain Sinclair’s new book Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire is being released by Hamish Hamilton in late February and Iain has a busy promotional schedule in the run up to publication.

We’re delighted to announce that Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire has been chosen as the BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and will be broadcast the week commencing February 16th. If you miss it going out, we’ll post links to the “Listen Again” page as soon as they’re available. As well as the Book of the Week, Iain is scheduled to make a number of other radio appearances during the next couple of months including Start the Week on Radio 4, The Verb Live on Radio 3 and Up All Night on Radio 5.  Resonance FM are scheduling a number of programmes featuring the book and further radio interviews and features are to be confirmed – details here as we get them.

There’ll be plenty of print coverage for Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire too… the publisher reports that this book has been one of their most requested titles in recent years, so there will be plenty of review coverage. Additionally interviews with Iain are due to appear in The Observer, The Guardian (G2), Time Out, Metro, The London Paper, Scotland on Sunday and The Morning Star. There’ll magazine coverage too – and, of course, the story that grew out of Hackney Library banning Iain’s book launch continues to be newsworthy.

Iain has a number of events, talks, appearances and signings scheduled too in support of the publication of Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire.  Below is the list as it currently stands. We’ll try and supply specific details as and when we have them, but we recommend you contact the various venues to confirm the details …

Thursday, 12th February — event at The Wapping Bookshop
Thursday, 19th February — Iain taking part in Cambridge Union debate about the Olympics
Saturday, 21st February — bus tour of Hackney organised by Sketch events team
Monday, 23rd February — event at the Royal Society of Literature
Friday, 27th February — Private view of exhibition about Hackney at the Danielle Arnaud gallery
Saturday, 28th February — event at the LSE Space for Thought Literary weekend
Wednesday, 4th March — event at Pages of Hackney bookshop
Thursday, 5th March — event at Museum of London, Docklands
Wednesday, 11th March — event at the LRB Bookshop
Thursday, 12th March — event at the Stoke Newington Bookshop
Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th of March — screening of films about Hackney curated by Iain at The Rio Cinema, Dalston
Tuesday, 17th March — event in the Purcell Room, South Bank Centre
Thursday, 19th March — event at the Broadway Bookshop
Saturday, 21st March — event on St Augustine’s Tower, Hackney as part of The London Word Festival
Thursday, 26th March — event at The Bishopsgate Institute in association with The Newham Bookshop