Zeno Literary Agency Ltd.

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.

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…

… this time in the unmissable guise of Ben Aaronovitch, whose RIVERS OF LONDON (or MIDNIGHT RIOT, if you’re in the US) continues to garner some spectacular reviews.

Ben will be appearing on The Radio 2 Book Club segment of the Simon Mayo Show on Monday 24th January, discussing RIVERS OF LONDON and generally being amusing, witty and wry. The BBC web site is offering the first chapter online, so follow that link above. UK residents who miss the broadcast can catch up with it on the BBC iPlayer.

Ben signing at London’s Forbidden Planet store on Jan 15th, 2011

Our man Ben Aaronvitch sees his brilliant new novel RIVERS OF LONDON published next month by Gollancz. It’s also being released by Del Rey in the US under the title MIDNIGHT RIOT. With  follow-up novel, MOON OVER SOHO, following in the spring and a third title WHISPERS UNDER GROUND soon to be delivered, January is thus the start of a very big year for Ben.

To celebrate the launch of Ben’s new series, he’ll be signing copies at London’s flagship Forbidden Planet store on January 15th, 2011 between 1pm and 2pm, so be sure to come along and grab a copy. Further details can be found here.

‘RIVERS OF LONDON manages to be fresh and original and a wonderful read. I loved it.’ — Charlaine Harris

‘A consummate story of real policing in a vividly real world intersecting the decidedly unreal to marvellous effect. Filled with detail and imagination, the quality of this achievement stands out, making Aaronovitch a name to watch.’ — Peter F. Hamilton

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.‘