Zeno Clients’ Eastercon Schedule


Mancunicon2016-LogoHere are the schedules for Zeno clients attending this year’s Eastercon, Mancunicon.

Two clients are Guests of Honour: Aliette de Bodard and Ian McDonald. In addition, Michael Cobley, Justina Robson, Kari Sperring and Freda Warrington are attending. Here’s where and when you can find them…

Friday, March 25th…

Saturday, March 26th…

Sunday, March 27th…

Monday, March 28th…

Aliette de Bodard’s latest novel, THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS, is published by Gollancz in the UK and Roc Books in the US.

Ian McDonald’s latest novel is LUNA: NEW MOON, published in the UK by Gollancz, and Tor Books in the US.

deBodard&McDonald-2015

Michael Cobley’s latest novel, ANCESTRAL MACHINES, is published by Orbit. Justina Robson’s GLORIOUS ANGELS is published by Gollancz. Kari Sperring’s THE GRASS KING’S CONCUBINE is published by DAW Books. Freda Warrington’s fourth Blood Wine novel, THE DARK ARTS OF BLOOD, was published by Titan Books in 2015.

Mancunicon2016-ZenoAttendingLatest

Gemmell Award Nominations, Voting & Zeno Clients


GemmellAwards-LogoBanner-Blog

It’s that time of year again! Voting for the Gemmell Awards long-lists has now opened, and there are a handful of Zeno clients in the mix!

In the Legend Category, for best fantasy novel of the year, we have…

In the Ravenheart Category, for best book artwork, we have…

  • Peter V. Brett‘s THE DAYLIGHT WAR
  • Brandon Sanderson‘s STEELHEART (published in the UK by Gollancz)

GemmellAwards2014-ZenoNominees

Readers can vote for their favourite novel from the long-lists (nominated by publishers), and the results of the first round of voting will be revealed at this year’s Eastercon, in Glasgow. (Voting for the first round closes on the 13th April.) The Shortlist will then be open for voting until the end of April, and the winner will be announced at the Gemmell Award ceremony at the Magic Circle, London, on June 13th, 2014. Voting is open to all, so get yourself over there and VOTE (… for our clients…)!

Zeno represents Peter V. Brett and Brandon Sanderson in the UK and Commonwealth, on behalf of the JABberwocky Literary Agency in New York.

Lavie Tidhar’s Martian Sands is Coming…


martian-sandsLavie Tidhar‘s latest novel is the long-anticipated MARTIAN SANDS, a novel described as ‘mixing mystery and science fiction, the Holocaust and the Mars of both Edgar Rice Burroughs and Philip K. Dick.’

The novel is the latest addition to Tidhar’s ongoing Continuity Universe, a future history he has been working on since 2003 and will be released by PS Publishing in hardcover, next month.

1941: an hour before the attack on Pearl Harbour, a man from the future materialises in President Roosevelt’s office. His offer of military aid may cut the War and its pending atrocities short, and alter the course of the future…

The future: welcome to Mars, where the lives of three ordinary people become entwined in one dingy smokesbar the moment an assassin opens fire. The target: the mysterious Bill Glimmung. But is Glimmung even real? The truth might just be found in the remote FDR Mountains, an empty place, apparently of no significance, but where digital intelligences may be about to bring to fruition a long-held dream of the stars…

News From Planet Eastercon…


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.

Lavie Tidhar Signs…


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

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

Who Let The Clients Out?


  • 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.
  • 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.

Lots of Michael Cobley News…


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…

  • 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!

Freda Warrington Update…


elfland-thumbIt’s not due out from Tor for some months, but Freda Warrington‘s forthcoming novel Elfland has received a fabulous review from Charles de Lint in Fantasy & Science Fiction.

As well as grading the book as ‘Highly Recommended’, de Lint praises Freda’s novel to the rafters, saying  it is ‘…a real page-turner and a very magical book…‘ and that ‘…even the most jaded fantasy reader will quickly fall under the spell of her characters and the warm, intimate voice Warrington uses to tell us their stories‘. Read the full review here.

In other news Immanion Press are publishing an omnibus of two of Freda’s Blackbird titles – A Blackbird in Amber Twilight is scheduled for release in March – more info on Freda’s Immanion titles can be found here.

Freda reports that she will be attending this years Eastercon. She’ll be one of a number of Zeno clients who will be attending – and both John’s will be there too. More on this anon.