Zeno has a special association with the Campbell Award and if Lavie should win, he’ll actually be the third Zeno author in four years to do so – following in the footsteps of Ian R. MacLeod (2009) and Ian McDonald (2011).

Congratulations and good luck, Lavie!

In translation markets, Hungarian rights for OSAMA we bought by Ad Astra via Gynn Kalman of the Torus Books Agency on behalf of Zeno, and Polish rights went to MAG in a deal negotiated by Patrycja Swiat at ANAW Literary Agency on behalf of Zeno.

First up, a slew of titles by Lavie Tidhar – including his PS Publishing novel OSAMA, a work that has been on everyone’s lips of late, not least because it was name-checked in Christopher Priest’s now infamous ranty  blog post as one of the titles (along with WAKE UP AND DREAM by fellow Zeno client, Ian R. MacLeod) that should have made this year’s Arthur C. Clarke award shortlist. We, of course, couldn’t possibly comment on this matter… except to say how absolutely correct Mr Priest is!

Along with OSAMA, Audible will also be releasing Lavie’s entire BOOKMAN trilogy in audio – THE BOOKMAN, CAMERA OBSCURA and the recently published THE GREAT GAME, and the final title in this superb batch is Lavie’s collaboration with fellow Israeli author Nir Yaniv, THE TEL-AVIV DOSSIER, a scarcer Tidhar title, originally published by Chizine Publications in Canada.

Joining Lavie at Audible is another client, Ian McDonald – himself often seen on awards and ‘best of’ shortlists. Audible will be publishing an audio edition of Ian’s THE DERVISH HOUSE, a novel that was nominated for last year’s Clarke and Hugo awards and which won the Campbell, the BSF and the SFSite poll. They will also be publishing BRASYL (also nominated for the Clarke) and RIVER OF GODS (nominated for the Clarke, Hugo and the Tiptree).

World Fantasy Award and Philip K. Dick award winner James P. Blaylock will see his new novel ZEUGLODON (to be published later this year by Subterranean) and also his classic work THE DIGGING LEVIATHAN published in audio.

And finally – very much in the sense of ‘at long last’ -  an author with too many award wins and nominations to list here, William Gibson. To accompany their release of Gibson’s new non-fiction collection DISTRUST THAT PARTICULAR FLAVOUR, Audible have acquired a number of backlist titles – namely NEUROMANCER, THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE, PATTERN RECOGNITION, SPOOK COUNTRY and ZERO HISTORY.

Happy listening!

The winner receives a £750 prize, a hand-crafted tentacular trophy and (best of all!) a bottle of the Kraken’s finest black rum. See here for more details and for the full shortlist.

‘OSAMA is exceptional. Compelling, confrontational, and surprisingly moving, it is one of the best novels yet on terror in our times.’ — World Literature Today

‘Not a writer to mess around with half measures … brings to mind Philip K Dick’s seminal science fiction novel THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE.’ –- The Guardian on OSAMA.

‘Bears comparison with the best of Philip K Dick’s paranoid, alternate-history fantasies. It’s beautifully written and undeniably powerful.’ – The Financial Times on OSAMA.

‘OSAMA is written with both an obvious affection for genre fiction and a sense of wild-eyed disbelief at the insanity of a world where people fly planes into skyscrapers. 4.5/5 stars.’ –- SFX

‘Intensely moving.‘ -– Interzone on OSAMA

THE ALCHEMIST OF SOULS by Anne Lyle
GIANT THIEF by David Tallerman
THE GREAT GAME by Lavie Tidhar

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.

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

• 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…

No less vigorous pattage for Mister Ian McDonald, whose novel THE DERVISH HOUSE (also a Gollancz title – and Pyr in the States) has been nominated for the 2010 BSFA award for best novel. The shortlist is impressive, but Ian is widely regarded as a favourite. We’d be very surprised if this was only shortlist this wonderful novel makes this year. Also on the shortlist for the best short fiction is our own Aliette de Bodard, for her story The Shipmaker, which appeared in issue #231 of Interzone – congrats to both authors.

THE DERVISH HOUSE has also made this year’s LOCUS Recommended Reading List, which serves as a guide for the very best material our field has to offer. Here are the Zeno authors whose work has been listed…

Novels, Science Ficition – THE DERVISH HOUSE by Ian McDonald
Novels, Fantasy – THE DESERT SPEAR by Peter V Brett
Novels, Fantasy – HESPIRA by Matthew Hughes
First Novels – THE BOOKMAN by Lavie Tidhar
Collections – JOURNEYS by Ian MacLeod
Novellas – CLOUD PERMUTATIONS by Lavie Tidhar
Novellettes -BUTTERFLY AND THE BLIGHT AT THE HEART OF THE WORLD by Lavie Tidhar (Daily Science Fiction 9/3/10)
Short Stories – SECOND JOURNEY OF THE MAGUS by Ian R. MacLeod (Subterranean Winter ’10)
Short Stories – TONIGHT WE FLY by Ian McDonald (Masked)
Short Stories – THE NIGHT TRAIN by Lavie Tidhar (Strange Horizons 6/14/10)
Short Stories -THE SPONTANEOUS KNOTTING OF AN AGITATED STRING by Lavie Tidhar (Fantasy 5/17/10)

… a pretty good haul by anyone’s standards! More pats to all those who made the list, but particularly to Lavie Tidhar who scored a quite remarkable FIVE mentions!

• John Meaney has just dropped us a line to let us know he’s added a page of downloadable audio to his author web site. Follow the link and you’ll be able to hear John don the disguise that is is alter-ego Thomas Blackthorn, reading the first chapter of soon-to-be-published novel POINT as well as that of EDGE, both Angry Robot releases.

  

  And as if that wasn’t enough, he’s also made available the prologue and first two chapter of his superb Gollancz space opera ABSORPTION, the second volume of which, TRANSMISSION, is soon to be delivered. Note that The Times described ABSORPTION as ‘best hard science fiction I’ve read this year, well written, exciting, mysterious, full of interesting characters and ideas…‘

• And another of our Angry Robot stars, Lavie Tidhar, is the guest on the latest podcast over at The Functional Nerds – head over there to hear Lavie discuss his novel THE BOOKMAN, forthcoming sequel CAMERA OBSCURA, and the third book in the series that he’s currently working on, as well as his life, his writing and all sorts of other stuff.

  

  You can also hear Lavie discussing Steampunk with Jeff Vandermeer and Karin Lowachee over at Cheryl Morgan’s Salon Futura podcast.