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 interview covers quite a lot of ground, including my thoughts on the current state of the market (especially here in the UK) and some advice on how to approach not just us here at Zeno, but any literary agent you might be hoping to interest. Enjoy!

]]> http://zenoagency.com/news/jb-interviewed-on-i-should-be-writing/feed/ 1 http://zenoagency.com/news/submissions-open-for-authors-attending-this-years-worldcon/ http://zenoagency.com/news/submissions-open-for-authors-attending-this-years-worldcon/#comments Thu, 23 Jun 2011 13:26:59 +0000 John Berlyne http://zenoagency.com/?p=2211 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!

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!

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.‘

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.

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.

• 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.

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

• 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…