Aliette De Bodard - Zeno Agency Ltd.

Coming Soon: LONDON CENTRIC, featuring Aliette de Bodard!

Posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2020

In a couple of weeks (October 27th), NewCon Press is due to publish LONDON CENTRIC, a collection of ‘Tales of Future London’. We’re happy to report that Aliette de Bodard has a story in it: A DANCE OF DUST AND LIFE! Here’s the collection’s synopsis…

Militant A.I.s, virtual realities, augmented realities and alternative realities; a city where murderers stalk the streets, where drug lords rule from the shadows, and where large sections of the population are locked in time stasis, but where tea is still sipped in cafés on the corner and the past still resonates with the future…

Thirteen stories that look to the future of this diverse, multi-faceted city, that invite the reader to consider different perspectives. Stories that draw you in to possible tomorrows and suggest what may lie just beyond the city’s ever-changing skyline.

Aliette is the award-winning author of the Dominion of the Fallen series, published by Gollancz (UK), Roc Books and JABberwocky (North America); the Xuya Universe, many of which are published by Subterranean Press and JABberwocky; and many more acclaimed and award-nominated short and long fiction.

Aliette’s next book is FIREHEART TIGER, due to be published by Tor.com on February 9th.

Aliette de Bodard’s OF WARS, AND MEMORIES, AND STARLIGHT out now in UK and Europe!

Posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2020

Fans of Aliette de Bodard in the UK and Europe need not wait any longer! The author’s acclaimed and Locus Award-nominated collection, OF WARS, AND MEMORIES, AND STARLIGHT is out now! The new edition is published by JABberwocky, with a cover by Dirk Berger. Here’s the synopsis…

A stunning and vibrant collection from a rising star of the genre.

This collection of fourteen tales showcase the range and talent that garnered Aliette de Bodard multiple awards, from Nebulas to the Locus Award. From a dark Gothic Paris devastated by a magical war, where Fallen angels, dragons and magicians intrigue in the drawing rooms of ruined mansions; to the Vietnamese-tinged space opera universe of Xuya, where sentient spaceships become the heart and living memory of families and scholar-officials travel from planets to space stations.

In the Nebula award and Locus award winning “Immersion”, two women on a colonised space station grapple with loss of identity and culture. In the Hugo finalist “Children of Thorns, Children of Water”, a shapeshifting dragon on an infiltration mission to a ruined mansion must rescue his partner from creepy, child-like creatures. And in “A Salvaging of Ghosts,” a diver-scavenger cast off into deep spaces faces a dying midship and the ghost of her daughter. Unique to this collection is a new novella, “Of Birthdays, and Fungus, and Kindness”, set in Bodard’s alternative dark Paris.

Here are just a couple of great reviews the collection has received…

‘This stunning collection showcases de Bodard’s lush worldbuilding, meticulous research, and emotional prose.’ — Library Journal (starred review)

‘De Bodard… proves, again and again, that space opera can be intensely personal against its galactic backdrop…. The collection covers the consequences of war, survival in colonial culture, motherhood, mindships and space-travel, and aspects of grief.’ — Booklist

OF WARS, AND MEMORIES, AND STARLIGHT is also out now in North America, published by the Subterranean Press.

ICYMI: Aliette de Bodard’s Upcoming FIREHEART TIGER Gets a Gorgeous Cover!

Posted on Thursday, September 24th, 2020

Earlier this week, Tor.com unveiled the stunning cover for FIREHEART TIGER, the latest novella from Aliette de Bodard! You may have caught our enthusiastic Tweeting about the cover, but we wanted to share it here as well, just in case anyone missed it!

Due to be published by Tor.com in February 2021, here’s the synopsis…

Fire burns bright and has a long memory…

Quiet, thoughtful princess Thanh was sent away as a hostage to the powerful faraway country of Ephteria as a child. Now she’s returned to her mother’s imperial court, haunted not only by memories of her first romance, but by worrying magical echoes of a fire that devastated Ephteria’s royal palace.

Thanh’s new role as a diplomat places her once again in the path of her first love, the powerful and magnetic Eldris of Ephteria, who knows exactly what she wants: romance from Thanh and much more from Thanh’s home. Eldris won’t take no for an answer, on either front. But the fire that burned down one palace is tempting Thanh with the possibility of making her own dangerous decisions.

Can Thanh find the freedom to shape her country’s fate — and her own?

Aliette is also the multi-award winning and nominated author of the Dominion of the Fallen series (Gollancz, Roc Books, JABberwocky) and also the expansive Xuya series (Subterranean Press, JABberwocky).

Kobo eBook Sale: Lavie Tidhar & Aliette de Bodard!

Posted on Friday, September 18th, 2020

Just a quick note to let everyone know that two of our clients have novellas included in Kobo’s current sale! Here are the details…

Lavie Tidhar‘s acclaimed MARTIAN SANDS is only $3.99 (US and Canada)…

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…

Mixing mystery and science fiction, the Holocaust and the Mars of both Edgar Rice Burroughs and Philip K. Dick, Martian Sands is a story of both the past and future, of hope, and love, and of finding meaning—no matter where—or when—you are.

Here’s just a sample of reviews this great novella has received…

‘Feels more like early Kurt Vonnegut… both writers seem to channel the same prankster glee that covers deep despair. MARTIAN SANDS crackles with energy and life while poking at some big questions about the nature of reality.’ — Locus

‘A totally mad and very enjoyable book. The closest comparison I can think of is Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 – Tidhar does the same thing of taking a overwhelmingly serious subject (in this case the Holocaust; in Slaughterhouse 5, the bombing of Dresden) and applying to it a surreal and farcical lens – using humour to highlight tragedy, which is of course what the best theatre does.’ — E.J. Swift, author of OSIRIS

‘… the work of a serious writer who writes entertainingly, who can be funny, political, speculative, provocative and charming, all at the same time. I’m not going to pretend I understood everything that was going on in MARTIAN SANDS, especially towards the end… but I would love to read a sequel that was even weirder. Tidhar writes equally well in several genres; CLOUD PERMUTATIONS and GOREL & THE POT-BELLIED GOD were, I thought, both excellent, but so dissimilar that one would be hard-pressed without title pages to identify them as the product of a single author. It seemed to me when reading MARTIAN SANDS that for Tidhar “classic science fiction” in the style of Silverberg, Brunner and Dick’s novels of the sixties is just another genre to which he can turn his hand as ably as he does all the others. In some ways that’s almost galling (“Here’s a Hugo winner I made earlier!”), but I hope he does it again.’ — Theaker’s Quarterly

Aliette de Bodard‘s IN THE VANISHERS’ PALACE is only $2.99 (US)/$3.99 (Canada)…

In a ruined, devastated world, where the earth is poisoned and beings of nightmares roam the land…

A woman, betrayed, terrified, sold into indenture to pay her village’s debts and struggling to survive in a spirit world.

A dragon, among the last of her kind, cold and aloof but desperately trying to make a difference.

When failed scholar Yên is sold to Vu Côn, one of the last dragons walking the earth, she expects to be tortured or killed for Vu Côn’s amusement.

But Vu Côn, it turns out, has a use for Yên: she needs a scholar to tutor her two unruly children. She takes Yên back to her home, a vast, vertiginous palace-prison where every door can lead to death. Vu Côn seems stern and unbending, but as the days pass Yên comes to see her kinder and caring side. She finds herself dangerously attracted to the dragon who is her master and jailer. In the end, Yên will have to decide where her own happiness lies—and whether it will survive the revelation of Vu Côn’s dark, unspeakable secrets…

Here’s what others have said about IN THE VANISHERS’ PALACE…

‘This intriguing, Sapphic, Vietnamese take on Beauty and the Beast is recommended for fans of De Bodard’s previous works or readers who enjoy diverse, lushly described fantasy.’ — Library Journal

‘De Bodard has taken the outline of a classic fable and turned it into a hall of mirrors as ravishing as it is disturbing.’ — Locus (Gary K. Wolfe)

‘I loved the worldbuilding throughout this story… a very enjoyable and often even soothing book, despite some fearful moments and emotional distress for the characters… I’ll follow [de Bodard] to whatever subgenre she wants to explore next.’ — Skiffy & Fanty

‘I always love a good re-imagining of my favourite fairy tale, and this one is exceptional—dark, ethereal, and enchanting.’ — Samantha Shannon

‘As a reframing of a classic fairy tale, IN THE VANISHERS’ PALACE is subversive and bold; as a romance, it is tentative, touching, and sweet.’ — Barnes & Noble

Lavie’s latest novel, BY FORCE ALONE is out now, published by Head of Zeus in the UK and Tor Books in North America.

Aliette’s latest book is SEVEN OF INFINITIES, the latest Xuya novella, published by Subterranean Press at the end of October.

New Edition of Aliette de Bodard’s OF WARS, AND MEMORIES, AND STARLIGHT out later this month!

Posted on Thursday, September 3rd, 2020

Published last year in North America by Subterranean Press, Aliette de Bodard‘s acclaimed and Locus Award-nominated collection, OF WARS, AND MEMORIES, AND STARLIGHT is going to be available more widely later this month! The new edition, published by JABberwocky and with a cover by Dirk Berger, will be available on September 30th in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Here’s the synopsis…

A stunning and vibrant collection from a rising star of the genre.

This collection of fourteen tales showcase the range and talent that garnered Aliette de Bodard multiple awards, from Nebulas to the Locus Award. From a dark Gothic Paris devastated by a magical war, where Fallen angels, dragons and magicians intrigue in the drawing rooms of ruined mansions; to the Vietnamese-tinged space opera universe of Xuya, where sentient spaceships become the heart and living memory of families and scholar-officials travel from planets to space stations.

In the Nebula award and Locus award winning “Immersion”, two women on a colonised space station grapple with loss of identity and culture. In the Hugo finalist “Children of Thorns, Children of Water”, a shapeshifting dragon on an infiltration mission to a ruined mansion must rescue his partner from creepy, child-like creatures. And in “A Salvaging of Ghosts,” a diver-scavenger cast off into deep spaces faces a dying midship and the ghost of her daughter. Unique to this collection is a new novella, “Of Birthdays, and Fungus, and Kindness”, set in Bodard’s alternative dark Paris.

Here are just a couple of great reviews the collection has received…

‘This stunning collection showcases de Bodard’s lush worldbuilding, meticulous research, and emotional prose.’ — Library Journal (starred review)

‘De Bodard… proves, again and again, that space opera can be intensely personal against its galactic backdrop…. The collection covers the consequences of war, survival in colonial culture, motherhood, mindships and space-travel, and aspects of grief.’ — Booklist

Here’s the Subterranean Press cover, because we like to take any excuse to share Aliette’s covers…

One Week Remaining: Lavie Tidhar’s WORLD SF 3 StoryBundle!

Posted on Saturday, July 25th, 2020

Just a quick reminder that the Lavie Tidhar-curated World SF 3 StoryBundle is still available, but expires in one week! It has already been very popular, and we wanted to just draw your attention to it again, in case you missed it. It is a fantastic way to not only discover international authors you may not have tried before, but also contribute to a good cause. You can read Lavie’s full introduction to the bundle on his website.

Available worldwide, the StoryBundle features titles drawn from authors from around the world. For just $5 (or more, if you’re feeling generous), you’ll get the basic bundle of four books in any ebook format…

The Silence of the Wilting Skin by Tlotlo Tsamaase
Love and Other Poisons by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
IN THE VANISHERS’ PALACE by Aliette de Bodard (the critically-acclaimed novella!)
The Heart of the Circle by Keren Landsman

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $15, you get all four of the regular books, plus these six additional books…

The Simoqin Prophecies by Samit Basu
Djinn City by Saad Z. Hossain
Poison Fairies by Luca Tarenzi
NEW ATLANTIS by Lavie Tidhar (with a gorgeous cover by Sarah Anne Langton)
Alphaland by Cristina Jurado
Heart of Iron by Ekaterina Sedia

Short Fiction Watch: THE INACCESSIBILITY OF HEAVEN by Aliette de Bodard

Posted on Tuesday, July 21st, 2020

This is just a quick post to draw your attention to the latest issue of Uncanny Magazine (#35, July/August 2020), which features a new short story by Aliette de Bodard! Specifically, THE INACCESSIBILITY OF HEAVEN, which is ‘A noir novelette about Fallen angels, exile, and a serial killer on the loose.’ Here’s a short snippet, from Aliette’s website…

Night. A night like any other in Starhollow: the headlights of cars, small and lost between the skyscrapers; the smell of hydromel and wine wafting from those few bars still open; and above me, the distant light of the stars, a constant reminder of the inaccessibility of Heaven.

I climbed the stairs to my flat, exhausted, my arms covered in claw-marks. At the shelter I worked at, drunken Fallen had started attacking some of the newcomers–and had turned on me when I’d tried to intervene.

I fumbled in my bag for the key, wincing as the leather scraped against my skin. I didn’t blame the Fallen for attacking me or getting drunk: I knew all too well how former angels balanced on a knife’s edge between despair and madness, and how easy it was for them to let go–in a city which sold their bones as drugs.

Aliette is the mutli-award-winning author of the Xuya Universe, Dominion of the Fallen series, the Obsidian & Blood trilogy, and many more!

Lavie Tidhar launches The World SF 3 Bundle!

Posted on Saturday, July 11th, 2020

In case you missed its announcement yesterday: Lavie Tidhar has launched The World SF 3 Bundle! Curated by Lavie, it not only helps highlight SFF talent from around the world, but proceeds also go to a good cause. Here’s what Lavie had to say about the bundle…

I’m delighted to be launching a third World SF bundle in what I can only hope is by now an annual tradition. In the midst of some extraordinary turmoil across the globe, it takes writers from all corners of the Earth to weave profound new truths out of fantasies and paint new futures out of difficult pasts and turbulent presents.

The writers here come from Botswana and Bangladesh; Russia, Italy and France; Mexico, Spain, Israel and India. They are all of them fantastic, and I couldn’t be happier sharing their work with you.

It shouldn’t need saying, and yet it does: Black Lives Matter. I couldn’t think of a better match for this bundle than to partner up with the African Speculative Fiction Society and associated Nommo Awards for our chosen charity. The ASFS is an organization of African writers, editors, comic and graphic artists and filmmakers in the fields of speculative fiction. As spokesperson (and fantastic author) Chinelo Onwualu says on the society site, it’s there to “provide a place where writers, readers, and scholars can come together to find information, connect with each other, and act as watchdogs for their collective interests.”

For StoryBundle, you decide what price you want to pay. For $5 (or more, if you’re feeling generous), you’ll get the basic bundle of four books in any ebook format—WORLDWIDE…

The Silence of the Wilting Skin by Tlotlo Tsamaase
Love and Other Poisons by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
IN THE VANISHERS’ PALACE by Aliette de Bodard (the critically-acclaimed novella!)
The Heart of the Circle by Keren Landsman

If you pay at least the bonus price of just $15, you get all four of the regular books, plus six additional books…

The Simoqin Prophecies by Samit Basu
Djinn City by Saad Z. Hossain
Poison Fairies by Luca Tarenzi
NEW ATLANTIS by Lavie Tidhar (with a gorgeous cover by Sarah Anne Langton)
Alphaland by Cristina Jurado
Heart of Iron by Ekaterina Sedia

This bundle is available only for a limited time via StoryBundle — where you can also find more information about each of the titles included in the two bundle tiers. It allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other eReaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get multiple DRM-free formats (.epub, .mobi) for all books.

The bundle will be available until August 1st.

Aliette de Bodard’s OF DRAGONS, FEASTS AND MURDERS is out Today!

Posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2020

The wait is finally over: Aliette de Bodard‘s new, highly-anticipated Dominion of the Fallen novella, OF DRAGONS, FEASTS AND MURDERS is out today! Published by JABberwocky, here’s the synopsis…

From the author of the critically acclaimed Dominion of the Fallen trilogy comes a tale of dragons, and Fallen angels — and also kissing, sarcasm and stabbing.

Lunar New Year should be a time for familial reunions, ancestor worship, and consumption of an unhealthy amount of candied fruit.

But when dragon prince Thuan brings home his brooding and ruthless husband Asmodeus for the New Year, they find not interminable family gatherings, but a corpse outside their quarters. Asmodeus is thrilled by the murder investigation; Thuan, who gets dragged into the political plotting he’d sworn off when he left, is less enthusiastic.

It’ll take all of Asmodeus’s skill with knives, and all of Thuan’s diplomacy, to navigate this one — as well as the troubled waters of their own relationship….

A sparkling standalone book set in a world of dark intrigue.

A must read for fans of Aliette’s Dominion of the Fallen series, the novella can stand on its own (perfect for newcomers, too)! Chronologically, it follows the third novel in the series: THE HOUSE OF SUNDERING FLAMES.

‘A delightful political mystery featuring de Bodard’s vibrant world-building, beautiful prose, and compelling characters.’ — Juliet Kemp, author of Shadow and Storm

‘Fantasy of Manners but with corpses and a stabby husband. The stabby husband may or may not have produced the aforementioned corpses.’ — Fantasy Inn

The Dominion of the Fallen novels are published by Gollancz in the UK and Roc Books (#1-2) and JABberwocky (#3) in North America: THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS, THE HOUSE OF BINDING THORNS and the aforementioned THE HOUSE OF SUNDERING FLAMES.

Here are just a few of the great reviews the series has received so far…

‘A beautifully crafted novel full of complex characters, set in a post apocalyptic Paris – the image of which is truly haunting… vivid and fast-paced battles and intense political manoeuvrings… with carefully crafted characters both with layers and depth, De Bodard reflects the best and worst of human nature in her novel… an intriguing mystery, elegantly written… Something any avid fantasy reader with an open mind will devour!’ — Guardian on THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS

‘A gripping tragedy of forlorn individuals caught up in an angelic version of the Cold War… The story holds up well as a standalone, with clear possibilities but no pressing need for a sequel. De Bodard aptly mixes moral conflicts and the desperate need to survive in a fantastical spy thriller that reads like a hybrid of le Carré and Milton, all tinged with the melancholy of golden ages lost.’ — Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) on THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS

‘Will grab readers and force them to pay attention to the amazing writing and the phenomenal characters. de Bodard will sweep you up into the dark and dirty world Paris has become. The characters are very vivid and will stay with you until long after the last page, as each of them is fighting and longing for something. The writing style rendered the characters’ feelings and emotional turmoil beautifully. Watching Philippe and Isabelle work through their “connection” is fascinating and lovely. There’s so much going on, and every character has their own past, their own tragic history. It’s a whirlwind, it’s heartbreaking and it’s one of the best fantasy novels of 2015.’ — RT Book Reviews (Top Pick August 2015) on THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS

‘De Bodard… has spun a fascinating Paris of decay and cruelty. Phillippe is a marvel of a character, unreliable as a narrator but compelling in his flaws and his deep well of homesickness.‘ — Library Journal (Starred Review) on THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS

‘Meddling gleefully in the affairs of devils and dragons, this affective sequel to 2015’s THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS touches the heart as often as it cuts throats… Having fully crafted her world, de Bodard is now completely in control: she can move swiftly from gentle poetic touches to bloody Grand Guignol gestures, and she sure-handedly holds the reader by exposing the vulnerabilities and needs that drive even the seemingly all-powerful figures of rebel angels and ancient serpents to surrender to a higher collective power. In this world lacking signs of heaven, redemptions are painful but possible.’ — Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) on THE HOUSE OF BINDING THORNS

‘The author spins a tale that’s rich, emotional and gripping, and delivers that rare thing: a superior sequel… This is an incredibly rich novel. Even as the scheming, double-crossing and action set pieces unfold, the author never loses sight of the people whose lives are on the line… There’s just so much going on here: social commentary, myths and fairytales that often feel under-represented in genre fiction, a gripping genre adventure and an affecting love story. The author has gone from strength to strength and we can’t wait for this story to continue.’ — SciFi Now (5/5*) on THE HOUSE OF BINDING THORNS

‘De Bodard’s writing is very precise, like a well-oiled machine. The tempo is piston perfect, with the prose style having a strong and steady rhythm throughout. The emotional journey is relatively predictable (especially when we get into a marriage sequence), but the narrative is not. In other words, you can pretty much tell that the big emotions are coming, but the how and the why is what keeps you on edge. This is not a villains book; this is a powerful sequel that shows us that the incredibly complex world of the last novel is even more involved than we first expected. Strong stuff which you won’t stop reading till the end.’ — Starburst on THE HOUSE OF BINDING THORNS

‘Truly beautifully balanced: between new and old, birth and death, beauty and ugliness, inside and outside, beginning and, yes, ending. It walks the line, and walks it fine.’ — Tor.com on THE HOUSE OF BINDING THORNS

‘de Bodard’s people feel real to me… There is hope even in the darkest of places, and there is a desire for love, for trust, for harbor, that takes root no matter how often it’s destroyed. This is a stronger, more certain novel than THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS, and if reading it is sometimes walking the unfenced edge of a cliff, the vista is dizzying and beautiful. It is well worth the wait, and if you haven’t read the first novel, I urge you to do so. But have THE HOUSE OF BINDING THORNS in hand before you reach the end.’ — Fantasy & Science Fiction (Mar/Apr 2017)

‘If you’ve loved the previous entries in this series, consider it a must read. If you haven’t, know that it delivers an intoxicating blend of gothic mystery, apocalyptic fantasy, and Vietnamese myth—meaty, singular, and satisfying.’ — B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog on THE HOUSE OF SUNDERING FLAMES

Short Fiction Watch: THE BOOK OF DRAGONS, featuring Aliette de Bodard!

Posted on Monday, July 6th, 2020

The mighty dragon: possibly the most popular, and quintessential fantasy creature/monster. In this instalment of Short Fiction Watch, we wanted to draw your attention to THE BOOK OF DRAGONS, a new anthology of short stories edited by Jonathan Strahan. Published by Voyager in the UK (out now) and in North America (out tomorrow), it features a story by Aliette de Bodard!

Modern masters of fantasy and science fiction put their unique spin on the greatest of mythical beasts — the dragon — in never-before-seen works written exclusively for this fantasy anthology compiled by award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan and with art by Rovina Cai!

Here there be dragons…

From China to Europe, Africa to North America, dragons have long captured our imagination in myth and legend. Whether they are rampaging beasts awaiting a brave hero to slay or benevolent sages who have much to teach humanity, dragons are intrinsically connected to stories of creation, adventure, and struggle beloved for generations.

Bringing together nearly thirty stories and poems from some of the greatest science fiction and fantasy writers working today — Garth Nix, Scott Lynch, R.F. Kuang, Ann Leckie & Rachel Swirsky, Daniel Abraham, Peter S. Beagle, Beth Cato, Zen Cho, C. S. E Cooney, Aliette de Bodard, Amal El-Mohtar, Kate Elliott, Theodora Goss, Ellen Klages, Ken Liu, Seanan Maguire, Patricia A McKillip, K. J. Parker, Kelly Robson, Michael Swanwick, Jo Walton, Elle Katharine White, Jane Yolen, Kelly Barnhill, Brooke Bolander, Sarah Gailey, and J. Y. Yang — and illustrated by award-nominated artist Rovina Cai with black-and-white line drawings specific to each entry throughout, this extraordinary collection vividly breathes fire and life into one of our most captivating and feared magical creatures as never before and is sure to become a treasured keepsake for fans of fantasy, science fiction, and fairy tales.

Aliette’s contribution is the story THE LAST HUNT. In related news, Aliette’s latest novella, OF DRAGONS, FEASTS AND MURDERS is out tomorrow, published by JABberwocky. It is a story set in the author’s award-winning and critically-acclaimed Dominion of the Fallen series — the novels in that series are published in the UK by Gollancz; in North America by Roc Books (1-2) and JABberwocky (3); and in a growing number of translated edition.

10 Minutes with Aliette de Bodard, and an OF DRAGONS, FEASTS AND MURDERS Reading

Posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2020

Today, we wanted to draw your attention to two bits of Aliette de Bodard-related media. First, Aliette was recently a guest on Jonathan Strahan’s Coode Street Podcast 10 Minutes With series. You can listen to that episode below…

John Berlyne, Lavie Tidhar and Ian McDonald have also been guests on the podcast’s 10 Minutes With series.

Secondly, the Super Relaxed Fantasy Club has shared a video of Aliette reading from her latest book, the Dominion of the Fallen novella OF DRAGONS, FEASTS AND MURDER! Check it out…

The book is due to be published by JABberwocky on July 7th, 2020.

The Dominion of the Fallen novels are published by Gollancz in the UK, Roc Books (#1-2) and JABberwocky (#3) in North America, and in a growing number of translated editions. They are also available as audiobooks.

Coming Soon: Aliette de Bodard’s FIREHEART TIGER!

Posted on Monday, June 15th, 2020

We are very happy to report that Tor.com has acquired Aliette de Bodard‘s new novella, FIREHEART TIGER! Described as ‘The Goblin Emperor meets Howl’s Moving Castle in a precolonial Vietnamese-esque world’, it is due to be published in February 2021. Here’s the synopsis…

Thanh is royalty in a beleaguered nation of scattered provinces pressured on all sides. The daughter of ancestors armed with swords and courage, she was fostered in a foreign capital to seal an alliance, and returned — to her powerful mother’s disappointment — quiet and thoughtful instead of brash and confident.

Propped up by the guns and silver of Ephteria, a far more powerful empire, her country is losing the game of power. In Eldris, an Ephterian princess, Thanh finds both romance and intoxicating risk. Eldris may desire her, but she doesn’t respect what Thanh holds dear.

Giang, Thanh’s humble handmaiden, who appeared to her the night of a terrible fire and who has deep secrets of her own, might be the one who holds the key to love, freedom, and true power.

Here’s what Aliette had to say about the upcoming novella…

FIREHEART TIGER is one of those pieces very dear to my heart, a story of a fire and how it resonates, a story of coming free from the long, long shadows of the past. I’m delighted it’s found a home with Tordotcom Publishing, who have been doing stellar work with powerful and wonderful novellas.

Aliette is the multi-award-winning author of the Dominion of the Fallen series (published by Gollancz in the UK; Roc Books and JABberwocky in North America), the Xuya Universe series (published by Subterranean Press and JABberwocky), and more.

McDonald, de Bodard and Lafferty are Locus Award Finalists!

Posted on Monday, June 8th, 2020

We are delighted to share the news — in case you missed it — that Ian McDonald, Aliette de Bodard and R.A. Lafferty are all finalists in this year’s Locus Awards! Congratulations for these very well deserved nominations! Winners of the awards will be announced on June 27th.

Read on for some more details.

Ian’s third Luna novel, MOON RISING, is nominated for Best Science Fiction novel. Published in the UK by Gollancz, in North America by Tor Books, and widely in translation, here’s the synopsis…

The continuing saga of the Five Dragons, Ian McDonald’s fast-paced, intricately plotted space opera pitched as Game of Thrones meets The Expanse

A hundred years in the future, a war wages between the Five Dragons — five families that control the Moon’s leading industrial companies. Each clan does everything in their power to claw their way to the top of the food chain — marriages of convenience, corporate espionage, kidnapping, and mass assassinations.

Through ingenious political manipulation and sheer force of will, Lucas Cortas rises from the ashes of corporate defeat and seizes control of the Moon. The only person who can stop him is a brilliant lunar lawyer, his sister, Ariel.

Witness the Dragons’ final battle for absolute sovereignty in Ian McDonald’s heart-stopping finale to the Luna trilogy.

Aliette’s Xuya acclaimed collection OF WARS, AND MEMORIES, AND STARLIGHT is nominated for Best Collection. Published by Subterranean Press, here’s the synopsis…

A major first collection from a writer fast becoming one of the stars of the genre… Aliette de Bodard, multiple award winner and author of The Tea Master and the Detective, now brings readers fourteen dazzling tales that showcase the richly textured worldbuilding and beloved characters that have brought her so much acclaim.

Come discover the breadth and endless invention of her universes, ranging from a dark Gothic Paris devastated by a magical war; to the multiple award-winning Xuya, a far-future space opera inspired by Vietnamese culture where scholars administrate planets and sentient spaceships are part of families.

In the Nebula award and Locus award winning “Immersion”, a young girl working in a restaurant on a colonized space station crosses paths with an older woman who has cast off her own identity. In the novelette “Children of Thorns, Children of Water”, a shapeshifting dragon infiltrating a ruined mansion finds more than he’s bargained for when his partner is snatched by eerie, child-like creatures. And in the award-winning “Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight”, three very different people — a scholar, an engineer, and a spaceship — all must deal with the loss of a woman who was the cornerstone of their world.

This collection includes a never-before seen 20,000-word novella, “Of Birthdays, and Fungus, and Kindness”, set in Bodard’s alternative dark Paris.

R.A. Lafferty is also up for Best Collection, for THE BEST OF R.A. LAFFERTY, which is published by Gollancz and contains a number of Lafferty’s award-winning fiction. Through their SF Gateway imprint, Gollancz publishes a whole host of Lafferty’s work. Here’s the synopsis for the nominated collection…

Acclaimed as one of the most original voices in modern literature, Raphael Aloysius Lafferty has been awarded and nominated for a multitude of accolades over the span of his career, including the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.

This collection contains 22 unique tall tales, including:

Hugo Award-winning
‘Eurema’s Dam’ — introduced by Robert Silverberg

Hugo Award-nominated
‘Continued on the Next Rock’ — introduced by Nancy Kress
‘Sky’ — introduced by Gwenda Bond

Nebula Award-nominated
‘In Our Block’ — introduced by Neil Gaiman

And more stories introduced by other modern masters of SF who acknowledge.

R.A. Lafferty as a major influence and force in the field.

Zeno represents R.A. Lafferty in the UK and Commonwealth, on behalf of the JABberwocky Literary Agency in New York.

Coming Soon: New Catalan Edition of THE TEA MASTER AND THE DETECTIVE by Aliette de Bodard

Posted on Friday, June 5th, 2020

LA MESTRA DEL TE I LA INVESTIGADORA, a new Catalan edition of Aliette de Bodard‘s critically-acclaimed and award-winning THE TEA MASTER AND THE DETECTIVE is due to be published by Mai Més in Spain very soon!

The exact publication date is still being firmed up, but we expect the book to be published in the very near future. We’ll share more details as soon as we have them.

The novella, set in de Bodard’s award-nominated Xuya sci-fi universe, is published in North America by Subterranean Press, and in the UK and elsewhere by JABberwocky. Here’s the synopsis…

Welcome to the Scattered Pearls Belt, a collection of ring habitats and orbitals ruled by exiled human scholars and powerful families, and held together by living mindships who carry people and freight between the stars. In this fluid society, human and mindship avatars mingle in corridors and in function rooms, and physical and virtual realities overlap, the appearance of environments easily modified and adapted to interlocutors or current mood.

A transport ship discharged from military service after a traumatic injury, The Shadow’s Child now ekes out a precarious living as a brewer of mind-altering drugs for the comfort of space-travellers. Meanwhile, abrasive and eccentric scholar Long Chau wants to find a corpse for a scientific study. When Long Chau walks into her office, The Shadow’s Child expects an unpleasant but easy assignment. When the corpse turns out to have been murdered, Long Chau feels compelled to investigate, dragging The Shadow’s Child with her.

As they dig deep into the victim’s past, The Shadow’s Child realises that the investigation points to Long Chau’s own murky past — and, ultimately, to the dark and unbearable void that lies between the stars…

Here are just a few of the great reviews the book has received so far…

‘This isn’t a tidy transposition of Holmes and Watson into far-future space, for all that the elements of homage (Long Chau is an abrasive self-medicating ‘consulting detective’) shine through. The Shadow’s Child is a fully realized character in her own right, and the dislike she feels for Long Chau is sustained and justified. Instead it’s a window onto a beautifully developed world that widens the meaning of space opera, one that centers on Chinese and Vietnamese cultures and customs instead of Western military conventions, and is all the more welcome for it.‘ — New York Times

‘This slim volume packs a visceral punch. Absorbing prose pulls readers into the dark, frigid space between stars, where ships can fail, physically and emotionally, as easily as people… Set in de Bodard’s ‘Xuya’ universe (The Waiting Stars), this novella offers sf fans an imaginative read.’ — Library Journal (Starred Review)

‘…De Bodard constructs a convincingly gritty setting and a pair of unique characters with provocative histories and compelling motivations. The story works as well as both science fiction and murder mystery, exploring a future where pride, guilt, and mercy are not solely the province of humans.’ — Publishers Weekly

‘This futuristic Holmes and Watson story is as compelling as the finely detailed universe in which it unfolds, but the novella’s real triumph is that it makes the reader crave more even before setting the stage for further mysteries.’ — Kirkus

‘A science-fictional ode to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, where the Holmes figure is a sharp and biting disgraced aristocratic scholar with a solid core of empathy, and the Watson-figure is a mindship with post-traumatic stress disorder from her war experiences… This is a measured, almost stately story, right up until a conclusion that explodes in fast-paced tension. It preserves the empathy and the intensity of the original Sherlockian stories, while being told in de Bodard’s sharp prose and modern style. The worldbuilding… sparkles. The characters have presence: they’re individual and compelling. And it ends it a way that recalls the original Holmes and Watson, while being perfectly appropriate to itself.’ — Tor.com

Coming Soon: Aliette de Bodard’s OF DRAGONS, FEASTS AND MURDERS!

Posted on Friday, May 29th, 2020

In case you missed the recent news, we wanted to share information about Aliette de Bodard‘s upcoming, highly-anticipated Dominion of the Fallen novella, OF DRAGONS, FEASTS AND MURDERS! Due to be published on July 7th, here’s the synopsis…

From the author of the critically acclaimed Dominion of the Fallen trilogy comes a tale of dragons, and Fallen angels — and also kissing, sarcasm and stabbing.

Lunar New Year should be a time for familial reunions, ancestor worship, and consumption of an unhealthy amount of candied fruit.

But when dragon prince Thuan brings home his brooding and ruthless husband Asmodeus for the New Year, they find not interminable family gatherings, but a corpse outside their quarters. Asmodeus is thrilled by the murder investigation; Thuan, who gets dragged into the political plotting he’d sworn off when he left, is less enthusiastic.

It’ll take all of Asmodeus’s skill with knives, and all of Thuan’s diplomacy, to navigate this one — as well as the troubled waters of their own relationship….

A sparkling standalone book set in a world of dark intrigue.

The novella can stand on its own, but chronologically it follows the third novel in the series, THE HOUSE OF SUNDERING FLAMES.