Literary agency
Congratulations to our client Aliette de Bodard, whose story Shipbirth has been short-listed for this the 2011 Nebula Award in the Short Story category.
The Nebulas are are ‘voted on, and presented by, active members of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc.‘ and have been so since 1965!
The ceremony this year will take place at the Nebula Awards Weekend, May 17th thru 20th in Arlington, Virginia, USA.
The French edition of Michael Cobley‘s SEEDS OF EARTH (originally published in the UK by Orbit) has been nominated in the longlist for Best Foreign Novel category for this year’s Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, the most prestigious award in the SFF field in France.
L’Ombre de la Longue Nuit, translated by Laurent Queyssi, is published by Bragelonne and will compete with ten works by contemporaries such as Dan Simmons, China Mieville and Lauren Beukes and fellow Zeno client Aliette de Bodard.
Aliette’s novel, D’Obsidienne et de Sang, translated by Laurent Philibert-Caillat, is published by Eclipse – having originally been published in English by Angry Robot as SERVANT OF THE UNDERWORLD. And yes, the multiple ironies involved with a native French author, living in France, writing in English, being translated into French and then nominated in a category for Best Foreign Novel have not escaped our notice! Still cool, though, ain’t it!
The shortlist will be announced by the jury at the end of March and the winners will receive their prizes at a ceremony held during the Etonnants Voyageurs (Amazing Voyagers) festival at Saint-Malo (26-28 May 2012).
Congratulations and good luck to both Mike and Aliette. We’re hoping for a tie between the two of you!
Lavie Tidhar‘s formidable novel OSAMA is one of five books nominated for this year’s Kitschie Awards – specifically, their ‘Red Tentacle’ award!
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
Ian McDonald‘s superb novel THE DERVISH HOUSE has scooped yet another accolade. The author adds this year’s John W. Campbell Award to the BSFA Award and the nominations the novel has received for both the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Hugo.
Even though Zeno has only been in business for three years, this is the second time a Zeno client has won this coveted prize… in fact, it’s the second time a client called Ian was won it! (See here) – not a back track record, eh?
Huge congratulations to Ian and to publishers, Pyr and Gollancz, who have done such a wonderful job with the novel. Note the UK mass market edition is due out on July 29th.
Gosh, anyone would think it’s awards season! And the latest wonderful news we have to impart in this department is that Brandon Sanderson‘s THE WAY OF KINGS has just scooped this year’s David Gemmell Legend Award. WOOT!
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!
Two Zeno clients have just been short listed for major genre awards …
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.
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.
We’re posting this somewhat belatedly, but our congratulations to Aliette de Bodard on her Nebula nomination (announced a couple of weeks ago by the SFWA) are no less heartfelt for our tardiness.
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.
We’re delighted to announce that two Zeno authors are on the short-list (of six) for this year’s coveted Arthur C. Clarke Award…
Not a bad hit rate for us! Ian has been on this shortlist in previous years and THE DERVISH HOUSE, listed in countless year’s best lists, is already winner of the SciFi Now award for best novel is a book on everyone’s lips as a definite contender for this year’s Hugo.
DECLARE is an interesting addition to the Clarke shortlist, not least because it was first published in the US back in 2000, when it won both the World Fantasy Award and the International Horror Guild award. It has taken a lamentably long time for British publishing to see the value in Powers’ work, but with the backing, support and vision of Corvus, DECLARE is now available directly to UK readers, with other books in the pipeline.
Award administrator Tom Hunter said ‘For me this list is a great indication of just how deep, rich and complex the literature of science fiction can be. I think this list is a definite keeper, as they say, and my hope is that twenty-five years from now people will still be coming back to it as a representation of everything that’s best about the diversity and strength of our genre‘
There are all sorts of exciting goings on around here at the moment… We’ve had the staggeringly wonderful news that Ben Aaronovitch‘s novel RIVERS OF LONDON (a.k.a. MIDNIGHT RIOT over in the US, where Del Rey have just published) will appear at number eight in this week’s Sunday Times Bestseller list for hardcover fiction – a truly amazing achievement for Ben, who, we’re told, is the first début that Gollancz have ever had on this list. Extra big pats for our Ben!
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!
Zeno Agency is delighted to announce that we now represent multi-award winning fantasy author James P Blaylock worldwide.
Jim Blaylock’s credentials and achievements are almost too many to list! He is the author of nearly twenty published novels and numerous shorter works. His 1978 story ‘The Ape-Box Affair’ is acknowledged as the first Steampunk story and the many further adventures of his much loved character Langdon St. Ives, in both shorter and longer forms (notably in the Philip K. Dick Award winning novel HOMUNCULUS and LORD KELVIN’S MACHINE) have made him the central figure in the original Steampunk triptych alongside Tim Powers (also represented by Zeno in the UK) and K.W. Jeter. He continues to collaborate with Powers, maintaining a partnership that has lasted since the two met in college back in the mid-70s and one only occasionally hampered by the interference of William Ashbless.
Blaylock has received multiple nominations for the World Fantasy Award, winning it on two occasions – for short stories ‘Paper Dragons‘ and his collection ‘Thirteen Phantasms‘. Over the years his work has consistently ranked the highest positions in the annual LOCUS Magazine poll and his story ‘Unidentified Objects‘ was included in Prize Stories 1990, the O. Henry Awards.
‘I have admired Jim’s work for over two decades now,’ says Zeno agent John Berlyne, ‘In fact – gushing fanboy that I am – I realise I’ve read every word of his published fiction! Aside from being, by a country mile, the best short fiction writer I’ve ever come across, he is, and remains, a truly original voice – unique in fact – and a hugely respected and cherished genre figure.’
James P. Blaylock lives in Orange, CA with his wife, Viki. He teaches creative writing at Chapman University where he is Assistant Professor of English. Continue reading “New Client – James P. Blaylock”
Proof copies of the forthcoming Gollancz edition of Ian McDonald’s staggeringly brilliant new novel THE DERVISH HOUSE to be published in late July…
‘In the CHAGA novels McDonald brought an Africa in the grip of a bizarre ailien invasion to life, in RIVER OF GODS he painted a rich portrait of India in 2047, in BRASYL he looked at different Brazils, past present and future. Ian McDonald has found reknown at the cutting adge of a movement to take SF away from its British and American white roots and out into the rich cultures of the world. THE DERVISH HOUSE continues that journey and centres on Istanbul in 2025. Turkey is part of Europe but sited on the edge, it is an Islamic country that looks to the West. THE DERVISH HOUSE is the story of the families that live in and around its titular house, it is at once a rich mosaic of Islamic life in the new century and telling novel of future possibilities.’
… and as if that wasn’t enough, we also received today two copies of US the mass market edition of Freda Warrington‘s ELFLAND, published by Tor with a cover rosette that loudly and proudly advertsises the fact that the book is the winner of the RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best fantasy Novel of 2009. Congratulations to Freda!
‘This dreamlike, nuanced and sensual novel is reminiscent of the best of early Charles de Lint and is compulsively readable. Rose is a memorable, unique and wholly sympathetic protagonist, and the supporting cast is equally well drawn. The story of Rose and Sam is compelling, enchanting and utterly enthralling. This is simply one of the best fantasy novels of the year.’ — RT Book Reviews
Congratulations to Iain Sinclair, whose book Hackney: That Rose-Red Empire has been announced as one of the short-listed titles for this year’s Ondaatje Prize, hosted by The Royal Society of Literature.
The £10,000 award is given annually ‘for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place‘ and this year’s ceremony will take place on May 24th in London.
The 2010 judges, Kathleen Jamie, Professor Steve Jones and Penelope Lively, commended ‘compelling, individual voices, taut narrative and impressive research in six remarkable books from across a complete range of genres’.
Hackney: That Rose-Red Empire is now available in paperback from Hamish Hamilton.
I’m delighted to announce that Stephen Volk‘s novella Vardøger, a chilling psychological thriller published by Grey Friar Press has been nominated in the relevant novella category in this year’s Shirley Jackson Awards, a prize ‘established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.’
The winners will be announced at Readercon 21, taking place in Burlington, Massachusetts, this coming July.
Ian MacDonald’s superb short story collection CYBERABAD DAYS has won the judges ‘Special Citation’ at this years Philip K. Dick Awards, effectively placing it as runner up to the winning book, C. L. Anderson’s BITTER ANGEL (Bantam Spectra).
The prize is awarded annually for the most distinguished original science fiction paperback published for the first time during the previous year in the U.S.A and Ian was on hand to receive his citation, which was presented at Norwestcon 2010 in Seattle. (See here for Ian’s short blog post on the subject).
Ian previously won the award in 1992 for KING OF MORNING, QUEEN OF DAY and his novel SCISSORS CUT PAPER WRAPS STONE, was nominated in 1995.
CYBERABAD DAYS is published in the UK by Gollancz and in the US by Pyr. Congratulations to all involved.