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We’re delighted to share with you the two latest foreign edition covers for Ben Aaronovitch‘s Peter Grant/Rivers of London series. Brazilian publisher Casa da Palavra will be publishing the series, and both RIVERS OF LONDON and MOON OVER SOHO have great new book jackets!
When others are unveiled, we will of course share those on here, too.
During one of my (too) frequent trips to Waterstone’s, I came across a table displaying books that have been selected as ‘ideal’ starting points. And, lo and behold, among these gateway titles were four Zeno titles! ‘Quite right, too,’ I thought. Here they are, for your perusal…
Now that we’re in a new year, why not make it a resolution (one you’ll keep, of course) to check out these series openers…?
Ben Aaronovitch‘s RIVERS OF LONDON…
My name is Peter Grant and until January I was just probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service (as the Filth to everybody else). My only concerns in life were how to avoid a transfer to the Case Progression Unit – we do paperwork so real coppers don’t have to – and finding a way to climb into the panties of the outrageously perky WPC Leslie May. Then one night, in pursuance of a murder inquiry, I tried to take a witness statement from someone who was dead but disturbingly voluable, and that brought me to the attention of Inspector Nightingale, the last wizard in England.
Now I’m a Detective Constable and a trainee wizard, the first apprentice in fifty years, and my world has become somewhat more complicated: nests of vampires in Purley, negotiating a truce between the warring god and goddess of the Thames, and digging up graves in Covent Garden… and there’s something festering at the heart of the city I love, a malicious vengeful spirit that takes ordinary Londoners and twists them into grotesque mannequins to act out its drama of violence and despair.
The spirit of riot and rebellion has awakened in the city, and it’s falling to me to bring order out of chaos – or die trying.
Ben’s novels hardly need an introduction, but this is the first in his best-selling urban fantasy series starring Peter Grant. The fourth book in the series, BROKEN HOMES, was published by Gollancz in the summer of 2013. The fifth book in the series, FOXGLOVE SUMMER, is due later this year. The series is published by Gollancz in the UK, and Del Rey (RIVERS OF LONDON, MOON OVER SOHO and WHISPERS UNDER GROUND) and DAW Books (BROKEN HOMES onwards) in the US.
Jack Campbell‘s DAUNTLESS, first in his Lost Fleet series (published in the UK by Titan Books)…
After a hundred years of brutal war against the Syndics, the Alliance fleet is marooned deep in enemy territory, weakened and demoralised and desperate to make it home.
Their fate rests in the hands of Captain “Black Jack” Geary, a man who had been presumed dead but then emerged from a century of survival hibernation to find his name had become legend. Forced by a cruel twist of fate into taking command of the fleet, Geary must find a way to inspire the battle-hardened and exhausted men and women of the fleet or face certain annihilation by their enemies.
Campbell’s Lost Fleet series has been a bestseller in the UK, and now comprises six novels and two spin-off series (Beyond the Frontier and The Lost Stars). All of his novels are published in the UK by Titan Books, including his next – STEADFAST (part of the Beyond the Frontier series) – which is due out in the UK in May 2014.
Brandon Sanderson‘s THE FINAL EMPIRE, first in his bestselling Mistborn series…
What if the Dark Lord won? The start of an epic fantasy trilogy that overturns the expectations of readers and then goes on to tell the epic story of evil overturned in a richly imagined world.
A thousand years ago evil came to the land and has ruled with an iron hand ever since. The sun shines fitfully under clouds of ash that float down endlessly from the constant eruption of volcanoes. A dark lord rules through the aristocratic families and ordinary folk are condemned to lives in servitude, sold as goods, labouring in the ash fields.
But now a troublemaker has arrived and there is rumour of revolt. A revolt that depends on criminal that no-one can trust and a young girl who must master Allomancy – the magic that lies in all metals.
Brandon’s Mistborn series is published in the UK by Gollancz, and also includes THE WELL OF ASCENSION, THE HERO OF AGES and THE ALLOY OF LAW. His next novel is WORDS OF RADIANCE, due to be published in March 2014, also by Gollancz.
Mark Hodder‘s first Burton & Swinburn novel, THE STRANGE AFFAIR OF SPRING-HEELED JACK (published by Snowbooks)…
It is 1861, and Albertian Britain is in the grip of conflicting forces. Engineers transform the landscape with bigger, faster, noisier and dirtier technological wonders; Eugenicists develop specialist animals to provide unpaid labour; Libertines oppose restrictive and unjust laws and flood the country with propaganda demanding a society based on beauty and creativity; while The Rakes push the boundaries of human behaviour to the limits with magic, sexuality, drugs and anarchy.
Returning from his failed expedition to find the source of the Nile, explorer, linguist, scholar and swordsman Sir Richard Francis Burton finds himself sucked into the perilous depths of this moral and ethical vacuum when the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, employs him as “King’s Spy.” His first mission: to investigate the sexual assaults committed by a weird apparition known as Spring Heeled Jack; to find out why chimney sweeps are being kidnapped by half-man, half-dog creatures; and to discover the whereabouts of his badly injured former friend, John Hanning Speke.
Accompanied by the diminutive and pain-loving poet, Algernon Swinburne, Burton’s investigations lead him back to one of the defining events of the age: the brutal assassination of Queen Victoria in 1840; and the terrifying possibility that the world he inhabits shouldn’t exist at all.
Mark Hodder’s most recent novels – THE SECRET OF ABDU EL YEZDI and A RED SUN ALSO RISES – have been published in the UK by Del Rey.
Zeno represents Jack Campbell, Brandon Sanderson and Mark Hodder in the UK and Commonwealth on behalf of the JABberwocky Literary Agency in New York.
We are delighted to announce that Gollancz, in a major deal, has purchased publishing rights for the seventh and eighth books in Ben Aaronovitch‘s hugely successful Peter Grant/Rivers of London series!
John Berlyne of the Zeno Agency had this to say about the deal: ‘This is a very exciting move by Orion. Ben’s books have been a monster hit and it’s great news for Ben’s many fans that the future of this brilliant series is assured.’
There will thus be at least four more titles in the series following on from the fourth novel, BROKEN HOMES, which was released last July. The fifth book in the series, FOXGLOVE SUMMER, is due out in the UK this summer. The provisional title for book six is THE HANGING TREE. We’ll announce titles for the newly contracted books six and seven in due course. In the unlikely event that you have missed this critically-acclaimed series, here is the synopsis for the first book, RIVERS OF LONDON…
My name is Peter Grant and until January I was just probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service (as the Filth to everybody else). My only concerns in life were how to avoid a transfer to the Case Progression Unit – we do paperwork so real coppers don’t have to – and finding a way to climb into the panties of the outrageously perky WPC Leslie May. Then one night, in pursuance of a murder inquiry, I tried to take a witness statement from someone who was dead but disturbingly voluable, and that brought me to the attention of Inspector Nightingale, the last wizard in England.
Now I’m a Detective Constable and a trainee wizard, the first apprentice in fifty years, and my world has become somewhat more complicated: nests of vampires in Purley, negotiating a truce between the warring god and goddess of the Thames, and digging up graves in Covent Garden… and there’s something festering at the heart of the city I love, a malicious vengeful spirit that takes ordinary Londoners and twists them into grotesque mannequins to act out its drama of violence and despair.
The spirit of riot and rebellion has awakened in the city, and it’s falling to me to bring order out of chaos – or die trying.
The audiobooks, read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, have also been a smash hit. And, just to remind fans, RIVERS OF LONDON has also been optioned for television, and a comic book adaptation is also in the works – to be published by Titan Comics! (More details on both of these adaptations as soon as they come in.) These are exciting times indeed for Ben and his fans.
Ben’s Rivers of London/Peter Grant series is published by Gollancz in the UK, Del Rey (#1-3) and DAW Books (#4-6) in the US, DTV in Germany, and J’ai Lu in France. RIVERS OF LONDON has also been published in 10 other markets, including China (Cite Publishing), Czech Republic (Laser Books), Hungary (Agave/GABO), Italy (Fanucci), Japan (Hayakawa), Korea (Hyundaemunhak), Poland (MAG), Portugal (Casa de Palavra), Russia (Fantastika) and Spain (Editorial Planeta).
We’re delighted to report that the German edition of Ben Aaronovitch‘s WHISPERS UNDER GROUND – EIN WISPERN UNTER BAKER STREET – has won second place in the fantasy category of Der Leserpreis, which is a prize voted for by readers (a German Readers’ Choice, if you will). Here’s the German synopsis…
Es ist ja nicht so, dass Peter Grant, Zauberer in Ausbildung und Police Constable in London, nichts für das Üben von Zaubersprüchen und das Pauken von Lateinvokabeln übrig hätte – bestimmt nicht! Aber es ist doch immer wieder schön, wenn zur Abwechslung auch mal reelle Polizeiarbeit gefragt ist. Eine unbekannte Person wird im U-Bahn-Tunnel nahe der Station Baker Street tot aufgefunden – erstochen, und es deuten unübersehbare Anzeichen auf die Anwesenheit von Magie hin. Ein Fall für Peter, keine Frage. Der unbekannte Tote stellt sich als amerikanischer Kunststudent und Sohn eines US-Senators heraus, und ehe man noch “internationale Verwicklungen” sagen kann, hat Peter bereits die FBI-Agentin Kimberley Reynolds mitsamt ihren felsenfesten religiösen Überzeugungen am Hals. Dabei gestalten sich seine Ermittlungen auch so schon gruselig genug, denn tief in Londons Untergrund, in vergessenen Flüssen und viktorianischen Abwasserkanälen, hört er ein Wispern von alten Künsten und gequälten Geistern …
EIN WISPERN UNTER BAKER STREET is published in Germany by DTV. WHISPERS UNDER GROUND, the third in Ben’s Rivers of London/Peter Grant series, is published by Gollancz in the UK, Del Rey in the US, and J’ai Lu in France (as MURMURES SOUTERRAINS).
Here is the English synopsis (in case you don’t speak German)…
Peter Grant is learning magic fast. And its just as well – he’s already had run ins with the deadly supernatural children of the Thames and a terrifying killer in Soho. Progression in the Police Force is less easy. Especially when you work in a department of two. A department that doesn’t even officially exist. A department that if you did describe it to most people would get you laughed at. And then there’s his love life. The last person he fell for ended up seriously dead. It wasn’t his fault, but still.
Now something horrible is happening in the labyrinth of tunnels that make up the tube system that honeycombs the ancient foundations of London. And delays on the Northern line is the very least of it. Time to call in the Met’s Economic and Specialist Crime Unit 9, aka ‘The Folly’. Time to call in PC Peter Grant, Britains Last Wizard.
There is almost no better sign of the strength of an author’s fanbase, than some form of adaptation of their work – be it a graphic novel, a television series, a feature-length movie, or, as can sometimes happen, something more musical. Ben Aaronovitch‘s fan-favourite urban fantasy novel RIVERS OF LONDON will soon be receiving a graphic novel/comics adaptation, and the television rights have been optioned by Feel Films. The novel has also become the subject of a song.
Ben’s nephew, Mikis Michaelides is a composer and musician of some note, who works with Doc Brown on their hugely successful 4 O’Clock Club for the BBC. After reading RIVERS OF LONDON, which both Doc and Mikis loved, they (in concert with Ben) decided that a rap based on the book would be a very fine thing. You can now listen to the result here. [We at Zeno, and a handful of Gollancz and publishing peeps were lucky enough to hear a live rendition in London late last year. Not that we’re bragging. Much…]
The first four books in Ben’s Rivers of London/Peter Grant series have been published in the UK, by Gollancz: RIVERS OF LONDON, MOON OVER SOHO, WHISPERS UNDER GROUND and BROKEN HOMES.
We’re hoping to have some very good news to announce in the near future regarding what’s coming next for Peter Grant…
We’re delighted to share the news (and draw your attention to these titles) that Amazon UK has selected five titles by Zeno clients for their Best SFF 2013 on Kindle! Here are the selectees…
Ben Aaronovitch‘s BROKEN HOMES (Gollancz)
Peter V. Brett‘s THE DAYLIGHT WAR (Voyager)
Charlaine Harris‘s DEAD EVER AFTER (Gollancz)
Brandon Sanderson‘s STEELHEART (Gollancz) and A MEMORY OF LIGHT (Orbit)
All of these are, of course, excellent selections – perfect, you might say, for Christmas and the holidays…
Zeno represents Peter V. Brett, Charlaine Harris and Brandon Sanderson in the UK and Commonwealth, on behalf of JABberwocky Literary Agency in New York.
We’re delighted to be able to share with you two great new covers for Ben Aaronovitch‘s BROKEN HOMES. The fourth in Ben’s Peter Grant/Rivers of London urban fantasy series, BROKEN HOMES now has covers for the French and German editions!
Published already by Gollancz in the UK, BROKEN HOMES is due to be published by DAW in the US (Feb.2014), J’ai Lu in France (Feb.2014) and DTV in Germany (May 2014). Here’s the synopsis…
A unique blend of police procedural, loving detail about the greatest character of all, London, and a dash of the supernatural.
A mutilated body in Crawley. Another killer on the loose. The prime suspect is one Robert Weil; an associate of the twisted magician known as the Faceless Man? Or just a common or garden serial killer?
Before PC Peter Grant can get his head round the case a town planner going under a tube train and a stolen grimoire are adding to his case-load.
So far so London.
But then Peter gets word of something very odd happening in Elephant and Castle, on an housing estate designed by a nutter, built by charlatans and inhabited by the truly desperate.
Is there a connection?
And if there is, why oh why did it have to be South of the River?
Full of warmth, sly humour and a rich cornucopia of things you never knew about London, Aaronovitch’s series has swiftly added Grant’s magical London to Rebus’ Edinburgh and Morse’s Oxford as a destination of choice for those who love their crime with something a little extra.
BROKEN HOMES, the fourth novel in Ben Aaronovitch‘s hugely popular PC Peter Grant series of supernatural London-based crime novels, has set an Orion Books Group record! As reported on Book Trade, the novel, published by Gollancz (Orion’s SFF imprint), has ‘sold 8,064 eBooks in the week of publication against 5,194 hardbacks (Nielsen BookScan), taking it to number three on The Sunday Times bestseller charts. The sales trend has continued in its second week with 2,500 physical copies sold (Nielsen BookScan) compared to 3,500 eBooks. The book this week is at number 6 on The Sunday Times bestseller lists.’
The success is just the latest bit of great news for the series. As we reported recently on the website, the series has also been optioned for TV by the company behind an upcoming adaptation of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell for the small screen (Feel Films). All four titles from the Peter Grant series – RIVERS OF LONDON, MOON OVER SOHO, WHISPERS UNDER GROUND, and BROKEN HOMES – have now sold over 400,000 copies across all formats and turned Ben, a former London bookseller and Doctor Who scriptwriter (REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS), into one of Gollancz’s most popular authors.
‘All four novels have appeared in the Sunday Times hardback bestseller lists, but the digital sales for BROKEN HOMES are incredible,’ said Lisa Milton, Managing Director of Orion General. ‘With higher digital sales than physical in the first two weeks of publication are we starting to see a new trend develop? That said, however anyone reads Ben’s books we don’t mind; we just want everyone to try him. With London appearing as a major character and all the best elements of police procedurals combined with a healthy serving of the supernatural, Ben Aaronovitch delivers perfect escapist fiction with each novel.’
Congratulations to Ben Aaronovitch on a superb first week for his new novel BROKEN HOMES, published by Gollancz, the fourth title in his supernatural crime series featuring Peter Grant, apprentice to the last wizard in the Met.
We just got news that BROKEN HOMES will chart in this week’s hardcover best seller list at number three – an extraordinary achievement!
On Monday, Ben appeared as a guest on BBC Breakfast. As well as publicising the new book, we’ve seen a fabulous spike in sales of RIVERS OF LONDON which has been steadily climbing the Amazon UK rankings. The BBC has just shared the clip, so we recommend you head over for a look…
In the run up to the highly-anticipated release of Ben Aaronovitch‘s fourth Peter Grant thriller, BROKEN HOMES, iTunes have selected it for their ‘Great Crime Novels Set in London’ banner! Check it out…
BROKEN HOMES is due to be published by Gollancz in the UK tomorrow!
Celebrating the highly-anticipated publication of BROKEN HOMES, the fourth Peter Grant/Rivers of London novel from Ben Aaronovitch, Waterstone’s Picadilly is hosting an author event!
‘An evening with Ben Aaronovitch and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith’ will be held on Thursday, 25th July, at 6:30pm.
The event will begin with a conversation between Kobna and Ben. Kobna, who reads the Peter Grant audio books, will then give an exclusive reading from BROKEN HOMES. This will be followed by an open-floor audience Q&A and a book signing.
Tickets are just £5 (or £3 for Waterstone’s Cardholders), and are available to buy in store, online, by calling (020) 7851 2400 / (020) 7851 2419, or by emailing events@piccadilly.waterstones.com. Be sure to book your tickets ASAP, as this is sure to be a popular event!
BROKEN HOMES is published in the UK by Gollancz.
Other recent Aaronovitch News includes a new US publishing deal with DAW for the series, and that RIVERS OF LONDON has been optioned for television.
Today we can finally bring you the exciting news that Ben Aaronovitch‘s RIVERS OF LONDON has been optioned for television by Feel Films. Genre fans will be excited to learn that this is the same production company behind the highly-anticipated, forthcoming BBC adaptation of JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR NORRELL.
‘In RIVERS OF LONDON,’ says Nick Hirschkorn, Managing Director and Executive Producer of Feel Films, ‘Ben has brilliantly fused the worlds of procedural crime and fantasy to create something undeniably unique. His wit and tone grabbed me from the very first page and I am hugely honoured to be entrusted to bring Peter Grant, Nightingale and their London to life.’
Ben, naturally, is thrilled with the deal, and says, ‘I’m looking forward to this with the mixture of mad anticipation and stark fear that is the only rational response to developing your own work forTelevision…Me and Nick will be looking to put something on TV that will blow the audiences’ socks off out through their ears.‘
In the event that you have not yet tried Ben’s brilliant and highly-entertaining series (shame on you!), here is the synopsis for book one…
My name is Peter Grant and until January I was just probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service (and as the Filth to everybody else). My only concerns in life were how to avoid a transfer to the Case Progression Unit – we do paperwork so real coppers don’t have to – and finding a way to climb into the panties of the outrageously perky WPC Leslie May. Then one night, in pursuance of a murder inquiry, I tried to take a witness statement from someone who was dead but disturbingly voluable, and that brought me to the attention of Inspector Nightingale, the last wizard in England.
Now I’m a Detective Constable and a trainee wizard, the first apprentice in fifty years, and my world has become somewhat more complicated: nests of vampires in Purley, negotiating a truce between the warring god and goddess of the Thames, and digging up graves in Covent Garden… and there’s something festering at the heart of the city I love, a malicious vengeful spirit that takes ordinary Londoners and twists them into grotesque mannequins to act out its drama of violence and despair.
The spirit of riot and rebellion has awakened in the city, and it’s falling to me to bring order out of chaos – or die trying.
The Rivers of London series comprises RIVERS OF LONDON, MOON OVER SOHO, and WHISPERS UNDER GROUND. The fourth volume, BROKEN HOMES, will be published on July 25th, 2013, by Gollancz.
We’re delighted to announce that DAW Books have picked up US rights for books four, five and six in Ben Aaronovitch‘s massively successful RIVERS OF LONDON series.
For those out there who have been living under a rock for the past few years, the series follows the adventures of Peter Grant, a London police constable and apprentice wizard. The books were acquired for DAW by publisher Betsy Wollheim, in a deal negotiated by Joshua Bilmes at JABberwocky in New York, on behalf of Zeno.
The first title in this deal, BROKEN HOMES, is scheduled to be published in the United States in February 2014. Gollancz continue to publish inthe UK and Commonwealth.
Here is the synopsis…
A unique blend of police procedural, loving detail about the greatest character of all, London, and a dash of the supernatural.
In the new novel DC Peter Grant must head south of the river to the alien environs of Elephant and Castle. There’s a murderer abroad and, as always when Grant’s department are reluctantly called in by CID, there is more than a whiff of the supernatural in the darkness.
Zeno Client Ben Aaronovitch’s seminal 1990 Doctor Who novel, REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS, has been reissued this month by BBC Books. This year is the landmark half-century anniversary of the fan-favourite TV series. This gorgeous set of reissues from BBC Books features a story from each era of the show, one for each of the eleven Doctors.
REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS is Ben’s novelization of the classic TV episode of the Sylvester McCoy era, which brought the ever-popular Daleks back to our television screens.
REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS follows the Seventh Doctor, as he heads back to Coal Hill School in London, 1963, in search of a powerful Time Lord artifact. With two rival factions of Daleks also on the hunt, can the Doctor prevent London from turning into a battlefield…?
Ben Aaronovitch was born and raised in London and all his work has reflected his abiding fascination and love for what he modestly likes to refer to as the ‘Capital of the World’. He has written for Doctor Who, Casualty and the late, lamented space soap Jupiter Moon. He is also the author of the excellent Peter Grant series of Urban Fantasy novels set in his beloved London: RIVERS OF LONDON, MOON OVER SOHO, WHISPERS UNDERGROUND and the upcoming, hotly-anticipated BROKEN HOMES (June 2013).
Ben Aaronovitch kicked off his latest author tour last night, wowing the 90 strong audience at Waterstones Piccadilly who were there to hear him discuss his new novel WHISPERS UNDER GROUND. Ben spoke for over an hour (without notes, I should add!) and then took questions and signed a whole bunch of books. A great evening, indeed.
Ben’ll be up and down the country for the next couple of weeks, visiting London, Brighton, Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester, Bath and Guildford – see here for further details.