Tag: Blackstone Publishing

Ian McDonald’s MOON RISING available in audio!

Posted on Monday, April 8th, 2019

We just wanted to take this opportunity to highlight the audio edition of Ian McDonald‘s third Luna novel, MOON RISING. Published by Blackstone Audio, 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 Corta 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.

Blackstone has also published the first two novels in the series as audiobooks: NEW MOON and WOLF MOON.

The print and eBook editions of the novel were published last month by Gollancz (UK) and Tor Books (North America) — each publisher has also published the first two novels in the series as well: NEW MOON and WOLF MOON.

Prepare for a HARD LANDING tomorrow…

Posted on Monday, January 7th, 2019

Tomorrow, Blackstone Publishing are due to publish a new audio edition of HARD LANDING by Algis Budrys! Originally published in ??, here’s the synopsis for the classic novel…

A science fiction adventure told from the point of view of aliens who crash-land on Earth and must assimilate in secret — until their human cover is blown

Budrys’s final novel opens with the report of a man found electrocuted on suburban train tracks in Shoreview, Illinois. Neville Sealman appeared to be just another commuter, but after his tragic death, no one comes forward to claim his body. And a routine autopsy reveals some disturbing physiological anomalies. Then a spaceship is unearthed in a New Jersey swamp. It’s the stuff of tabloids — except it’s all true.

Years earlier, a starship crash-landed on Earth. Its passengers, human in appearance, were forced to go their separate ways in an alien world. No one knows that these otherworldly visitors have been living among the human race — but now their cover could be blown.

Told in the form of an investigation reconstructed through direct and indirect witness testimony, Hard Landing takes the listener into the minds of its four protagonists as they struggle with the far-reaching ramifications of discovery. This is a suspenseful and revelatory novel about the elusive, ever-changing nature of identity.

Blackstone has also published three other classic Budrys titles: WHO?, ROGUE MOON and MICHAELMAS.

Six of Budrys’s classic books are available as eBooks via Open Road Media: WHO?, FALLING TORCH, ROGUE MOON, THE FURIOUS FUTURE, MICHAELMAS, and HARD LANDING.

In related news, the MIT Technology Review recently ran a lovely profile of Budrys and his work, which you can read here.

‘The fiction Budrys himself began writing as a young man in the 1950s still provides as good evidence as exists that SF can be literary art; at the time, it led his fellow practitioners to regard him as the one among them who was most likely to transform their field into a fully adult literature… Budrys’s science fiction presents an alternative version of the genre–a promise of better possibilities that were never quite realized. Indeed, the bulk of Budrys’s writing was published a half-century ago and isn’t in print, though it’s easily obtainable from online booksellers or brick-and-­mortar secondhand stores. You should make the effort. This is what science fiction can be but hardly ever is.’

Zeno represents Algis Budrys on behalf of the Budrys Estate.

Tomorrow, you can get Lavie Tidhar’s MARTIAN SANDS as an audiobook!

Posted on Monday, December 24th, 2018

This festive season, audiobook lovers can rejoice: Lavie Tidhar‘s MARTIAN SANDS will be available as an audiobook from tomorrow! Published by Blackstone Publishing, here’s the synopsis…

1941. An hour before the attack on Pearl Harbour, a man from the future materializes 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.

MARTIAN SANDS is available as an eBook (cover below) via the JABberwocky eBook Program, along with a number of Lavie’s other critically-acclaimed novellas. Here are some of the reviews the novella has received since its release…

‘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

WHO are you listening to this December?

Posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2018

Today, Blackstone Audio publishes a new audio edition of Algis Budrys‘s classic, Hugo Award-nominated sci-fi novel WHO? Here’s the synopsis…

Set against a backdrop of Cold War paranoia, this futuristic novel about identity and technology is “one of the unrecognized classics of SF” (Locus).

East and West have fused into separate superstates known as the Allied National Government (ANG) and the Soviet International Bloc (SIB). As the Cold War rages, brilliant scientist Lucas Martino works on a top-secret project known only as K-Eighty-eight that could alter the balance of world power. The project goes horribly awry at an Allied research facility near the Soviet border, and Martino is abducted.

After several months of tense negotiations, he returns severely injured from the lab explosion, and under pressure from America, undergoes extensive reconstructive surgery. He has a mechanical arm. His polished metal skull — a kind of craniofacial prosthesis — contains few discernible features. Several of his internal organs are artificial. While his fingerprints are identified as belonging to Lucas Martino, they could be the result of transplant. Is he the real Martino? Or a technologically altered impostor sent by America’s enemies for the purpose of spying and infiltration? Tasked with uncovering the truth, ANG Security Chief Shawn Rogers makes some shocking discoveries.

Narrated in chapters alternating between Rogers and Martino, Who? poses existential questions about the human condition.

Blackstone has also published Budrys’s ROGUE MOON and MICHAELMAS in audio. (An audiobook edition of HARD LANDING is also on its way, early next year.)

Five of Budrys’s classic novels, and one collection, are published in eBook by Open Road Media.

Zeno represents Algis Budrys on behalf of the Budrys Estate.

Just in time for Christmas, have a listen to MICHAELMAS!

Posted on Wednesday, November 7th, 2018

Blackstone Publishing has released a second audiobook edition today for a classic Algis Budrys novel! MICHAELMAS is out now, and here’s the synopsis…

One of the world’s wealthiest and most influential men, journalist Laurent Michaelmas lives in a penthouse overlooking New York City’s Central Park with his superintelligent computer, Domino. He attained his fame and power after hacking into the worldwide computer network. He then went on to use his unique gifts to create a version of the UN that would ensure global peace. In short, he and Domino secretly run the world. But now he has reason for concern.

A Swiss doctor has cured an astronaut believed to have vaporized in a shuttle explosion during an expedition to the outer planets of the solar system. Suspecting that something extraterrestrial is behind this miraculous recovery, Michaelmas uses his immense influence to launch an international investigation. Are there really aliens in their midst? Is the resurrection of a dead man an attempt to cancel history and destroy the world’s precarious balance of power?

Published less than a decade into the internet era, this remarkable science fiction novel foreshadows many of the world’s technological advances.

 

Blackstone have already published ROGUE MOON in audio, and are due to publish WHO? and HARD LANDING over the next couple of months.

‘[Budrys’] most humanly complex and fully realized novel… MICHAELMAS describes in considerable detail a near-future world whose information media have become prophetically sophisticated.’ — Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

Six of Budrys’s classic novels and short stories are published as eBooks by Open Road Media.

Lavie Tidhar signing at Forbidden Planet next week!

Posted on Friday, November 2nd, 2018

Next Thursday (November 8th) at 6pm, the London Forbidden Planet Megastore will host Lavie Tidhar! He will be signing copies of his latest novel, UNHOLY LAND (and others). The novel is due to be published soon by Tachyon Publications. Here’s the synopsis…

Lior Tirosh is a semi-successful author of pulp fiction, an inadvertent time traveler, and an ongoing source of disappointment to his father.

Tirosh has returned to his homeland in East Africa. But Palestina — a Jewish state founded in the early 20th century — has grown dangerous. The government is building a vast border wall to keep out African refugees. Unrest in Ararat City is growing. And Tirosh’s childhood friend, trying to deliver a warning, has turned up dead in his hotel room. A state security officer has identified Tirosh as a suspect in a string of murders, and a rogue agent is stalking Tirosh through transdimensional rifts — possible futures that can only be prevented by avoiding the mistakes of the past.

From the bestselling author of Central Station comes an extraordinary new novel recalling China Miéville and Michael Chabon, entertaining and subversive in equal measures.

The novel will also be available as an audiobook, published by Blackstone Publishing. UNHOLY LAND has already be racking up great reviews. Here are just a few of them…

‘… will leave readers’ heads spinning with this disorienting and gripping alternate history… Readers of all kinds, and particularly fans of detective stories and puzzles, will enjoy grappling with the numerous questions raised by this stellar work.’ — Publishers Weekly (PW Picks: Books of the Week, October 15, 2018)

‘[O]ne of those lovely books that starts out presenting itself as one thing, and mutates into another almost without you seeing it… a game-player of a writer who uses the spectrum of science fiction canon for his pieces… a grand game of alternate worlds cast like jewels on the sand. The long second act is all dust and blood and madness and glory, and the fast third act comes down on you like a sharpened spade… Lavie Tidhar is a clever bastard, and this book is a box of little miracles.’ — Warren Ellis

‘UNHOLY LAND starts out hard-boiled and comes at you sideways with the speculative elements. Tidhar has blended alternative history with murder in hotel rooms, missing women, an honest-to-god Fedora and mysterious borders in a tale that evokes Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Cassablanca and Mieville’s The City & the City. Political and pulpy, with distinct metafictional elements, Tidhar adroitly pulls off this fantastical tale of an occupied territory.’ — Tade Thompson

‘… adventurous readers will appreciate this well-written and ambitious book. It should find a place at any library that offers high-quality literary fiction.’ — Booklist

Listen to a tale of the ROGUE MOON…

Posted on Monday, October 29th, 2018

A new audiobook edition of Algis Budrys‘s ROGUE MOON is out now! Published by Blackstone Publishing, here’s the synopsis…

A monstrous apparatus has been found on the surface of the moon. It devours and destroys in ways so incomprehensible to humans that a new language must be invented to describe it and a new kind of thinking to understand it. So far, the human guinea pigs sent there in hopes of unraveling the murderous maze have all died terrible deaths — except the last, now on suicide watch. The ideal candidate won’t go insane, even as he feels the end approaching. And now they think they’ve found their man.

Al Barker has already stared into the face of death — he can handle it again. But Barker won’t merely have to endure the trauma of dying: he will have to endure it over and over again — mentally linked to an ongoing series of duplicates of himself created and sent to the Moon by matter transmission — until the artifact reveals its secret.

With a cast of fascinating characters taking center stage, Rogue Moon is a rare thriller that doesn’t just make you sweat — it makes you think.

Blackstone are also due to publish new audio editions of MICHAELMAS (November), WHO? (December), and HARD LANDING (January). We already have the cover for MICHAELMAS, too…

Six of Algis Budrys’s classic books are published as eBooks by Open Road Media.

Zeno represents Algis Budrys on behalf of the Budrys Estate.

Get Lavie Tidhar’s UNHOLY LAND through your earholes… soon.

Posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2018

Lavie Tidhar‘s highly-anticipated upcoming novel, UNHOLY LAND, is also going to be released as an audiobook! To be published by Blackstone Publishing, the cover is above and here’s the synopsis…

When pulp-fiction writer Lior Tirosh returns to his homeland in East Africa, much has changed. Palestina — a Jewish state established in the early 20th century — is constructing a massive border wall to keep out African refugees. Unrest in the capital, Ararat, is at fever pitch.

While searching for his missing niece, Tirosh begins to act as though he is a detective from one of his own novels. He is pursued by ruthless members of the state’s security apparatus while unearthing deadly conspiracies and impossible realities. For if it is possible for more than one Palestina to exist, the barriers between the worlds are beginning to break.

The print and eBook editions of UNHOLY LAND are due to be published by Tachyon Publications in November 2018. Tachyon also publish Lavie’s award-winning CENTRAL STATION.