Gollancz has acquired William Gibson’s Sprawl series, for publication in the UK and Commonwealth. The series includes NEUROMANCER, COUNT ZERO, MONA LISA OVERDRIVE, and the short fiction collection BURNING CHROME.

Chairman of Gollancz Malcom Edwards acquired the rights to the four book deal from John Berlyne at the Zeno Agency, on behalf of Martha Millard at Sterling Lord Literistic. Edwards was also Gibson’s first editor in the UK.

‘I’m delighted to see NEUROMANCER and its two sequels, plus BURNING CHROME, return to Victor Gollancz, my first UK publisher, and still more so under the excellent auspices of Malcolm Edwards, their original acquiring editor,’ said Gibson.

Malcolm Edwards said: ‘Acquiring NEUROMANCER and Gibson’s other early works was one of the high points of my years at Gollancz in the 1980s, and I’m delighted to bring them back where they belong. They remain absolutely key titles in any account of late 20th century SF.’

NEUROMANCER, Gibson’s acclaimed debut, launched the cyberpunk generation. It was the first novel to win the holy trinity of science fiction – the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick Award – and has gone on to sell more than six million copies worldwide. The novel was also included in Time magazine’s list of 100 best English-language novels written since 1923, and was featured in David Pringle’s seminal Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels. The second and third novels in the Sprawl Trilogy, were also nominated for Hugo and Nebula Awards. BURNING CHROME collects ten of Gibson’s best short stories, including ‘Johnny Mnemonic’ (adapted into the film starring Keanu Reeves) and title story, both of which were nominated for the Nebula Award; the collection also includes the Hugo and Nebula-nominated stories ‘Dogfight’ and ‘The Winter Market’.

The series is due to be published as new Gollancz paperbacks on July 14th, 2016. A new hardback edition of NEUROMANCER is also due to be published on September 8th, 2016, as part of the SF Masterworks series. (We will, of course, share covers and any more details as they become available.) In case you haven’t read it, here’s the synopsis for NEUROMANCER…

The novel that launched the cyberpunk generation, heralded the coming of the internet, and won the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K Dick awards.

The Matrix: a world within a world, a graphic representation of the databanks of every computer in the human system; a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate users in the Sprawl alone. And by Case, computer cowboy, until his nervous system is grievously maimed by a client he double-crossed. Japanese experts in nerve splicing and microbionics have left him broke and close to dead.

But at last Case has found a cure. He’s going back into the system. Not for the bliss of cyberspace but to steal again, this time from the big boys, the almighty megacorps. In return, should he survive, he will stay cured.

And, finally, just a small selection of reviews these fantastic books have received…

‘Set for brainstun…one of the most unusual and involving narratives to be read in many an artificially induced blue moon!’ – The Times

‘A masterpiece that moves faster than the speed of thought and is chilling in its implications.’ – New York Times

‘Brilliant… a delight to read. No one can ever hope to out-Gibson Gibson… A true original.’ – Sunday Times

‘Gibson can spin a gripping yarn. He builds up a great head of steam within the first few pages and doesn’t relax until the end.’ – Times Literary Supplement.