Four Zeno Clients on the BSFA Long-List!


The British Science Fiction Association published their BSFA Awards longlist last week, and we’re very happy to report that four Zeno clients have work that appear! Read on for details!

Ben Aaronovitch‘s latest Peter Grant/Rivers of London novel, the best-selling and acclaimed AMONGST OUR WEAPONS is on the Best Novel long-list! Published in the UK by Orion Books and in North America by DAW Books, here’s the synopsis…

There is a world hidden underneath this great city…

The London Silver Vaults – for well over a century, the largest collection of silver for sale in the world. It has more locks than the Bank of England and more cameras than a celebrity punch-up. Not somewhere you can murder someone and vanish without a trace – only that’s what happened.

The disappearing act, the reports of a blinding flash of light and memory loss amongst the witnesses all make this a case for Detective Constable Peter Grant and the Special Assessment Unit.

Alongside their boss DCI Thomas Nightingale, the SAU find themselves embroiled in a mystery that encompasses London’s tangled history, foreign lands and, most terrifying of all, the North!

And Peter must solve this case soon because back home his partner Beverley is expecting twins any day now. But what he doesn’t know is that he’s about to encounter something – and somebody – that nobody ever expects…

Effortlessly original, endlessly inventive and hugely entertaining – step into the world of the much-loved, Number One bestselling Rivers of London series.

Aliette de Bodard‘s acclaimed new Xuya novel, THE RED SCHOLAR’S WAKE is on the long-list for Best Novel, and its UK cover by Alyssa Winans is on the long-list for Best Cover. The novel is published by Gollancz in the UK (left) and JABberwocky in North America. Here’s the synopsis…

Xích Si: bot maker, data analyst, mother, scavenger. But those days are over now-her ship has just been captured by the Red Banner pirate fleet, famous for their double-dealing and cruelty. Xích Si expects to be tortured to death-only for the pirates’ enigmatic leader, Rice Fish, to arrive with a different and shocking proposition: an arranged marriage between Xích Si and herself.

Rice Fish: sentient ship, leader of the infamous Red Banner pirate fleet, wife of the Red Scholar. Or at least, she was the latter before her wife died under suspicious circumstances. Now isolated and alone, Rice Fish wants Xích Si’s help to find out who struck against them and why. Marrying Xích Si means Rice Fish can offer Xích Si protection, in exchange for Xích Si’s technical fluency: a business arrangement with nothing more to it.

But as the investigation goes on, Rice Fish and Xích Si find themselves falling for each other. As the interstellar war against piracy intensifies and the five fleets start fighting each other, they will have to make a stand-and to decide what kind of future they have together…

An exciting space opera and a beautiful romance, from an exceptional SF author.

Also, the latest novella in Aliette’s Dragons & Blades series (set in the same world as the acclaimed Dominion of the Fallen series), OF CHARMS, GHOSTS AND GRIEVANCES is on the long-list for Best Short Fiction. It is published by JABberwocky. Here’s the synopsis…

It was supposed to be a holiday, with nothing more challenging than babysitting, navigating familial politics and arguing about the proper way to brew tea.

But when dragon prince Thuan and his ruthless husband Asmodeus find a corpse in a ruined shrine and a hungry ghost who is the only witness to the crime, their holiday goes from restful to high-pressure. Someone is trying to silence the ghost and everyone involved. Asmodeus wants revenge for the murder; Thuan would like everyone, including Asmodeus, to stay alive.

Chased by bloodthirsty paper charms and struggling to protect their family, Thuan and Asmodeus are going to need all the allies they can — and, as the cracks in their relationship widen, they’ll have to face the scariest challenge of all: how to bring together their two vastly different ideas of their future…

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

Lavie Tidhar has three short stories on the long-list in that category, all three of which an be read online:

Finally, Adam Oyebanji‘s debut science fiction novel, BRAKING DAY is nominated in the Best Novel category! Published in the UK by Jo Fletcher Books, here’s the synopsis…

Interstellar Vehicle Archimedes has been hurtling through space for more than five generations, an oasis of heat and light in the middle of absolutely nowhere. But now the ageing starship is preparing to brake, for it is arriving at Destination Star: Tau Ceti, the new home for the space-born descendants of the First Crew.

For trainee engineer Ravinder MacLeod, the world he knows is coming to an end. Once Archimedes succumbs to the gravitational pull of the Destination Star and its (hopefully) habitable planet, there will be no going back – or anywhere else. As Braking Day approaches, Ravi finds himself caught between the rigid requirements of the officer class to which he aspires and his blue-collar, ne’er-do-well family. Unfortunately for Ravi, Boz, his brilliant ex-con cousin, seems determined to make his life difficult – not least by her experiments with forbidden technology.

Then Ravi is assigned to routine maintenance deep in the massive engines of the Archimedes, where, alone and out of contact, he comes face to face with something impossible – mind-breakingly impossible.

Plagued by nightmares and visions and worried that his grip on reality is slipping, Ravi turns to Boz for help. Their search for answers takes them to the jagged place where the ship’s future intersects with its long past. For not everyone is excited to be reaching journey’s end, and the ghosts of the First Crew may not have been fully laid to rest.

Zeno represents Adam Oyebanji in the UK and Commonwealth, on behalf of the JABberwocky Literary Agency in New York.

Short Fiction Watch: Lavie Tidhar’s GUBBINAL in Clarkesworld Year 12


We’re happy to report that Lavie Tidhar‘s GUBBINAL has been collected in CLARKESWORLD: YEAR TWELVE, Volume 2. Published by Wyrm Publishing, and out now, it’s a collection of all the stories published by Clarkesworld in the second half of their twelfth year (2018).

Sahar, moving softly through the river valley, made sure to listen. The sound filtered into her helmet from the external mics, and she imagined this must be what hiking on Earth must be like. She listened to the wind; to the rumble overhead from the active ice volcano; to the storm raging on the horizon. But most of all she listened for any movement, for anything with design that may be scuttling about or trying to hide…

The story is also available in audio.

Lavie is the multi-award winning author of THE HOOD, BY FORCE ALONE, A MAN LIES DREAMING, OSAMA (published by Head of Zeus), THE ESCAPEMENT, UNHOLY LAND, CENTRAL STATION, THE VIOLENT CENTURY (published by Tachyon Publications), and more.

Short Fiction Watch: RAIN FALLING IN THE PINES by Lavie Tidhar


In today’s Short Fiction Watch, we wanted to draw your attention to Lavie Tidhar‘s RAIN FALLING IN THE PINES, a story published in the October 2021 issue of Clarkesworld.

Two men in dark sunglasses stepped through the doors of the Monte Carmelo. They stopped and scanned the gloomy inside. Geshem-Nofel-Ba’oranim clocked them and kept to his booth. He knew trouble when it walked through the door looking for him…

The story is also available in audio — via the Clarkesworld website, via their podcast, and on YouTube.

Short Fiction Watch: Lavie Tidhar Has Been Quite Busy…


If you follow Lavie Tidhar on Twitter, you may have noticed his frequent announcements that he’s sold a short story. Well, many of these are now starting to see the light of day, and we wanted to take this opportunity to let you know where some of them have landed. So, without further ado…

Next month (November 11th, to be precise) Tor.com are due to publish JUDGE DEE AND THE LIMITS OF THE LAW. Aside from the cover (at top) and the release date, there’s not much information about the story, save for this Tweet from Lavie:

JUVENILIA appears in Uncanny Magazine’s September/October 2020 issue, which is out now. You can read the story online, too. Here’s a very short snippet…

In the winter of 19–, having newly arrived in England, and still recovering from the nervous indisposition which had afflicted me greatly ever since my circumstances during the war, I responded to an advertisement placed in the Yorkshire Post, for the position of caretaker in an old, near-abandoned Elizabethan mansion called Wildfell Hall.

Who in truth owned it, I did not know. I was met at the train station of the nearby village by a young London solicitor, who informed me cheerfully that I was the only applicant…

The story BLUE AND BLUE AND BLUE AND PINK is available now in Clarkesworld’s September 2020 issue, as well as on the magazine’s website as text and in an audio edition.

Purple clouds roiled on the horizon and the old Cessna Centurion came in low and fast, riding the tailwind. Giorgio, on the ground and looking up, took shelter behind a crude half-shed of corrugated iron and lit a cigarette with a Zippo he’d once bought in the Talat Sao back in Vientiane. It was supposedly owned by a downed Air America pilot during the Secret War.

He stared at the plane coming in from the border. Smoke was coming out of the engine and half a wing looked like it’d been strafed, and Giorgio wondered who it was flying it. One of the Israelis, maybe…

In Beneath Ceaseless Skies issue #314 (October 2020), you can find Lavie’s novelette THE DROWNED GOD’S HERESY — a new story featuring Gorel of Goliris, star of GOREL AND THE POT BELLIED GOD (published by PS Publishing). The issue is available as an eBook, and the story can also be read on BCS’s website.

Now, forever exiled, he sought his home, his birth right, his throne. He would not rest until he found it.

Finally, a new Israeli SF magazine — Speculation — has launched, and it recently published the Hebrew translation of Lavie’s story NEOM (ניאום). You can read that story here. One of the author’s ‘favourite recent stories’, it was first published in the January-February 2019 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction.

Short Fiction Watch: Aliette de Bodard, Ian McDonald & Lavie Tidhar among the BEST SF OF THE YEAR…


Today we have a bit of a smorgasbord of short fiction to draw your attention to, from Aliette de Bodard, Ian McDonald, and Lavie Tidhar.

Let’s start with Aliette de Bodard, who has stories featuring in three different publications (pictured at the top). First, Aliette has a story in MISSION CRITICAL, an anthology edited by Jonathan Strahan, due to be published by Solaris. Here’s the collection’s synopsis…

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM…

Life is fragile. The difference between success and failure can come down to nothing – the thread of a screw, the flick of a switch – and when it goes wrong, you fix it. Or someone dies.

Mission Critical takes us from our world, across the Solar System, and out into deep space to tell the stories of people who had to do the impossible.

And do it fast.

In addition to this, Aliette has stories in the latest issue of Clarkesworld (“Two Sisters in Exile”, also available online), and also the first anthology from New Accelerator (“A Dance of Dust and Life”).

THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION OF THE YEAR: VOL. 4 has stories from Aliette, Ian McDonald, and Lavie Tidhar. Published by Night Shade Books, here’s the relevant content…

  • “Ten Landscapes of Nili Fossae” by Ian McDonald (2001: An Odyssey in Words, edited by Ian Whates and Tom Hunter)
  • “The Buried Giant” by Lavie Tidhar (Robots vs. Fairies, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe)
  • “Among the Water Buffaloes, a Tiger’s Steps” by Aliette de Bodard (Mechanical Animals, edited by Selena Chambers and Jason Heller)

Ian McDonald is the author of, most recently, the Luna series — NEW MOON, WOLF MOON, and MOON RISING — published by Gollancz (UK) and Tor Books (US). He is also the author of the novellas TIME WAS and the forthcoming THE MENACE FROM FARSIDE (Tor.com).

Lavie Tidhar is the author of a number of award-winning and critically-acclaimed novels and novellas, including UNHOLY LAND (Tachyon), CENTRAL STATION (Tachyon), A MAN LIES DREAMING (Hodder/Melville House), THE VIOLENT CENTURY (Hodder/Tachyon), OSAMA, and his first novel for young readers, CANDY (Scholastic).

Aliette is also the author of the Dominion of the Fallen series, published by Gollancz in the UK and Roc Books in North America (1-2): THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS, THE HOUSE OF BINDING THORNS, and the upcoming THE HOUSE OF SUNDERING FLAMES. She is also the author of IN THE VANISHERS’ PALACE (JABberwocky), THE TEA MASTER AND THE DETECTIVE (Subterranean Press/JABberwocky), and OF WARS, AND MEMORIES, AND STARLIGHT (Subterranean Press).

Short Fiction Watch: VENUS IN BLOOM by Lavie Tidhar


In case you have missed it, Lavie Tidhar has a new short story in the latest issue of Clarkesworld! On shelves now, the issue includes the author’s VENUS IN BLOOM. The author has quite a few short stories hitting shelves in the near future (or already available), and we’ll be sharing more updates on the site very soon.

Lavie is the critically-acclaimed, award-winning author of many great novels, including UNHOLY LAND, CENTRAL STATION (both published by Tachyon Publications), A MAN LIES DREAMING (published by Hodder and Melville House), THE VIOLENT CENTURY (published by Hodder and forthcoming from Tachyon), and OSAMA. Lavie is also the author of CANDY, his first novel for younger readers (Scholastic).

‘… 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) on UNHOLY LAND

‘It is just this side of a masterpiece — short, restrained, lush — and the truest joy of it is in the way Tidhar scatters brilliant ideas like pennies on the sidewalk.’ — NPR on CENTRAL STATION

‘Wild, noir-infused alternative history from genre-bender Tidhar… A wholly original Holocaust story: as outlandish as it is poignant.’ — Kirkus (Starred Review) on A MAN LIES DREAMING

‘A brilliantly etched phantasmagoric reconfiguring of that most sizzling of eras – the twilight 20th…  This book has it all:  time travel, political intrigue, hellacious history…  You’ve got superheroes in the guise of regular humans, you’ve got World War II … THE VIOLENT CENTURY is a torrid tour de force!’ — James Ellroy

‘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

‘In his first book for younger readers, he creates perhaps his most chilling vision yet: a city where sweets are forbidden under a prohibition act… The tone is as hard-boiled as a cough drop. The jokes sizzle like Space Dust. CANDY is a treat, the kind of confection Roald Dahl and Raymond Chandler might have come up with after an all-night bonbon bender.’ — Financial Times on CANDY

Aliette de Bodard wins an Ignotus Award!


We’re delighted to report that Aliette de Bodard‘s THREE CUPS OF GRIEF, BY STARLIGHT has won an Ignotus Award! Given by Spain’s Asociación Española de Fantasía, Ciencia Ficción y Terror, the story won the award for Foreign Story. First published in Clarkesworld #100, the Spanish translation, TRES TAZAS DE AFLICCIÓN A LA LUZ DE LAS ESTRELLAS is available on Cuentos para Algernon.

THREE CUPS OF GRIEF, BY STARLIGHT also won a BSFA Award for Best Short Story (2015), and was a Finalist for the Locus Award for Best Short Story (2016) and also for the Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction (2016).

Aliette’s latest novel is the critically-acclaimed IN THE VANISHERS’ PALACE, published via the JABberwocky eBook Program. Here’s the synopsis…

A dark retelling of Beauty and the Beast from the award-winning author of the Dominion of the Fallen series.

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…

The author’s current on-going series is the award-winning Dominion of the Fallen, published by Gollancz  (UK) and Roc Books (US).

Aliette de Bodard Wins two BSFA Awards!


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On Saturday, the BSFA Awards were announced at Mancunicon, and we’re delighted to share the news that Aliette de Bodard won two! Aliette’s THREE CUPS OF GRIEF, BY STARLIGHT won for Best Short Fiction, and THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS won best novel!

THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS, the first in Aliette’s Dominion of the Fallen series, is published in the UK by Gollancz, and in the US by Roc Books. Here’s the synopsis…

A superb murder mystery, on an epic scale, set against the fall out of a war in heaven

Paris in the aftermath of the Great Magicians War. Its streets are lined with haunted ruins, Notre-Dame is a burnt-out shell, and the Seine runs black, thick with ashes and rubble. Yet life continues among the wreckage. The citizens retain their irrepressible appetite for novelty and distraction, and The Great Houses still vie for dominion over France’s once grand capital.

House Silverspires, previously the leader of those power games, now lies in disarray. Its magic is ailing; its founder, Morningstar, has been missing for decades; and now something from the shadows stalks its people inside their very own walls.

Within the House, three very different people must come together: a naive but powerful Fallen, an alchemist with a self-destructive addiction, and a resentful young man wielding spells from the Far East. They may be Silverspires’ salvation; or the architects of its last, irreversible fall…

THREE CUPS OF GRIEF, BY STARLIGHT was published in Clarkesworld 100.

John Berlyne and editor Gillian Redfearn were at the awards ceremony to congratulate Aliette…

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Short Fiction Watch: Zeno Clients Recently in Clarkesworld


Short fiction is a great way to try out authors for the first time, and many of our clients frequently have their short stories published in leading SFF zines and outlets. We haven’t featured as much short fiction recently, but we wanted to take this opportunity to share some links to work that has appeared in Clarkesworld — all of it available to read for free online. So, without further ado, here are just three of the latest…

Lavie Tidhar is the award-winning author of OSAMA (PS Publishing), THE VIOLENT CENTURY (Hodder/Thomas Dunne Books) and A MAN LIES DREAMING (Hodder/Melville House – forthcoming in 2016).

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Aliette de Bodard is the author of multiple short stories and novellas, as well as the Obsidian & Blood trilogy, and the critically-acclaimed THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS, which was published last month by Gollancz in the UK and Roc Books in the US.

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Ian R. MacLeod is the award-winning author of multiple novels, including THE LIGHT AGES, THE SUMMER ISLES and SNODGRASS. Many of his novels are available as eBooks, published by Open Road Media. His most recent book is FROST ON GLASS, published by PS Publishing.

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Short Fiction Watch: Aliette de Bodard


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In this latest edition of Short Fiction Watch, we wanted to draw your attention to two more pieces by Aliette de Bodard.

The first can be found in the January 2015 issue of Lightspeed Magazine: THE LONELY HEART and Author Spotlight

‘It was towards mid-afternoon that Chen became aware of the girl. She stood before Chen’s stall, watching the fake-jade effigies of the Buddha and the coloured incense sticks, her eyes wide in the sunlight — she was no more than thirteen or fourteen, with the gangly unease of that age. To her left, children shrieked as they passed the Bridge of Impossibility, holding each other’s hands, and went into the temple complex…’

The second is in the 100th issue of Clarkesworld: THREE CUPS OF GRIEF, BY STARLIGHT (the story is free to read online, if you follow the link)

Aliette de Bodard is the author of the Obsidian & Blood trilogy, published by Angry Robot Books. Her next novel, THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS, is due to be published by Gollancz in the UK, in August 2015 — we recently announced that acquisition in the news feed.

Short Fiction Watch: Lavie Tidhar & Aliette de Bodard


Clarkesworld-YearSix-BlogCLARKESWORLD: YEAR SIX is now available, and we wanted to draw your attention to the fact that two Zeno clients’ work has been included in the anthology! The collection is published by Wyrm Publishing.

Since 2006, Clarkesworld Magazine has been entertaining science fiction and fantasy fans with their brand of unique science fiction and fantasy stories. Collected here are all thirty-four stories published in the sixth year of this Hugo Award-winning magazine.

Featured in this sixth year’s anthology, we have…

You may have heard of Aliette’s IMMERSION already, of course, as it has already won Locus and a Nebula Awards, and has also been nominated for a Hugo Award.