Gardner Dozois - Zeno Agency Ltd.

Short Fiction Watch: Lavie Tidhar’s WATERFALLING

Posted on Thursday, December 21st, 2017

In today’s instalment of Short Fiction Watch, we wanted to draw your attention to Lavie Tidhar‘s “Waterfalling“, which appears in the recent THE BOOK OF SWORDS anthology. Edited by Gardner Dozois, the anthology is published in the UK by Harper Collins, and in the US by Bantam. Here’s the synopsis…

Fantasy fiction has produced some of the most unforgettable heroes ever conjured onto the page: Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian, Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné, Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Classic characters like these made sword and sorcery a storytelling sensation, a cornerstone of fantasy fiction—and an inspiration for a new generation of writers, spinning their own outsize tales of magic and swashbuckling adventure.

Now, in The Book of Swords, acclaimed editor and bestselling author Gardner Dozois presents an all-new anthology of original epic tales by a stellar cast of award-winning modern masters—many of them set in their authors’ best-loved worlds. Join today’s finest tellers of fantastic tales, including George R. R. Martin, K. J. Parker, Robin Hobb, Scott Lynch, Ken Liu, C. J. Cherryh, Daniel Abraham, Lavie Tidhar, Ellen Kushner, and more on action-packed journeys into the outer realms of dark enchantment and intrepid derring-do, featuring a stunning assortment of fearless swordsmen and warrior women who face down danger and death at every turn with courage, cunning, and cold steel.

Lavie is the author of, most recently, CENTRAL STATION. The award-winning novel is published by Tachyon Publications. Here’s the synopsis…

A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. Life is cheap, and data is cheaper.

When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris’s ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap into the datastream of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin is infatuated with a robotnik — a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well be begging for parts. His father is terminally-ill with a multigenerational mind-plague. And a hunted data-vampire has followed Boris to where she is forbidden to return.

Rising above them is Central Station, the interplanetary hub between all things: the constantly shifting Tel Aviv; a powerful virtual arena, and the space colonies where humanity has gone to escape the ravages of poverty and war. Everything is connected by the Others, powerful alien entities who, through the Conversation — a shifting, flowing stream of consciousness — are just the beginning of irrevocable change.

At Central Station, humans and machines continue to adapt, thrive… and even evolve.

Lavie is also the multi-award winning author of A MAN LIES DREAMING (Hodder/Melville House/PS Publishing), THE VIOLENT CENTURY (Hodder), OSAMA (PS Publishing), and the Bookman Histories (Angry Robot Books) — in addition to many short stories and novellas.

Short Fiction Watch: Lavie Tidhar and Ian McDonald go to OLD VENUS

Posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2015

In this edition of Short Fiction Watch, we wanted to draw your attention to the upcoming OLD VENUS anthology, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. Zeno clients Lavie Tidhar and Ian McDonald both have stories included in the collection. Here’s the synopsis…

Sixteen all-new stories by science fiction’s top talents, collected by bestselling author George R. R. Martin and multiple-award-winning editor Gardner Dozois

From pulp adventures such as Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Carson of Venus to classic short stories such as Ray Bradbury’s “The Long Rain” to visionary novels such as C. S. Lewis’s Perelandra, the planet Venus has loomed almost as large in the imaginations of science fiction writers as Earth’s next-nearest neighbor, Mars. But while the Red Planet conjured up in Golden Age science fiction stories was a place of vast deserts and ruined cities, bright blue Venus was its polar opposite: a steamy, swampy jungle world with strange creatures lurking amidst the dripping vegetation. Alas, just as the last century’s space probes exploded our dreams of Mars, so, too, did they shatter our romantic visions of Venus, revealing, instead of a lush paradise, a hellish world inimical to all life.

But don’t despair! This new anthology of sixteen original stories by some of science fiction’s best writers—edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois—turns back the clock to that more innocent time, before the hard-won knowledge of science vanquished the infinite possibilities of the imagination.

OLD VENUS is due to be published by Bantam Press on March 3rd, 2015.

Ian McDonald is the author of many award-winning novels, including THE DERVISH HOUSE, BRASYL (published by Gollancz in the UK), and the Everness trilogy (published in the UK by Jo Fletcher Books and the US by Pyr Books). He is also the author of the highly-anticipated, upcoming LUNA: NEW MOON, due to be published by Gollancz and Tor Books. Check back soon for more details on this novel. Some of McDonald’s earlier novels are available as eBooks through the JABberwocky eBook Program.

Lavie Tidhar is the author of the World Fantasy Award-winning OSAMA, published by Solaris Books; THE VIOLENT CENTURY and A MAN LIES DREAMING published by Hodder; and also the Bookman Histories (Angry Robot). Some of Tidhar’s novellas, as well as OSAMA, are also available through the JABberwocky eBook Program.

Short Fiction Watch: THE YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION

Posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2015

Stories by three Zeno clients have been included in the 32nd THE YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION anthology.

In the new millennium, what secrets lay beyond the far reaches of the universe? What mysteries belie the truths we once held to be self evident? The world of science fiction has long been a porthole into the realities of tomorrow, blurring the line between life and art. Now, in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Second Annual Collection the very best SF authors explore ideas of a new world. This venerable collection brings together award winning authors and masters of the field such as Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Damien Broderick, Elizabeth Bear, Paul McAuley and John Barnes. And with an extensive recommended reading guide and a summation of the year in science fiction, this annual compilation has become the definitive must-read anthology for all science fiction fans and readers interested in breaking into the genre.

Edited by Gardner Dozois, and due to be published in July 2015 by St. Martin’s Press, the collection includes…

Aliette de Bodard‘s THE DAYS OF THE WAR, AS RED AS BLOOD, AS DARK AS BILE (Subterranean Online)
Ian McDonald‘s THE FIFTH DRAGON (Reach for Infinity)
Lavie Tidhar‘s VLADIMIR CHONG CHOOSES TO DIE (Analog)

Aliette de Bodard is the author of multiple award-winning short stories and novellas; the Obsidian & Blood trilogy published by Angry Robot Books; and the highly-anticipated upcoming new novel THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS, which is due to be published in August 2015 by Gollancz in the UK and Roc Books in the US.

Ian McDonald is the award-winning author of multiple science fiction novels, including the critically-acclaimed Everness trilogy published by Jo Fletcher Books in the UK and Pyr Books in the US; and BRASYL, THE DERVISH HOUSE, and the upcoming LUNA, published by Gollancz.

Lavie Tidhar is the World Fantasy Award-winning author of OSAMA published by Solaris Books; The Bookman Histories, published by Angry Robot Books; and the critically-acclaimed THE VIOLENT CENTURY and A MAN LIES DREAMING – both published in the UK by Hodder. THE VIOLENT CENTURY is due to be published in the US by Thomas Dunne Books in February 2015. He is also the author of the upcoming comic series ADLER, due to be published in 2015 by Titan Comics.