Hugo Awards - Zeno Agency Ltd.

Locus, Hugo, and Ignyte nominations for Aliette de Bodard!

Posted on Wednesday, May 12th, 2021

In case you missed the great news: Aliette de Bodard has received four Locus Award nominations, a Hugo Award, and an Ignyte Award nomination! Let’s start with the Locus nominations…

Aliette’s has two novellas among the finalists in the Novella Category. OF DRAGONS, FEASTS AND MURDERS, published by JABberwocky, is a stand-alone story set in the same work as the Dominion of the Fallen series. Here’s the synopsis…

Lunar New Year should be a time for familial reunions, ancestor worship, and consumption of an unhealthy amount of candied fruit.

But when dragon prince Thuan brings home his brooding and ruthless husband Asmodeus for the New Year, they find not interminable family gatherings, but a corpse outside their quarters. Asmodeus is thrilled by the murder investigation; Thuan, who gets dragged into the political plotting he’d sworn off when he left, is less enthusiastic.

It’ll take all of Asmodeus’s skill with knives, and all of Thuan’s diplomacy, to navigate this one — as well as the troubled waters of their own relationship…

The Dominion of the Fallen series is published by Gollancz in the UK, and Roc Books and JABberwocky in North America. (While a stand-alone, this novella is set after the events of the third novel in that series, THE HOUSE OF SUNDERING FLAMES.)

The second finalist novella is SEVEN OF INFINITIES, one of the author’s many acclaimed Xuya stories, published by Subterranean Press (North America) and JABberwocky…

Vân is a scholar from a poor background, eking out a living in the orbitals of the Scattered Pearls Belt as a tutor to a rich family, while hiding the illegal artificial mem-implant she manufactured as a student.

Sunless Woods is a mindship — and not just any mindship, but a notorious thief and a master of disguise. She’s come to the Belt to retire, but is drawn to Vân’s resolute integrity.

When a mysterious corpse is found in the quarters of Vân’s student, Vân and Sunless Woods find themselves following a trail of greed and murder that will lead them from teahouses and ascetic havens to the wreck of a mindship — and to the devastating secrets they’ve kept from each other.

Aliette’s third Locus finalist nomination is for the short story IN THE LANDS OF THE SPILL, which was published in the AVATARS INC Sci-Fi Anthology, edited by Ann Vandermeer.

Meanwhile, the novelette THE INACCESSIBILITY OF HEAVEN has been nominated for three awards! Published in the July-August 2020 issue of Uncanny Magazine, it is up for the Hugo, Locus, and Ignyte Best Novelette Awards!

Night. A night like any other in Starhollow: the headlights of cars, small and lost between the skyscrapers; the smell of hydromel and wine wafting from those few bars still open; and above me, the distant light of the stars, a constant reminder of the inaccessibility of Heaven.

I climbed the stairs to my flat, exhausted, my arms covered in claw-marks. At the shelter I worked at, drunken Fallen had started attacking some of the newcomers—and had turned on me when I’d tried to intervene…

The Locus Awards winners will be announced June 26, 2021, during the virtual Locus Awards Weekend.

Voting for the Hugo Awards are open now to members, and will close on November 19th. The award winners will be announced during DisCon III, which will be held in Washington, D.C., between December 15th-19th.

Voting for the Ignyte Awards is open now to anyone who wants to vote, and will close on May 21st. The award winners will be announced on September 18th.

Many congratulations, Aliette!

Two Award Nominations for Ian McDonald!

Posted on Monday, April 27th, 2020

We are very happy to share the news that Ian McDonald has racked up another couple of award nominations! Announced over the past couple of weeks, read on for more details!

The third novel in Ian’s Luna series, MOON RISING, is a Prometheus Award finalist! All three of the novels in the series have been nominated for the award. Here’s what the organization had to say about the novel…

In the sequel to the Prometheus-nominated novels LUNA: NEW MOON and LUNA: WOLF MOON, McDonald dramatizes the struggle for independence and sovereignty as feuding lunar factions unite against a threat from Earth. The trilogy’s thrilling finale builds on McDonald’s intricate future of moon colonization, buoyed by somewhat free markets marred by violence, corporate espionage, and political marriages as the Five Dragons family dynasties control the main lunar industrial companies. Characters empowered by personal freedom and individual/social achievement in a society where contracts with others define people. Rendering a more positive view of a free society than earlier novels, McDonald offers justifications for freedom and markets while showing more negative aspects of politics and human behavior dealt with by people addressing inevitable problems in more voluntary ways.

The Luna series is also a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Series! The winners will be announced as part of the 78th World Science Fiction Convention, CoNZealand, which recently announced that it will shift to a virtual format given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Congratulations Ian on these nominations!

The Luna series is published in the UK by Gollancz (covers below), in North America by Tor Books (covers above), and in a growing number of translated editions around the world.

Here’s the synopsis for MOON RISING…

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 Cortas 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.

Here are just a few of the great reviews the series has received so far…

‘McDonald concludes his Luna space opera trilogy in triumphant style… The political intrigue never feels too abstract or removed from 21st-century Earth. Readers will appreciate the care McDonald takes with both worldbuilding and characterization, and will enjoy little touches such as giving an assassin the job title of Corporate Conflict Resolution Officer… fans of the prior books will find this wrap-up rewarding.’ — Publishers Weekly on MOON RISING

‘McDonald’s richly imagined Lunar culture and interplanetary poleconomy make for a superb backdrop for literally dozens of richly realized human dramas, and it’s hard to say which is more fascinating. McDonald’s wildly imaginative worldbuilding (present since his debut novel, the utterly wonderful standout OUT ON BLUE SIX) and his ability to spin out intrigues are both in full flight in this final volume.’ — Boing Boing on MOON RISING

‘… cinematic set-pieces… so much fun to read… these entertaining, and intelligent novels, capped off by the very satisfying Luna: MOON RISING, have been about establishing a society, a community, a family that looks to the future, that lives and prospers in an environment that must always be treated with respect.’ — Locus (Ian Mond)

‘A Howling Good Read… No one builds a world like Ian McDonald does. Piece by piece and brick by brick. Spare, simple, elegant when he needs to be…, deep and meaty when he wants to be…, he does his work like an artisan pulling a sculpture from stone. There are no wasted moves, nothing that isn’t vital because, in the end, everything is vital. Everything matters… it is fascinating, all of it. Because McDonald has made a world that is ruthless in its consistency and living, breathing reality, and then made characters who are not just living in it, but wholly and fully of it… McDonald’s corporate war is a gorgeous thing, fought with every tool available… McDonald is able to wrap the biggest events in constellations of the smallest so that a cocktail party here, a discussion of ’80s retro fashion (all mall-hair and WHAM! T-shirts), a love story and a day at work for a guy who cleans solar panels all build and coalesce to form the background radiation of life in this unstable future. Every moment with his characters makes them precious, real and alive.’ — NPR on WOLF MOON

‘LUNA: NEW MOON was a “magnificent bastard of a book,” as I put it in my review. Part two, it’s my pleasure to tell you, is just as awesome, and just as masterfully nasty.’ — Tor.com on WOLF MOON

‘Smart, funny, passionate and at times quite dark, McDonald brings the touch we’ve seen in RIVER OF GODS and DERVISH HOUSE to an entirely new culture as it evolves in a distant hostile place where business or family rules all… it’s terrific. My only complaint: it leaves you wanting the second book right now!’ — Jonathan Strahan on NEW MOON

‘McDonald… begins his superb near-future series… scintillating, violent, and decadent world. McDonald creates a complex and fascinating civilization featuring believable technology, and the characters are fully developed, with individually gripping stories. Watch for this brilliantly constructed family saga on next year’s award ballots.’ — Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) on NEW MOON

‘Mafia-style mining families clash in a compelling fantasy that offers up all the pleasures of a cut-throat soap opera in space…That McDonald is able to spin a compelling story from this unforgiving set-up is testament to his skill as a writer… One thing Luna does exceptionally well is to puncture Old Heinlein’s assumption that a frontier society based on the primacy of the family and a disregard of conventional laws would end up like idealised smalltown America. Luna argues that any realistic future colonisation of the moon will be much more The Sopranos than The Waltons. LUNA is as gripping as it is colourful, and as colourful as it is nasty.’ — Guardian on NEW MOON

Two Hugo Nominations for Aliette de Bodard!

Posted on Friday, April 5th, 2019

We’re delighted to share the news that Aliette de Bodard has been nominated for two Hugo Awards this year!

Let’s start with her latest novel, THE TEA MASTER AND THE DETECTIVE, which is up for Best Novella! Published by Subterranean Press in the US and JABberwocky (Worldwide English), here’s the synopsis for the critically-acclaimed book…

Once, the mindship known as The Shadow’s Child was a military transport, carrying troops and crew for a war that tore the Empire apart. Until an ambush killed her crew and left her wounded and broken. Now the war is over, and The Shadow’s Child, surviving against all odds, has run away. Discharged and struggling to make a living, she has no plans to go back into space. Until the abrasive and arrogant scholar Long Chau comes to see her. Long Chau wants to retrieve a corpse for her scientific studies: a simple enough, well-paid assignment. But when the corpse they find turns out to have been murdered, the simple assignment becomes a vast and tangled investigation, inexorably leading back to the past–and, once again, to that unbearable void where The Shadow’s Child almost lost both sanity and life…

Here are just a few of the reviews that the novella has received since it was published…

‘A science-fictional ode to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, where the Holmes figure is a sharp and biting disgraced aristocratic scholar with a solid core of empathy, and the Watson-figure is a mindship with post-traumatic stress disorder from her war experiences… This is a measured, almost stately story, right up until a conclusion that explodes in fast-paced tension. It preserves the empathy and the intensity of the original Sherlockian stories, while being told in de Bodard’s sharp prose and modern style. The worldbuilding… sparkles. The characters have presence: they’re individual and compelling. And it ends it a way that recalls the original Holmes and Watson, while being perfectly appropriate to itself.’ — Tor.com

‘De Bodard revisits her far-future Xuya universe setting with this gripping novella about damaged characters driven to search for the truth… De Bodard constructs a convincingly gritty setting and a pair of unique characters with provocative histories and compelling motivations. The story works as well as both science fiction and murder mystery, exploring a future where pride, guilt, and mercy are not solely the province of humans.’ — Publishers Weekly

‘As a classical blend of far-future SF and traditional murder mystery, THE TEA MASTER AND THE DETECTIVE should satisfy readers unfamiliar with the Xuya universe, but at the same time it’s an intriguing introduction to that universe, much of which seems to lie just outside the borders of this entertaining tale.’ — Locus (Gary K. Wolfe)

‘[A] delicate, gender-bent recasting of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson in the far future of her Xuya universe, the gorgeously mannered space opera setting of celebrated novellas… a window onto a beautifully developed world that widens the meaning of space opera, one that centers on Chinese and Vietnamese cultures and customs instead of Western military conventions, and is all the more welcome for it.’ — New York Times

‘This slim volume packs a visceral punch. Absorbing prose pulls readers into the dark, frigid space between stars, where ships can fail, physically and emotionally, as easily as people… this novella offers sf fans an imaginative read.’ — Library Journal (Starred Review)

de Bodard’s second nomination is for the Xuya Series as a whole, which is up for Best Series. This series contains a number of short stories and novellas, including THE TEA MASTER AND THE DETECTIVE and THE CITADEL OF WEEPING PEARLS — both of which are available as eBooks via the JABberwocky eBook Program — and ON A RED STATION, DRIFTING.

Many congratulations again, Aliette, on these very well-deserved nominations!

Aliette de Bodard, Brandon Sanderson and Marie Brennan are Hugo Awards Finalists!

Posted on Friday, April 13th, 2018

We’re delighted to report that Aliette de Bodard, Brandon Sanderson and Marie Brennan are among this year’s Hugo Awards finalists! The winners of the awards will be announced at WorldCon 76 in San Jose, on August 19th.

First up, Aliette de Bodard’s CHILDREN OF THORNS, CHILDREN OF WATER has been nominated in the Best Novelette category. Part of the author’s critically-acclaimed, award-winning Dominion of the Fallen series, the story is available free — more details on where you can get it here. Here’s the synopsis…

In a Paris that never was, a city of magicians, alchemists and Fallen angels struggling to recover from a devastating magical war…

Once each year, the House of Hawthorn tests the Houseless: for those chosen, success means the difference between a safe life and the devastation of the streets. However, for Thuan and his friend Kim Cuc, — dragons in human shapes and envoys from the dying underwater kingdom of the Seine — the stakes are entirely different. Charged with infiltrating a House that keeps encroaching on the Seine, if they are caught, they face a painful death.

Worse, mysterious children of thorns stalk the candidates through Hawthorn’s corridors. Will Thuan and Kim Cuc survive and succeed?

The Dominion of the Fallen series novels, including the Nebula Award-winning THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS, and THE HOUSE OF BINDING THORNS — are published in the UK by Gollancz and in the US by Roc Books.

Secondly, Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series has been nominated for Best Series. Currently comprised of three novels — THE WAY OF KINGS, WORDS OF RADIANCE and OATHBRINGER (more on the way) — the series is published in the UK by Gollancz. Here’s the synopsis for the first book…

According to mythology mankind used to live in The Tranquiline Halls. Heaven. But then the Voidbringers assaulted and captured heaven, casting out God and men. Men took root on Roshar, the world of storms. And the Voidbringers followed…

They came against man ten thousand times. To help them cope, the Almighty gave men powerful suits of armor and mystical weapons, known as Shardblades. Led by ten angelic Heralds and ten orders of knights known as Radiants, mankind finally won.

Or so the legends say. Today, the only remnants of those supposed battles are the Shardblades, the possession of which makes a man nearly invincible on the battlefield. The entire world is at war with itself — and has been for centuries since the Radiants turned against mankind. Kings strive to win more Shardblades, each secretly wishing to be the one who will finally unite all of mankind under a single throne.

On a world scoured down to the rock by terrifying hurricanes that blow through every few day a young spearman forced into the army of a Shardbearer, led to war against an enemy he doesn’t understand and doesn’t really want to fight.

What happened deep in mankind’s past?

Why did the Radiants turn against mankind, and what happened to the magic they used to wield?

Last but by no means least, Marie Brennan’s Memoirs of Lady Trent novels have been nominated in the Best Series category! Published in the UK by Titan Books, all five novels are out now: A NATURAL HISTORY OF DRAGONS, THE TROPIC OF SERPENTS, VOYAGE OF THE BASILISK, and WITHIN THE SANCTUARY OF WINGS. Here’s the synopsis for the first book…

All the world, from Scirland to the farthest reaches of Eriga, know Isabella, Lady Trent, to be the world’s preeminent dragon naturalist. She is the remarkable woman who brought the study of dragons out of the misty shadows of myth into the clear light of modern science. But before she became the illustrious figure we know today, there was a bookish young woman whose passion for learning, natural history, and, yes, dragons defied the stifling conventions of her day. Here at last, in her own words, is the true story of a pioneering spirit who risked her reputation, her prospects, and her fragile flesh and bone to satisfy her scientific curiosity; of how she sought true love and happiness despite her lamentable eccentricities; and of her thrilling expedition to the perilous mountains of Vystrana, where she made the first of many historic discoveries that would change the world forever.

Zeno represents Brandon Sanderson and Marie Brennan in the UK and Commonwealth, on behalf of the JABberwocky Literary Agency in New York.

Ben Aaronovitch’s Peter Grant series has been nominated for a Hugo!

Posted on Monday, April 10th, 2017

Ben Aaronovitch‘s critically-acclaimed, best-selling Peter Grant series has been nominated for a Hugo Award in the Best Series category!

The series is currently comprised of RIVERS OF LONDON, MOON OVER SOHO, WHISPERS UNDERGROUND, BROKEN HOMES, FOXGLOVE SUMMER and THE HANGING TREE. The series is published by Gollancz in the UK, and in the US by Del Rey (1-3) and DAW Books (4-6). The novels have also been widely published in translation. A new novella, THE FURTHEST STATION is out later this year, published by Gollancz (UK) and Subterranean Press (US). Ben is also writing an ongoing comic series with Andrew Cartmel, published by Titan Comics.

Here’s the synopsis for the first novel in the series…

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.

Winners of the awards will be announced at the 75th World Science Fiction Convention in Helsinki, Finland, on August 11th.

Multiple Award Nominations for Zeno Clients!

Posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014

This past weekend, a number of award shortlists were announced, and we’re very happy to report that a handful of Zeno authors are represented! (As well they should be!)

First up, two of our clients have been nominated for Hugo Awards!

In the Best Novel category, the whole of The Wheel of Time epic fantasy series has been nominated (as a single entity). This series, began by the late Robert Jordan, was completed by Brandon Sanderson, who finished the three final novels in the series – THE GATHERING STORM, TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT, and A MEMORY OF LIGHT (all published in the UK by Orbit).

In the Best Novelette category, Aliette de Bodard‘s ‘The Waiting Stars’ has been nominated. The story first appeared in THE OTHER HALF OF THE SKY, published by Candlemark & Gleam. Back in February, we reported that ‘The Waiting Stars’ was also nominated for a Nebula Award. ‘The Waiting Stars’ is also available to read, free, on Aliette’s website.

The Hugo Awards will be presented at Loncon 3, in London, UK, on August 17, 2014.

Secondly, two Zeno clients also made it onto a Gemmell Awards shortlist, for the Legend Award (best fantasy)! We mentioned them briefly on the blog in March, as they (obviously) made the long-list, but we’re very happy to see Peter V. Brett‘s THE DAYLIGHT WAR (Voyager) and Brandon Sanderson‘s A MEMORY OF LIGHT (Orbit) make it to the final selection round.

The Shortlist is open for voting now, until the end of April. The winner will be announced at the Gemmell Award ceremony at the Magic Circle, London, on June 13th, 2014.

Zeno represents Brandon Sanderson and Peter V. Brett in the UK and Commonwealth, on behalf of the JABberwocky Literary Agency in New York.

Congratulations, Brandon Sanderson! (Hugos)

Posted on Monday, September 2nd, 2013

This past weekend, the Hugo Awards were announced, and we’re very happy to share that Brandon Sanderson was the winner of two awards!

Brandon’s THE EMPEROR’S SOUL won the best Novella category. THE EMPEROR’S SOUL is published by Tachyon Publishing in the US, and Gollancz in the UK.

As we reported on the website a few days ago, Gollancz recently published THE EMPEROR’S SOUL alongside Brandon’s other novella, LEGION, in a single Hardcover edition in the UK.

In addition, Brandon’s work as part of the Writing Excuses team won in the Best Related Work category. (Others involved in Writing Excuses are Dan Wells Mary, Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler and Jordan Sanderson.)

Congratulations to Brandon and all the other winners!

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

Hugo Noms for Zeno Clients…

Posted on Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013

There’s just no stopping Aliette de Bodard this year: hot on the heels of a BSFA nomination, and two Nebula Award nominations, we’re hugely excited to announce that Aliette has been nominated in two categories for the 2013 Hugo Awards!

ON A RED STATION, DRIFTING (Immersion Press) has been nominated in the Best Novella category, and IMMERSION (which was published in Clarkesworld #69, June 2012) has been nominated in the Best Short Story category. Both pieces were also nominated for 2012 Nebula Awards in the same categories, and the latter was nominated for a BSFA Award this year. You can read the excellent IMMERSION free online, here.

Aliette is no stranger to multiple nominations: her novelette THE JAGUAR HOUSE, IN SHADOW was nominated for a Hugo and Nebula in 2011. The story can be found in its entirety, here. Let’s hope 2013 will be her year…!

In addition to Aliette’s fantastic news, Brandon Sanderson has also a Hugo nominee in two categories. (See the Year of Brandon post of last week.) Firstly THE EMPEROR’S SOUL has been nominated in the Best Novella category. Here’s the synopsis again, just in case you foolishly haven’t yet got around to reading it…

Shai is a Forger, a foreigner who can flawlessly copy and re-create any item by rewriting its history with skillful magic. Though condemned to death after trying to steal the emperor’s sceptre, she is given one opportunity to save herself. Despite the fact that her skill as a Forger is considered an abomination by her captors, Shai will attempt to create a new soul for the emperor, who is almost dead from the attack of assassins.

Skillfully deducing the machinations of her captors, Shai needs a perfect plan to escape. The fate of the empire lies in one impossible task. Is it possible to create a forgery of a soul so convincing that it is better than the soul itself?

Brandon has also been nominated in the Best Related Work category, as part of the team who put together Writing Excuses Season Seven (which Brandon worked on alongside Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler and Jordan Sanderson).

Congratulations to our talented nominees! Winners of this year’s Hugo Awards will be announced on September 1st, 2013, at LoneStarCon 3.