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Ian McDonald’s LUNA: NÓW out now in Poland!

Posted on Wednesday, April 13th, 2016

Ian McDonald‘s LUNA: NEW MOON is out now in Poland! Published by MAG as LUNA: NÓW, here’s the synopsis…

Po misternie utkanych fabułach z intrygującym spojrzeniem na przyszłość krajów takich, jak Indie, Brazylia i Turcja, Ian McDonald zwrócił się ku Księżycowi. Luna to wciągający thriller o pięciu rodzinnych korporacjach uwikłanych w zaciętą walkę o hegemonię nad surowym księżycowym środowiskiem. Na Księżycu bardzo łatwo zginąć, ale dzięki bogactwu jego złóż równie łatwo się tu dorobić. To fantastyka, która idealnie przemówi tak do fanów Kima Stanley’a Robinsona, jak Kena Macleoda.

Ten pierwszy tom z planowanych dwóch zrobi z Księżycem to samo, co Rzeka Bogów z Indiami, a Dom Derwiszy z Turcją – odmaluje barwną, intensywną, nadzwyczajną, a jednocześnie wiarygodną przyszłość.

LUNA: NEW MOON is published in the US by Tor Books, and in the UK by Gollancz. Here’s the English-language synopsis…

The scions of a falling house must navigate a world of corporate warfare to maintain their family’s status in the Moon’s vicious political atmosphere.

The Moon wants to kill you.

Maybe it will kill you when the per diem for your allotted food, water, and air runs out, just before you hit paydirt. Maybe it will kill you when you are trapped between the reigning corporations-the Five Dragons-in a foolish gamble against a futuristic feudal society. On the Moon, you must fight for every inch you want to gain. And that is just what Adriana Corta did.

As the leader of the Moon’s newest “dragon,” Adriana has wrested control of the Moon’s Helium-3 industry from the Mackenzie Metal corporation and fought to earn her family’s new status. Now, in the twilight of her life, Adriana finds her corporation-Corta Helio-confronted by the many enemies she made during her meteoric rise. If the Corta family is to survive, Adriana’s five children must defend their mother’s empire from her many enemies… and each other.

The sequel, LUNA: WOLF MOON is published Tor Books in September 2016, and by Gollancz in July 2016.

Two New Editions of LUNA: NEW MOON

Posted on Tuesday, March 8th, 2016

Ian McDonald‘s latest novel, LUNA: NEW MOON, has been incredibly well-received (as we were sure it would be). Published last year by Tor Books in the US and Gollancz in the UK, we’re happy to share with you details of two new editions. First, the Polish edition (above), which is due to be published by MAG on April 13th, 2016. Here’s the synopsis for LUNA: NÓW…

Second, the US audio edition, published by Blackstone. Here’s the English-language synopsis…

The scions of a falling house must navigate a world of corporate warfare to maintain their family’s status in the moon’s vicious political atmosphere.

The moon wants to kill you — whether it’s being unable to pay your per diem for your allotted food, water, and air, or just getting caught up in a fight between the moon’s ruling corporations, the Five Dragons. You must fight for every inch you want to gain in the moon’s near-feudal society. And that is just what Adriana Corta did.

As the leader of the moon’s newest “dragon,” Adriana has wrested control of the moon’s helium-3 industry from the Mackenzie Metal Corporation and fought to earn her family’s new status. Now, at the twilight of her life, Adriana finds her corporation, Corta Helio, surrounded by the many enemies she made during her meteoric rise. If the Corta family is to survive, Adriana’s five children must defend their mother’s empire from her many enemies — and each other.

LUNA: NEW MOON is published in the UK by Gollancz, and in the US by Tor Books. Here’s just a handful of the great reviews the novel has been receiving…

‘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)

‘No one writes like Ian McDonald, and no one’s Moon is nearly so beautiful and terrible… Ian McDonald’s never written a bad novel, but this is a great Ian McDonald novel… McDonald’s moon is omnisexual, kinky, violent, passionate, beautiful, awful, vibrant and crushing. As the family saga of the Cortas unravels, we meet a self-sexual ninja lawyer, a werewolf who loses his mind in the Full Earth, a family tyrant whose ruthlessness is matched only by his crepulance, and a panoply of great passions and low desires. LUNA: NEW MOON is the first book of a two-book cycle. Now I’m all a-quiver for the next one.‘ — BoingBoing

‘Almost monolithic in its ambition. In its gravitas and tension and, alas, tragedy, it’s damn near Shakespearian… a setting so brilliantly built and deftly embellished that buying into it isn’t ever an issue; a vast cast of characters as satisfying and sympathetic individually as they are as part of McDonald’s elaborate ensemble; and a plot composed of so many threads that you never know where it’s going to go — except that when it ends, it’s destined to end terribly… a world as wicked as it is convincing… only a matter of time before CBS sets about broadening the appeal of this magnificent bastard of a book.‘ — Tor.com

‘Fans of cerebral, high-concept science fiction will love this exploration of society on the moon many decades after it has been colonized. The focus is more on concept and plot than on character, but the former are compelling enough to make this an addictive page-turner. Including the stories of many characters gives the reader important insights into different facets of society, and although the book starts at a slow pace, it accelerates into a mesmerizing political thriller.’ — RT Book Reviews

‘LUNA provides an amazing, futuristic universe set in 2110…The story is innovative and fresh, on top of being pleasantly well written…The best part of this book, hands down, would have to be the diversity of the characters.’ — Portland Book Review

Cover Reveal: Ian McDonald’s BRASYL comes to Poland

Posted on Wednesday, December 17th, 2014

Above is the Polish cover for Ian McDonald‘s critically-acclaimed novel BRASYL. Due to be published by MAG on February 4th, 2015, here’s the English-language synopsis…

A story that begins in the favelas, the slums of Rio, and quickly expands to take in drugs, corruption, and a frightening new technology that allows access to all the multiple worlds that have slipped into existence in other planes every time we make a decision.

Think Bladerunner in the tropics…

Be seduced, amazed, and shocked by one of the world’s greatest and strangest nations. Past, present, and future Brazil, with all its color, passion, and shifting realities, come together in a novel that is part SF, part history, part mystery, and entirely enthralling.

Three separate stories follow three main characters:

Edson is a self-made talent impresario one step up from the slums in a near future São Paulo of astonishing riches and poverty. A chance encounter draws Edson into the dangerous world of illegal quantum computing, but where can you run in a total surveillance society where every move, face, and centavo is constantly tracked?

Marcelina is an ambitious Rio TV producer looking for that big reality TV hit to make her name. When her hot idea leads her on the track of a disgraced World Cup soccer goalkeeper, she becomes enmeshed in an ancient conspiracy that threatens not just her life, but her very soul.

Father Luis is a Jesuit missionary sent into the maelstrom of 18th-century Brazil to locate and punish a rogue priest who has strayed beyond the articles of his faith and set up a vast empire in the hinterland. In the company of a French geographer and spy, what he finds in the backwaters of the Amazon tries both his faith and the nature of reality itself to the breaking point.

Three characters, three stories, three Brazils, all linked together across time, space, and reality in a hugely ambitious story that will challenge the way you think about everything.

BRASYL has been widely published in translation. It is published in the UK by Gollancz, and in the US by Pyr Books (covers below).

‘BRASYL is classic McDonald: a deep thinking, high-paced adventure story, exploring the quantum universe, combining sassy, believable characters with a captivating delight in language and storytelling. McDonald inhabits the Brazil – or rather, the Brazils – of this world and sweeps you along as no other writer in the field could manage.’ — Guardian

‘British author McDonald’s outstanding SF novel channels the vitality of South America’s largest country into an edgy, post-cyberpunk free-for-all… RIVER OF GODS (2004), set in near-future India, established McDonald as a leading writer of intelligent, multicultural SF, and here he captures Latin America’s mingled despair and hope. Chaotic, heartbreaking and joyous, this must-read teeters on the edge of melodrama, but somehow keeps its precarious balance.’ — Publishers Weekly

‘A beautiful story, one that cries out to be read again and again. McDonald’s light is still shining brightly, and considering the consistent quality of his titles, we say long may it burn.’ — SciFi Now

Cover Reveal: Ian R. MacLeod’s WAKE UP AND DREAM in Poland

Posted on Wednesday, December 10th, 2014

Above is the cover for the Polish edition of Ian R. MacLeod‘s WAKE UP AND DREAM. Due to be published by MAG in February 2015, the book also includes BREATHMOSS AND OTHER EXHALATIONS, a series of short stories. Here is the synopsis…

Winner of the Sidewise Award for Alternate History: Nineteen-forties Hollywood is dazzlingly transformed and recreated in this alternate history fantasy noir about former screen actor-turned-private eye Clark Gable who investigates a deadly conspiracy in a neo-fascist Tinsel Town

In a different 1940, with Europe in flames and an anti-Semitic America creeping towards fascism, movie making has been revolutionized: A wondrous technological advancement made possible by the discovery of the Bechmeir field now transmits actors’ emotions directly into the minds of the audience — effectively ending the acting career of a cynical loner named Clark Gable. No longer a handsome screen idol, Clark now makes his living as an unlicensed matrimonial private eye. When gorgeous April Lamotte contacts the low-rent gumshoe, he sees a golden opportunity to make some quick and easy cash. All he has to do is impersonate April’s wealthy,reclusive screenwriter husband, sign a contract for a new biopic, and then slip back into the shadows. But when someone tries to assassinate Clark and pass it off as a suicide, he realizes he’s gotten too deep into something deadly. And as more and more of the Hollywood elite start turning up dead, Clark must race to uncover the shocking truth behind the Bechmeir field’s origins, and expose a terrible secret that someone’s all too willing to kill for.

WAKE UP AND DREAM is published in eBook by Open Road Media and in print by PS Publishing.

Michael Cobley’s HUMANITY’S FIRE Series in Poland

Posted on Monday, October 20th, 2014

Here are the covers and details for the Polish editions of Michael Cobley‘s critically-acclaimed and best-selling Humanity’s Fire novels! Published in Poland by MAG, the series is published in the UK and US by Orbit Books. The first two novels – ZIARNA ZIEMI (SEEDS OF EARTH) and OSIEROCONE ŚWIATY (THE ORPHANED WORLDS) – are out now. The third novel, WSCHODZĄCE GWIAZDY (THE ASCENDANT STARS) is due to be published on October 31st, 2014.
Here is the English-language synopsis for the first novel in the series…

The first intelligent species to encounter mankind attacked without warning. Merciless. Relentless. Unstoppable. With little hope of halting the invasion, Earth’s last roll of the dice was to dispatch three colony ships, seeds of Earth, to different parts of the galaxy. The human race would live on… somewhere.

150 years later, the planet Darien hosts a thriving human settlement, which enjoys a peaceful relationship with an indigenous race, the scholarly Uvovo. But there are secrets buried on Darien’s forest moon. Secrets that go back to an apocalyptic battle fought between ancient races at the dawn of galactic civilisation. Unknown to its colonists Darien is about to become the focus of an intergalactic power struggle, where the true stakes are beyond their comprehension. And what choices will the Uvovo make when their true nature is revealed and the skies grow dark with the enemy?

Michael Cobley’s trilogy is also available as eBooks through the JABberwocky eBook Program, and also as audiobooks through Audible. Michael’s next book, a stand-alone novel set in the same universe as the Humanity’s Fire series, ANCESTRAL MACHINES, is due to be published in 2015 by Orbit Books in the UK and US. The trilogy is also published in Germany by Heyne Verlag, and SEEDS OF EARTH is published in France by Bragelonne, as L’OMBRE DE LA LONGUE NUIT.

Here are just a handful of the great reviews Cobley’s series has received…

‘A complex, finely detailed thriller-cum-space opera… SEEDS OF EARTH has everything: well-realised extraterrestrials, scheming artificial intelligences, set-piece space battles and bizarre technology from the dawn of the galaxy. The first book of the trilogy is also a convincing portrayal of political machinations and the plight of individuals caught up in events beyond their comprehension.’ — Guardian

‘Cobley’s debut, first published in the U.K. in 2009, is a well-constructed space opera with a sense of vast scope, populated with an array of beautifully differentiated intelligences both organic and artificial… this is a thick and satisfying 10-course meal of starchy pageantry, meaty characters, bitter losses, and sweet romance.’ — Publishers Weekly

‘Fast and exciting… an excellent middle book in the trilogy, expanding on SEEDS OF EARTH and setting everything in place for a thrilling conclusion.’ — Waterstone’s Book Quaterly on THE ORPHANED WORLDS

‘Cobley writes energetic space opera, rarely dallying with sentiment and mostly assaulting the reader with exotic locations and sudden skirmishes. There are joyous moments of invention but overall there’s too much going on… Fortunately, as the saga progresses, THE ORPHANED WORLDS begins knotting some of the threads together – it still feels like an over-shaken can of fizzy diet Banks…’ — SFX

‘THE ASCENDANT STARS is the culminating book in the Humanity’s Fire trilogy, a space opera of mind-bending depth and scope which sets complexly thought-out alien races and chilling cyborg armies against humans riven by competing political philosophies and agendas. A marvellously readable examination of people under extreme stress, a convincing depiction of startlingly alien aliens, and a mature political analysis often lacking in the genre. Cobley expertly juggles multiple plot-lines and brings them to thematically satisfying conclusions while providing the landmark trilogy with a thrilling finale.’ — Guardian

Cover Reveal: Ben Aaronovitch’s MOON OVER SOHO in Polish!

Posted on Tuesday, September 30th, 2014

We’re delighted to share with you the Polish cover for the second novel in Ben Aaronovitch‘s Peter Grant Series, MOON OVER SOHO! The novel – KSIĘŻYC NAD SOHO – was just published by MAG. Here’s the English-language synopsis for the novel…

Peter Grant is not just a lowly Detective Constable, he’s also apprenticed to the last wizard in Britain: policing will never be the same again!

I was my dad’s vinyl-wallah: I changed his records while he lounged around drinking tea, and that’s how I know my Argo from my Tempo. And it’s why, when Dr Walid called me to the morgue to listen to a corpse, I recognised the tune it was playing. Something violently supernatural had happened to the victim, strong enough to leave its imprint like a wax cylinder recording. Cyrus Wilkinson, part-time jazz saxophonist and full-time accountant, had apparently dropped dead of a heart attack just after finishing a gig in a Soho jazz club. He wasn’t the first.

No one was going to let me exhume corpses to see if they were playing my tune, so it was back to old-fashioned legwork, starting in Soho, the heart of the scene. I didn’t trust the lovely Simone, Cyrus’ ex-lover, professional jazz kitten and as inviting as a Rubens’ portrait, but I needed her help: there were monsters stalking Soho, creatures feeding off that special gift that separates the great musician from someone who can raise a decent tune. What they take is beauty. What they leave behind is sickness, failure and broken lives.

And as I hunted them, my investigation got tangled up in another story: a brilliant trumpet player, Richard ‘Lord’ Grant – my father – who managed to destroy his own career, twice. That’s the thing about policing: most of the time you’re doing it to maintain public order. Occasionally you’re doing it for justice. And maybe once in a career, you’re doing it for revenge.

We shared the Polish cover for RIVERS OF LONDON earlier this year.

The Peter Grant Series includes: RIVERS OF LONDON, MOON OVER SOHO, WHISPERS UNDERGROUND, BROKEN HOME, and the upcoming FOXGLOVE SUMMER, all published in the UK by Gollancz.

New International Covers for Ian Tregillis!

Posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2014

Ian Tregillis‘s Milkweed Triptych has been praised far and wide – by critics, contemporaries and almost everyone at his publisher! We are very pleased, therefore, to share with you information about and artwork for the growing number of international editions. All three novels in the trilogy – BITTER SEEDS, THE COLDEST WAR and NECESSARY EVIL – are out now in the UK, published by Orbit Books.

First, we have a complete set of German covers, published by Festa Verlag, an acquisition we announced back in February…

Next, here are the French, Polish and Latvian covers for BITTER SEEDS…

BITTER SEEDS is published in France by Eclipse, Poland by MAG, and Latvia by Ventspils Biblioteka. We’ll share the next covers for these territories as soon as they are unveiled.

And, finally, we have an Italian cover for Ian’s supernatural noir thriller, SOMETHING MORE THAN NIGHT, published by Asengard…

Ian’s next novel, THE MECHANICAL, is due out in the UK in November 2014, and will also be published by Orbit Books. It is the first in a new, exciting fantasy-steampunk series.

Zeno represents Ian Tregillis in the UK/Commonwealth and translation, on behalf of Kay McCauley at Aurous, Inc.