The shortlist for the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction has been announced! We’re excited to share that three of our DMLA authors have been listed for their following works!
Shelf Awareness: Eden Robins (When Franny Stands Up) has written a smashingly good second novel, an utterly imaginative, genre-defying masterpiece: Remember You Will Die. Her blunt title is an accurate barometer that the end is nigh. In fact, the dead populate most of these pages. Their stories are revealed predominantly through obituaries that range from deeply soulful to delightfully guffaw-inducing. In between are occasional newspaper articles, lists, notes, word etymologies, and other ephemera that highlight death. Loosely, cleverly bound together, the narrative that emerges spotlights a singular mother/daughter relationship that will require 300 years of background to understand… (full review)
Audio rights to Robert McCammon’s LEVIATHAN to Louise Quayle at Audible, by Katie Shea Boutillier, for Cameron McClure.
Abridged/dramatic audio rights to New York Times bestseller Jim Butcher’s STORM FRONT and three additional titles in the Dresden Files series, to Anji Cornette at Graphic Audio by Jennifer Jackson and Michael Curry.
German rights to Ronald Malfi’s SMALL TOWN HORROR, for a limited special edition, to Buchheim Verlag, by Sarah Knofius at Thomas Schlueck Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.
Polish rights to LJ Andrews’s THE EVER KING and THE EVER QUEEN, to Artbooks, in a two-book deal, by Milena Kaplarevic at Prava I Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier.
Ukrainian rights to Robert Jackson Bennett’s THE DIVINE CITIES SERIES, to Apriori, in a three-book deal, by Nada Popovic at Prava I Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.
Ukrainian rights to Nommo Award finalist Kerstin Hall’s ASUNDER, to Zhorzh, by Milena Kaplarević at Prava i Prevodi in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.
Publishers Weekly: The warmhearted and immersive second sci-fi adventure in Divya’s Alloy Era series (after Meru) follows teen best friends as they circumnavigate a post–climate change Earth. Akshaya grew up in deep-space exile after her parents gave up their place on Earth to be together. Genetically engineered to thrive on Meru, the planet home her parents have fought so hard for, Akshaya dreams instead of adventures back on Earth. She and her mother strike a deal: if Akshaya and her friend Somya can complete the Anthro Challenge, a journey around the globe using only human-era technology, Jayanthi must give her the choice to stay on Earth. As she and Somya make new friends and battle mounting obstacles, including Akshaya’s own precarious health, Akshaya begins to question everything she thought she wanted. Informed by the author’s experiences working in science and engineering, and struggles with long-Covid-induced chronic fatigue syndrome, the narrative explores questions of belonging and friendship with a clear-eyed precision, bringing to mind the heartfelt emotion of Becky Chambers’s Wayfarers series and the worldbuilding and deep ethical questions of The Terraformers by Analee Newitz. Teen and adult readers alike will easily fall in love with Akshaya and Somya. Agent: Cameron McClure, Donald Maass Agency. (Aug.)
This past weekend the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) announced the 59th Annual Nebula Awards® winners, and we’re excited to share that Vajra Chandrasekera and RSA Garcia were recognized in these categories!
Nebula Award for Novel
Nebula Award for Short Story
Author Martha Wells has graciously declined her nomination as a novel finalist this year for System Collapse published by Tordotcom. In 2022, Wells also declined a nomination for novella and felt that the Murderbot Diaries series has already received incredible praise from her industry peers and wanted to open the floor to highlight other works within the community.
Maybe this is a ghost story…
Andrew Larimer has left his past behind. Rising up the ranks in a New York law firm, and with a heavily pregnant wife, he is settling into a new life far from Kingsport, the town in which he grew up. But when he receives a late-night phone call from an old friend, he has no choice but to return home.
Coming home means returning to his late father’s house, which has seen better days. It means lying to his wife. But it also means reuniting with his friends: Eric, now the town’s deputy sheriff; Dale, a real-estate mogul living in the shadow of a failed career; his childhood sweetheart Tig who never could escape town; and poor Meach, whose ravings about a curse upon the group have driven him to drugs and alcohol.
Together, the five friends will have to confront the memories—and the horror—of a night, years ago, that changed everything for them.
Because Andrew and his friends have a secret. A thing they have kept to themselves for twenty years. Something no one else should know. But the past is not dead, and Kingsport is a town with secrets of its own.
One dark secret…
One small-town horror…
Reactor: Those Beyond the Wall, Micaiah Johnson’s second novel, can be read as a standalone, or you can read it as a followup that’s something of a mirror image to The Space Between Worlds, her 2020 debut. Space was set mostly inside the walls of Wiley City, where an unlikely survivor named Cara found an unusual way to make a life among the privileged. Beyond is set in the nearby desert community of Ashtown, under the sometimes-deadly glare of the sun. That sun is far from the only deadly thing in Ashtown.
Both places are changed by a technological innovation that allows people to move between worlds. Each person exists, or existed, in every world, though their lives are different—sometimes more different, sometimes less. There are catches, because there are always catches. It’s not an easy experience, seeing the other yous that might have been.
This book isn’t about technology, though. (Johnson is very aware of the fine line between magic and science.) It’s about revolution, and it’s about Mr. Scales, one of the many runners who serve Nik Nik, the emperor of Ashtown. Technically, Scales is a mechanic, but like her fellows, she’s also a killer. She has been other things, and lived other lives, but at this moment, in this life, everything goes to hell when she watches a friend die horribly. There is no killer. Helene X just folds in on herself, bones breaking and reversing, as Scales tries to hold her together.
The threat that causes these terrible deaths—because of course there are more—affects primarily people in Wiley, but trouble in Wiley quickly becomes trouble for Ashtown. In the city, a scientist named Adam Bosch understands better than most what is happening. When Scales and her colleagues bring him to their emperor, a whole host of events are set in motion.
The question of who is killing the mangled dead is less of an issue than the matter of how to stop it. This is the catalyst for Johnson’s story, but its engine, its heart, is Scales, who gradually turns her attention to the pre-existing, systemic issues that affect everyone in Ashtown. The people of this world need to put a wall between themselves and the entitled, brazen enemy that would destroy them. But there is an existing wall that isn’t doing Ashtowners any good.
Czech rights to Kel Kade’s LEGENDS OF AHN and KINGDOMS AND CHAOS, to Fantom Print, in a two-book deal, by Milena Kaplarevic at Prava I Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.
Polish rights to Robert McCammon’s MISTER SLAUGHTER, to Vesper, by Milena Kaplarevic at Prava I Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.
Portuguese (Brazil) rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ ARTIFICIAL CONDITION, ROGUE PROTOCOL, and EXIT STRATEGY, the third, fourth, and fifth books in The Murderbot Diaries series, to Editora Aleph, by Cristina Purchio at International Editors’ Co. in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.
Ukrainian rights to Hugo Award finalist Vajra Chandrasekera’s THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS and RAKESFALL, to Zhorzh, by Milena Kaplarević at Prava i prevodi in association with Michael Curry.
New York Times Book Review: “The Tainted Cup” is a thoroughly satisfying delight from start to finish. If you, like me, enjoy an animating nonsexual relationship between a brilliant, eccentric woman and a devoted and highly competent man, this book is a cornucopia. Bennett pulls off his own feat of engineering in splicing genres together so effectively, marrying the imaginative abundance of a fantasy world to the structure, pace and character dynamics of detective fiction.