Booklist: Lucas paints an alarmingly accurate picture of a family held hostage. While at times difficult to read, Lina’s journey is ultimately one of hope. Readers will be charmed by Lina and Noah, particularly fans of Olivia Dade’s Spoiler Alert (2020), which has a similarly complex love story.
New York Times bestselling author Tamysn Muir will expand her Locked Tomb series with an additional volume, NONA THE NINTH.
Continuing the Locked Tomb series, which began with 2019’s Gideon the Ninth and followed with 2020’s Harrow the Ninth, the new book will publish in Fall 2022, with Alecto the Ninth to follow in Fall 2023. Tordotcom Publishing, an imprint of Macmillan under Tom Doherty Associates, acquired English language rights in a six-figure deal with Jennifer Jackson.
The Times: Nikolai South is a policeman working for StaSec, the state security organ of the Caspian Republic. Covering roughly the territory of present-day Azerbaijan, the republic is a last, lonely redoubt of undigitised humanity, but it’s hardly the beacon of freedom its founders intended. The novel opens with South’s inspection of two suicides. The young, especially, are killing themselves in an effort to transfer their consciousnesses out of the half-starved, authoritarian republic and into the digital Ah! Sea (a too-good-to-be-true emerald cyber-ocean dotted with floating castles).
South is tasked with minding a visitor from beyond the republic’s borders — a world transformed by artificial intelligence, where more than half of humanity lives in cyberspace. His visitor, an AI in a cloned body, is not even strictly human. And, as if South’s chalice were not poisoned enough already, the visitor is the spitting image of his wife, dead these 20 years.
One misstep will kill him, as South tries to protect and understand his charge, ducking and diving all the while through internal struggles within StaSec and its longstanding rivalry with ParSec, the security organ of the totalitarian New Humanist Party.
Neil Sharpson’s debut is adapted from his stage play, The Caspian Sea. It mixes Cold War nostalgia with smart thinking about artificial intelligence and spiritual identity. There’s many a wry nod to the writings of Christian anarchist Jacques Ellul, but while the homework’s impressive, what really matters is South’s lugubrious, Smileyesque odyssey through present bread queues and past disappointments.
Congratulations to Premee Mohamed on her nomination to the 2021 British Fantasy Awards Shortlist!
Best Horror Novel (The August Derleth Award)
Beneath the Rising, Premee Mohamed (Rebellion)
Bookpage: A stunning and heart-clenching novel that represents the best of what both the horror and thriller genres have to offer…. A perfect fit for fans of Stephen King and modern true crime classics like Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Come With Me both awes and terrifies from beginning to end.
Audio rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’s EMILIE AND THE HOLLOW WORLD and EMILIE AND THE SKY WORLD, to Brian Sweany at Recorded Books, by Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.
Bulgarian rights to British Fantasy Award finalist Cassandra Khaw’s NOTHING BUT BLACKENED TEETH, to Ciela Norma, by Nada Popovic at Prava i prevodi in association with Michael Curry.
German rights to New York Times Bestselling author Jim Butcher’s and Evil Hat LLC’s Dresden Files RPG Accelerated to Dominik Pielarski at Polyarchische Bruderschaft der Schwarzen Bibliothek by Jennifer Jackson.
German rights to New York Times bestselling author Tamsyn Muir’s HARROW THE NINTH, the second book in the Locked Tomb series, to Heyne, by Sarah Knofius at the Thomas Schlueck Agency in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.
Portuguese rights to New York Times bestselling author Anne Bishop’s THE QUEEN’S WEAPONS, the latest book in her Black Jewels series, to Saída de Emergência, by Amaiur Fernández at International Editors’ Co. in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.
Russian rights to Katherine Addison’s THE GOBLIN EMPEROR and THE WITNESS FOR THE DEAD, to AST, by Igor Korzhenevski at Alexander Korzhenevski Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.
Spanish rights to Nnedi Okorafor’s short story SACRED FIRE, to Crononauta, by Amaiur Fernanadez at International Editors, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Donald Maass.
Congratulations to C.L. Polk for being chosen as a 2021 World Fantasy Awards Finalist!
Best Novel
The Midnight Bargain, C.L. Polk (Erewhon/Orbit UK)
Kirkus: A 16-year-old Lipan Apache girl from Texas and a cottonmouth person from the spirit world connect when both need help.
When Nina was 9, her Great-Great-Grandmother Rosita told her a story in Spanish and Lipan Apache. Using dictionaries to painstakingly make sense of the garbled transcription app results, Nina uncovers a mysterious story about Rosita’s sighting of a fish girl in her well, long after the joined era when animal people still lived on Earth. Nina uploads her musings about her family’s stories to the St0ryte11er video platform. In the Reflecting World, innocent Oli, a cottonmouth snake person, reluctantly leaves home, settling down and befriending ancient toad Ami, two coyote sisters, and a hawk. Animal people can shift between their true and false (humanoid) forms and are able to visit Earth; Nina’s and Oli’s lives intertwine when he and his friends travel to Texas seeking help after learning that Ami is dying because the earthly population of his toad species faces extinction due to human environmental destruction. They in turn help Nina with the suspicious man lurking near her Grandma’s home, an impending tornado, and her Grandma’s unexplained illness whenever she leaves her land. Little Badger (Lipan Apache) alternates between two distinct, well-realized voices—Nina’s third-person and Oli’s first-person perspectives—highlighting critical issues of language revitalization and climate change. The story leads readers through two richly constructed worlds using a style that evokes the timeless feeling of listening to traditional oral storytelling. A coming-of-age story that beautifully combines tradition and technology for modern audiences
