Review: QUEEN DEMON by Martha Wells

Aug 222025
 

Locus: Witch King and now Queen Demon are the mature, accomplished work of a writer at the peak of their powers, one whose interest in consequences, power, responsibility, and rebuilding in the wake of destruction – personal, social, societal, epochal – is here both given breadth and depth and sharpened to a series of exquisite points.

This is a fantastic novel, set in a fascinating world with truly compelling characters. It is shot through with grief, with the reverberations of destruction and the aftermaths of trauma: While the past timeline gives us emotional focus on the characters’ griefs, immediate traumas, and desperate choices, the present makes plain the extent of the Hierarchs’ destruction of the rest of the world, the scars in the landscape, in societies, in the vanishing of entire cultures.

But while Wells explores grief, survival, and persistence after mass destruction, she’s also using, in part, the classic structure and furniture of epic fantasy: the quest, the object of power, the threat to the whole of the world. Yet her argument is not, unlike many epic fantasies, that evil is a force that is extrinsic to people, a  corruption that arises separate from their choices. The destructive selfishness that makes other people pay the price for your power, that produces an ideology of supremacy and enacts it in violence, is not a single choice but a whole series of choices, personal choices but also social choices of what to build and what to tear down, what to support, and when. A critical orientation towards the genre’s furniture is present throughout: Before anything else, this is a novel, and Wells is an author, engaged in thinking deeply about the world we live in, and the world she’s made.

Queen Demon is a powerful work of art. I’ll be thinking about it for a long time to come.

— Liz Bourke

Deal: Jim Butcher

Aug 112025
 

Jim Butcher sold a new Dresden Files novella which will chronologically follow the forthcoming TWELVE MONTHS (PRH/Ace, January 2026) and will be released later in 2026. Head of Acquisitions at Podium Kate Runde acquired World English rights in a deal negotiated via Jennifer Jackson.

2025 Dragon Award finalists have been announced!

Aug 082025
 

We are thrilled to see these in the finalists for the 2025 Dragon Awards!

Best Science Fiction Novel

The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series, TV or Internet

Murderbot, Apple TV+ (based on The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells)

Review: THE FOLDED SKY by Elizabeth Bear

Aug 062025
 

The cover of The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear featuring a dramatic outerspace scene.Reactor: Holy shit, what a book.

I’ve been waiting with unalloyed anticipation for Elizabeth Bear’s next White Space novel since 2020’s Machine. That novel is The Folded Sky. Part thriller, part murder mystery, and part Big Ideas Space Opera Adventure, it’s entirely worth the wait.

If there’s a single through-line that unites the White Space books, it’s that they’re about competent people who are good at their jobs, who encounter serious problems in the course of their professional lives. Those problems have significant consequences and ramifications, personal and otherwise, and compassion, co-operation, and thoughtfulness are usually as key to solving them as quick reflexes, daring, and resolve. They’re fundamentally adult books, inhabiting and inhabited by all the complexities of adult life, that display—and, indeed, argue for—a moral view of the world that I can best describe as a kind of pragmatic hopefulness.

(Also the protagonists to date have all been queer women who can kick professional ass and take names.)

The Folded Sky is part mystery novel and part action thriller. (Some of its mysteries are worldbuilding mysteries. The Baomind is a fantastic piece of worldbuilding/character.) The mysteries are peeled back in layers as the action mounts with ever-increasing tension. Explosive peril gives rise to some truly excellent action sequences, as matters mount from crisis to… worse. Sunya doesn’t believe that she’s brave. But when push comes to shove, she’ll leap into the terrifying void to save her loved ones—and even people she doesn’t love, for that matter.

The Folded Sky is a novel I love and admire in about equal proportion. Once I started reading it, I found it the next best thing to impossible to put down. I’m so happy that it exists. I really hope that Bear writes more.

SYSTEM COLLAPSE by Martha Wells Wins Seiun Award!

Aug 012025
 

Many congratulations to DMLA author, Martha Wells, as SYSTEM COLLAPSE has been named a winner in the 2025 Seiun Award! The Seiun Award is a Japanese speculative fiction award given each year for the best science fiction works and achievements. We are honored to see Wells’s book win “Best Translated Long Story” category!

cover for the Japanese edition of System Collapse by Martha Wells featuring MurderbotBEST TRANSLATED LONG STORY

“System Collapse”
by Martha Wells
translated by Naoya Nakahara
(TOKYO SOGENSHA Co.,Ltd.)

July Translation Deals

Jul 312025
 

Czech rights to Katherine Addison’s THE WITNESS FOR THE DEAD, to Dobrovsky, by Milena Kaplarevic at Prava I Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.

French rights to Robert Jackson Bennett’s The Founders series, omnibus edition, to Albin Michel, by Sarah Dray at Anna Jarota Agency on behalf of Katie Shea for Cameron McClure.

French rights to Annika Marin’s BREAKING THE BILLIONAIRE’S RULES, to BMR, by Sarah Dray at Anna Jarota Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.

French rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ QUEEN DEMON, the second book in The Rising World, to L’Atalante, by Sarah Dray at Anna Jarota Agency in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

French rights to Nebula Award finalist Kerstin Hall’s ASUNDER, to Eilean Books, by Sarah Dray at Anna Jarota Agency in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Greek rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ ALL SYSTEMS RED and ARTIFICIAL CONDITION, the first and second books in The Murderbot Diaries, to Fantastikos Kosmos, by Milena Kaplarević at Prava i prevodi in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

Greek rights Robert McCammon’s SWAN SONG, to Klidarithmos, by Milena Kaplarevic at Prava I Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.

Hungarian rights to Gretchen Powell Fox’s SMOKE AND SCAR and SPLINTERED KINGDOM, to Konyvmolykepzo, by Milena Kaplarevic at Prava I Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier.

Polish rights to LJ Andrews’ Ever Seas series, to KDW, in a five-book deal, at auction, by Prava I Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier.

Romanian rights to LJ Andrews’ THE EVER KING and THE EVER QUEEN, to Litera, by Milena Kaplarevic at Prava I Prevodi, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier.

Spanish rights to LJ Andrews’ The Ever Seas series, to Atico de los Libros, in a three-book deal, by Elena Rodriguez at International Editors & Yanez, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier.

Spanish audio rights to LJ Andrews’ The Ever Seas series, to Roseann Lake at Recorded Books, in a three-book deal, by Elena Rodriguez at International Editors & Yanez, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier.

June Subsidiary Rights Deals

Jun 302025
 

a pair of black ear budsAudio rights to Athena Giles’ WAVES TAKE YOUR BONES, to Emily Loughran at Tantor Media, by Katie Shea Boutillier (world English).

Audio rights to P.S.C. Willis’ CRYING OUT FOR MAGIC, to Emily Loughran at Tantor Media, by Katie Shea Boutillier (world English).

Audio rights to Nicole Maggi’s A MURDER IN ZION and LOST IN YELLOWSTONE, to Emily Loughran at Tantor Media, in a two-book deal, by Katie Shea Boutillier for Anne Tibbets (World English).

Audio rights to Robert McCammon’s Matthew Corbett series, to Anji Cornette at Graphic Audio, in a multi-book deal, by Katie Shea Boutillier for Cameron McClure.

Audio rights to Melissa K Roehrich’s RAIN OF SHADOWS AND ENDINGS, STORM OF SECRETS AND SORROW and TEMPEST OF WRATH AND VENGEANCE, books 1-3 of the Legacy series,  to Anji Cornette at GraphicAudio, in a very nice deal, by Katie Shea Boutillier (NA).

Martha Wells renewed audio rights on novellas ALL SYSTEMS RED and ARTIFICIAL CONDITION, the first two books in the New York Times bestselling Murderbot Diaries, now an Apple+ series. Brian Sweany at Recorded Books secured the rights in a pre-empt in a major deal negotiated by Jennifer Jackson and Michael Curry.

NYT’s The Best TV Shows of 2025, So Far

Jun 272025
 

the cover of Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red by Martha Wells featuring the Apple+ logoSo excited and thrilled to see Murderbot listed on the New York Times Best TV Shows of 2025 So Far!!!

~In this comic sci-fi thriller, based on the novel “All Systems Red” by Martha Wells, Alexander Skarsgard plays a jaded robot that is charged with protecting a crunchy space commune but would rather just watch pulpy soaps.

“The real killer app of the story, adapted by Chris and Paul Weitz, is the snarky worldview of the artificial life form at its center,” Poniewozik writes. “Skarsgard gives a lively reading to the copious voice-over, but just as important is his physical performance, which radiates casual power and agitated wariness. Murderbot is odd, edgy, unmistakably alien, yet its complaint is also crankily familiar. It just wants to be left in peace to binge its programs, like Chance the Gardener if he had guns in his arms.”

THE FOLDED SKY by Elizabeth Bear

Jun 172025
 

The cover of The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear featuring a dramatic outerspace scene.Information doesn’t want to be free. Information wants to vanish without a trace.

Sunya Song’s job is to stop that from happening.

She’s an archinformist: a specialist historian whose job usually involves sitting at a console at her university job near the Galactic Core, sorting ancient documents and restoring corrupted files.

But now, the research opportunity of a lifetime has sent her—along with her teenage children and alien wife—halfway across the galaxy to preserve the data and aid in the retrieval of the archaeological find of the century: an ancient alien artificial intelligence called Baomind. As vast as a stellar system, the Baomind orbits a dying red giant, and the star’s time has nearly ended.

The isolated research station and its small fleet of ships come under attack by fanatic Freeport pirates who believe that artificial intelligence is an abomination that must be destroyed, putting the lives of Sunya and her family at risk.

Tens of thousands of lightyears from home, isolated from all help, Sunya is the only one who can save them all.

Jo Ann Brown’s SAVING HER AMISH BABY is a New York Times Bestseller!

Jun 122025
 

cover for Saving Her Amish Baby with an Amish woman holding a baby in a field of yellow flowersHUGE congratulations to Jo Ann Brown as SAVING HER AMISH BABY comes in as #12 on the New York Times mass market bestseller list!

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