Anne Bishop featured in Paste Magazine!

Apr 122024
 

Paste Magazine: The blending of speculative fiction with romance is an old concept. One could argue that its roots lie in Gothic fiction, where innocent maidens ran through the darkened corridors of crumbling castles, and the monsters within were thinly veiled metaphors for rampant desire. What are fairy tales if not a blending of the fantastical and romantic? The modern and sturdier blending of the two could be found in ’90s fantasy classics like Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels saga, a high-fantasy series about a prophesized ruler who will wield unstoppable power over a matriarchal society. Bishop’s series, which released its 12th installment last year, has long been celebrated for its dark sensuality and focus on female characters in a genre that was and is still pretty male-dominant. These books weren’t necessarily marketed as romance-focused and were shelved as fantasy but they remain crucial foundations of the romantasy genre and paved the way for what followed.

Libby Book Awards

Apr 092024
 

The Libby Book Awards announced their first annual winners across 17 categories. Winners were chosen by a panel of 1700 librarians worldwide! Congratulations to DMLA author, Martha Wells, for winning in the Science Fiction category!

  • System Collapse by Martha Wells

2024 Hugo Awards Finalists!

Apr 052024
 

The finalists for the 2024 Hugo Awards have been announced! Congratulations to the following DMLA authors!

BEST NOVEL

  • The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom)
  • Witch King by Martha Wells (Tordotcom)

BEST NOVELETTE

  • “Ivy, Angelica, Bay” by C.L. Polk (Tor.com 8 December 2023)

Further congratulations to Premee Mohamed and Mur Lafferty for work on Escape Pod, and to Mia Tsai for work on GigaNotoSaurus! All received acknowledgements under BEST SEMIPROZINE.

System Collapse by Martha Wells received enough votes to qualify for BEST NOVEL on the final ballot, but she declined the nomination.

FIRST CONTACT (Eclipsed Evolution: Phase 1) by Kim Harrison

Apr 022024
 

In the wake of the solar eclipse, a portal between our world and a paranormal realm opens—and a scientist’s life will never be the same, in this thrilling serialized adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of The Hollows.

Dr. Renee Caisson knows there are worse things than an attractive man in uniform drafting her into a secret government project—especially when Major Jackson makes it clear that he isn’t bothered by her questionable past. But when her labs come back with decidedly odd results, the Major is forced to come clean over who the government is actually studying. Renee is shocked to learn her subjects are demonic-looking beings who call themselves “Neighbors”—refugees from a dying world, who arrived during the nation-wide solar eclipse.

The Neighbors’ technology is unlike anything Renee’s ever encountered. At first, she dismisses an injury that inexplicably heals as “just one of those things”. And surely August, the most gregarious Neighbor, begins to speak English overnight because of the team linguist’s skills?

Not until August begins evolving in real time to withstand Earth’s brighter, dryer atmosphere does she admit that the Neighbors’ “tech” feels less like science and more like magic—the same magic that brought them here in the first place, and the same they’re trying to rekindle with a mysterious labyrinth in order to return home and save their world.

At least, that’s what August claims they came for…

March Translation Deals

Mar 312024
 

Dutch rights to New York Times bestselling author Martha Wells’ ALL SYSTEMS RED, ARTIFICIAL CONDITION, ROGUE PROTOCOL, and EXIT STRATEGY, the first four books in The Murderbot Diaries series, to De Fontein, by Vere Bank at Sebes & Bisseling in association with Michael Curry for Jennifer Jackson.

French audio rights to LJ Andrews’s THE EVER KING, to Noa Rosen at Theleme, at auction, by Sarah Dray at Anna Jarota Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier.

Italian rights to Kate Heartfield’s THE TAPESTRY OF TIME, to Marco Rana at Edizioni E/O, by Stefania Fietta at Donzelli Fietta, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier at Donald Maass Literary Agency for Jennie Goloboy.

Spanish rights to Nebula Award winner Premee Mohamed’s THE BUTCHER OF THE FOREST, to Duermevela, by Amaiur Fernández at International Editors Co. in association with Michael Curry.

Turkish rights to LJ Andrews’s Broken Kingdoms series and Ever Seas series, to Juno Kitap, in a multi-book deal, at auction, by Merve Ongen at Anatolialit Agency, on behalf of Katie Shea Boutillier.

Review: THREE KINDS OF LUCKY by Kim Harrison

Mar 282024
 

Mystery and Suspense Magazine: Kim Harrison is best known as one of the mainstays of the modern urban fantasy scene. Three Kinds of Lucky is only going to cement that reputation further, as she gets this new series started with a bang!

There’s no shortage of books in the urban fantasy genre, and it’s such a delight to come across really original worlds, especially when they’re accompanied by a nice twisty plot and characters you really want to spend time with. There’s no shortage of surprises, which kept me glued to the page and reading much too late into the night as I waited to find out what would happen next.

Though it’s the first in the series, Three Kinds of Lucky wraps up nicely – while still leaving plenty of ground to cover with the next few books in the series. I appreciate a book that works as a read on its own, while getting me ready to see where the author takes the world next – and I’ll be there when Kim Harrison is ready to show us what that might entail.

2023 Nebula Award Nominees

Mar 202024
 

Congratulations to our DMLA authors who have been nominated for a 2023 Nebula Award!

Nebula Award for Novel

  • The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom)
  • Witch King, Martha Wells (Tordotcom)

Nebula Award for Short Story

  • “Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200“, R.S.A Garcia (Uncanny 7-8/23)

“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.”

Review: EXORDIA by Seth Dickinson in the New York Times

Mar 152024
 

New York Times: EXORDIA (Tordotcom, 532 pp., $29.99) is Seth Dickinson’s fourth novel and first work of science fiction, following three installments of the excellent Baru Cormorant fantasy series, and it revisits many of those novels’ themes and structures: empire, war and sacrifice.

Set in 2013, “Exordia” is a first-contact story: Anna, a Kurdish survivor of genocide who is fostered in the United States, meets a many-headed snake alien named Ssrin in Central Park. Anna and Ssrin become friends and roommates; Ssrin explains that she comes from a galaxy-conquering empire called the Exordia, and needs Anna’s help to rebel against it.

Anna, Dickinson writes, “is all in, the way only a woman chased out of her home by sarin gas can be all in. Her adult life began at age 7, with an act of alien intrusion, with the roar of Saddam’s helicopters. This is nothing new to her. She’s ready to risk it all, because no part of her life since that first alien invasion has felt real.”

There is a version of this book that might be more palatable to a broad readership: a version in which a traumatized war orphan’s friendship with a warmongering alien heals and redeems them both. This is very decisively not that book. It deliberately withholds what its first three chapters (and dust jacket) seem to promise: a “narratively complete” story centering Anna and Ssrin. Instead, “Exordia” compounds, enlarges and repeats their wounds — the ones inflicted on them, and the ones they inflict on the world and each other — as Dickinson uses a host of other characters to scrutinize ethics, fractal mathematics, theoretical physics and the military-industrial complexes of several nations. The result is agonizing and mesmerizing, a devastating and extraordinary achievement, as well as dizzyingly unsatisfying, given where it ends.

The publisher of “Exordia” claims it is a stand-alone novel. This is baffling. If you stop a play after its first act, it does not become a one-act play. “Exordia” is structured and paced like Book 1 of a series; Dickinson has stated in interviews that a sequel is “absolutely” intended. The word “Exordia” itself — the plural of “exordium” — suggests beginnings and introductions, a throat-clearing before the main work, and I sincerely hope Dickinson gets the opportunity to continue it.

Review: THREE KINDS OF LUCKY by Kim Harrison

Mar 082024
 

Bookpage: Kim Harrison’s THREE KINDS OF LUCKY is an immediately compelling urban fantasy with an intricate magic system and complex world. In THREE KINDS OF LUCKY by Kim Harrison, author of the bestselling Hollows series, magic has its own specialized sanitation service: Sweepers, who pick up a byproduct of magic called dross. If left unattended, dross can attract shadow, a dangerous, somewhat intelligent life-form that can easily kill mages, sweepers and normal humans alike. THREE KINDS OF LUCKY will immediately pull readers in with its fast pace and efficient storytelling; the entirety of its nearly city-shattering events all happen within a few days…  the mechanically intricate magic system and complex world Harrison has created makes this series opener well worth the read.

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