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Happy New Year:
And welcome to to 2008 -- as well as the latest issue of the Pyr® newsletter. This issue, we're going to look back on some highlights from 2007, indulge in some author spotting on the web and in the wild, and shamelessly plug some of my own appearances. So here we go.
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The Best of 2007
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The Year End round-ups are rolling in, and I'm very happy to see that Pyr is well-represented on them.
First, the guys at SFFWorld have put up their annual Review of the Year in two parts.
They run through their opinions on the best fantasy books, best SF
books, best films and TV shows, best comics and games. Both Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself / Before They Are Hanged) and Ian McDonald (Brasyl) getting heavy mentions, as well as Kay Kenyon (Bright of the Sky) and my own Fast Forward 1 anthology.
 Patrick of Pat's Fantasy Hotlist has posted his 2007 Year-End Awards. As with SFFWorld, Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself /Before They Are Hanged)and Ian McDonald (Brasyl) are in the list, as is Joel Shepherd (Killswitch ).
Joe gets special mention as the "Most Improved Author Award" for the
way he ramps things up in book two of his First Law trilogy.
Bookgasm has just announced their 5 Best Sci-Fi Books of 2007. Ryun Patterson has chosen Ian McDonald's Brasylas the # 1 title of the year. He says, "Holy wow. Once I started reading Brasyl, I knew I would never see the world quite the same way again... Brasyl shows that Pyr has serious chops in acquiring new material in addition to picking up previously published gems. Read the review
if you want more, but my first recommendation is this: Close your
browser, put your computer to sleep, go to the bookstore, buy Brasyl, take off the dust jacket without reading it, and clear your calendar. You're in for a treat. Along with McDonald's River of Gods, it is easily one of the best books of the last 10 years."
Meanwhile, Joel Shepherd's two 2007 Cassandra Kresnov novels, Breakaway and Killswitch,tie for # 5. "There's not a lot about these books that I haven't already said in my pair of breathless reviews,
and while one probably would have made the list on its own merits,
having two of these tomes in the span of a year really takes the cake.
Pyr books has been knocking down doors in both publishing original
fiction and bringing foreign work to North America, and Shepherd's
Cassandra Kresnov series demonstrates the second half of this equation
wonderfully. Why weren't these books brought over sooner? How many
other authors and ideas are just waiting to get picked up, gussied up
with holy-cow-amazing cover art by the likes of Stephan Martiniere, and
unleashed upon the unsuspecting North American public? More, I hope."
John of SFSignal posts his 2007: A Year in Review - John's Take.
He lists his personal favorite reads from the year - not necessarily
all books published in 2007, but all books he read, liked, and rated a
4.5/5 or higher. Two Pyr books make the list: Martin Sketchley's The Liberty Gun and Mike Resnick's Ivory: A Legend of Past and Future.
Tomas Martin takes A New Year's Look at 2007's Science Fiction for the blog Futurismic. Listing his Top Five Books of 2007, we're pleased to see Joel Shepherd tying with himself in fifth place for Breakawayand Killswitch, Ian McDonald coming in at number three for Brasyl,and (thank you) a "special mention" for my own Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge.
 Elsewhere, the interestingly-titled The Breathing Corpse blog lists The Years Best Reads - Science Fiction. Mike Resnick's Starship: Pirate and New Dreams for Old both make the list with the comments that, "I read a bunch of Mike Resnick this year but these are the best. Starship: Mercenary is out now and I'll be reading it soon. Resnick is now one of my favorite writers." Meanwhile, their 2008's Books I Can't Wait to Read includes several Resnick titles as well, including the forthcoming Stalking the Vampire: A Fable of Tonight.
And, of course, last but far from least, there's still Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year 2007. Our very own Bright of the Skywas selected as one of only seven books in the SF&F category.
PW
says, "Deft prose, high-stakes suspense and skilled, thorough world
building lift this first in a new far-future SF series involving a
mishap in interstellar space that sends a family into a parallel
universe." Remember, you can read an excerpt from Bright of the Sky here.
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Whatever
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December saw noted SF author and blogger John Scalzi offering his blog, Whatever, as a forum for a succession of guest bloggers. Two Pyr writers were included, David Louis Edelman, with "The Bourne Paranoia," with an analysis of what the three Jason Bourne films might say about Americans, James Bond, and politics; and Chris Roberson with his essay "Mark Gruenwald, the father of modern superhero comics." Both are well worth checking out.
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Mr Edelman Goes to Washington
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 David Louis Edelman ( Infoquake) will be speaking/reading at the Library of Congress on February 21st as part of their "What If... Science Fiction and Fantasy Forums." He'll be reading a new short story as well as, time-permitting, an excerpt from the forthcoming MultiReal. Dave says he plans to use the occasion to launch a revamped website too. |
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My Mind to Your Mind
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SF Signal has launched a new feature called "Mind Meld" - modeled on the roundtable discussions that the now-defunct (but dear to my heart) website Meme Therapy used to host. They take on question, and then ask a half-dozen or so industry professionals (authors, editors, and critics/bloggers) for their couple-paragraphs opinion. I've been honored to be involved in "How has the Internet impacted book selling?" and "If the SF/F Community Ran Hollywood..." Both features are well-worth checking out, if not for my own humble opinions, then for those by such luminaries as Matthew Jarpe, Tobias Buckell, Andrew Wheeler, David Louis Edelman, Chris Roberson, Paul Levinson, Angela @ SciFiChick, John C. Wright, and Jayme Lynn Blaschke. I love this feature and wish it a long net-life!
Meanwhile, I was also thrilled to be interviewed last week on Rick Kleffel's excellent podcast, The Agony Column.The podcast is available via iTunes or direct from this RSS feed. |
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That's it for this issue. As ever, be sure to see the coupon at the bottom of this newsletter, and please feel free to check out our entire catalog and drop by our blog.
Have a Happy New Year,
Lou Anders
Editorial Director, Pyr®
an imprint of Prometheus Books
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