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Greetings:
And welcome to the latest issue of the Pyr® newsletter.
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Covers, Covers, Everywhere...
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 Because I can't talk about artwork enough, here are the covers of three forthcoming Pyr books. On the left is Chris Roberson's End of the Century, as envisioned by Dan Dos Santos. (Full illustration, sans text, is here.)
This is a tale of a young woman named Alice Fell, a teenage American
punker who has been having visions of the London Eye all her life (and before
there was such a thing), so follows her vision to the UK and falls into
a conspiracy that moves through secret societies (and shadowy
assailants) all the way back to the origins of the Holy Grail myth. One
part urban fantasy, one part secret history, there are also odd
parallels with a completely different Pyr book that was being written
at the same time. No I won't say which one. But I will say this is the
best thing Roberson has written thus far, and he's a damn good writer.
 Then over here on the right we have Stephan Martiniere's cover for Ian McDonald's Cyberabad Days, a collection of all the stories that have sprung out of the brilliantly-realized future India he crafted for River of Gods. There's
a Hugo winner, a Hugo nominee and a 25k original novella here, so
what's not to love, right? I don't think it's unfair to say that this
is going to be a talked-about book in 09.
 Then back on the left is a cover by Todd Lockwood - our first time working with Todd, who was wonderful - for a really interesting debut fantasy novel, Tom Lloyd's The Stormcaller: Book One of the Twilight Reign. This is a tale of Isak, a "white eye" - a person born with more charisma, more strength, and more anger
than average people, created by the gods to be leaders of men, but
limited by those gods as well, who is thrown from humble origins into
courtly politics (and courtly intrigues, and, of course, killer battles
replete with trolls and dragons). It's a really intricate, lush,
fully-realized fantasy world, of the grim and gritty variety, a sort of
Elric set loose in Middle Earth (as I believe Cheryl Morgan observed), that I am VERY excited to be releasing
in the States. Todd's full cover is a wrap-around too, so this is only
a taste.
More covers up our forthcoming books page too. And here's a handy Amazon list. Please also note that John Picacio's utterly fantastic cover for Fast Forward 2 is still being worked on, so as great as it is, it isn't final (and hence not reproduced here). |
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Speaking of Artists...
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 Monday I got my contributor's copies of Structura: The Art of Sparth,
a beautiful, 127 page book for which it was my honor and privilege to
have written the introduction. Nicolas "Sparth" Bouvier is an amazing
talent, working in both cover illustration and concept art, his work
familiar to anyone who has seen or played Assassin's Creed. His
style seems to fit comfortably at the midpoint of such greats as
Stephan Martiniere and John Harris, while remaining completely his own.
 Sparth did the cover of our own The Martian General's Daughter (which
you can see on page 120 of his book), though if you look at page 26 at
"Dune 1" you can see why I thought of him for Theodore Judson's book to
begin with. I love his work, and hope & expect it will grace
another Pyr cover coming your way again soon. Meanwhile, for more of
his amazing art, go buy his book. (If you want to buy our book too, that's cool.)
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Grand Master Moorcock
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 This past weekend saw Michael Moorcock honored as the the 25th Grandmaster of the Science Fiction Writers of America. John Picacio was there, at the ceremony in Austin, and had the honor of presenting a tribute speech to Mike. Picacio kindly reproduces his speech - which includes statements from Neil Gaiman, Chris Roberson, Jeff Vandermeer, Jeffrey Ford, China Miéville and Alan Moore, here on his blog.
As Picacio says, "Many great writers are measured by what came before them, but Mike's
greatness continues to be measured by what has come after him. I'm not
talking about his legendary Multiverse of characters and stories, but a
multiverse of writers, artists, and creators worldwide that have either
had their careers single-handedly launched by Mike, or been directly
influenced by him at a primal level. That goes for many of you in this
room, including myself, and I daresay, that includes some of tonight's
nominees and winners."
 Amen to that. I'd go so far as to say that, in reshaping fantasy, in spearheading the New Wave movement that forever altered the face of science fiction, in being a primary influence on Dungeons & Dragons and subsequently all of tabletop and computer gaming by extension, Mike has my vote as one of the most influential genre figures of the last 50 years, if not the most. Whether you want to dispute that or not, I'll tell you his influence on me is colossal. Congratulations, Mike.
(Meanwhile, John has posted more photos here.)
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Stranger in a Strange Empire
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 Pat's Fantasy Hotlist has a great interview with Kay Kenyon, also available at SFFWorld, as it was co-conducted by Patrick and SFFWorld's Rob H.
Bedford. I've used the phrase "a sophisticated retelling of Flash Gordon" a time or two to describe her The Entire and the Rose series, eliciting much protest from Kay, so I'm tickled to see that I am slowly warming her to my description. As witness her response to the question, "Were there any perceived conventions of the science fiction/fantasy genre which you wanted to twist or break when you set out to write The Entire and the Rose?"
"Well, first off, I wanted to celebrate some of the
traditions, and make the story an unabashed fantasy quest. Insofar as
the story has science fiction underpinnings, I did twist the usual
space opera protagonist, making Titus Quinn deeply divided in his
loyalties. Through the eyes of his daughter, Sydney, we get an
unsparing view of Titus. Her deeply ambivalent feelings for Titus
highlight his dilemmas and explore the question of how it's possible to
do good when all actions will create suffering. I wanted to turn a
Flash Gordon concept into the thinking reader's adventure novel. ...As
the story proceeded, I wanted to create fault lines in the reader's
assumptions about the Tarig overlords, who by tradition we want to
despise. A pervasive goal was to give each character their value as a
sentient being. This emphasis on character is also, in my view, a
departure from the classic adventure tale."
Of course, the comparisons with Hyperion, Ringworld, and other greats of epic science fiction are just as apt, and while Bright of the Sky shares some launching points with Flash Gordon, the parallels really drop away as the story grows in A World Too Near and the forthcoming City Without End. I'm still tickled though.
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That's it for this issue. Though I should point out that even more titles have been added to our forthcoming books page since last time. 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.
Happy Reading,
Lou Anders
Editorial Director, Pyr®
an imprint of Prometheus Books
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