Locus, March 2013

by Locus Publications

  ‘‘I really love the second book, Camera Obscura. I couldn’t write the same book again, so that’s when it became the whole noir murder mystery in a steampunk sort of setting. The third one, The Great Game, was a challenge, though I think it’s the slickest one, the most easily readable. The books stand on their own as a trilogy fairly well: there’s an arc. They’re coming out now in an omnibus edition. It’s like a thousand pages long, and I thought, ‘Wow! I wrote a thousand pages with giant lizards from outer space.’

  ‘‘I was at an Israeli convention, and this writer was there – I grew up reading her books, and it was a fan-boy moment when we were introduced. She said, ‘What is your book about?’ I said, ‘Um, um…. It’s got giant lizards from outer space, and zeppelins, and Jules Verne.’ She said, Oh,’ and slowly sort of edged away. I’m the worst person for telling what a book is about.

  ‘‘I could say, ‘It’s a mythic retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice story.’ Still, you go back to the giant lizards from outer space. I think that’s the fun part of steampunk. The lizards I completely stole from Paul Di Filippo. I said, ‘Paul, I’m gonna do Queen Victoria and the giant lizards. Do you mind?’ He was like, ‘No, go ahead.’ A lot of the material was taken from classic steampunk works. The references are there for anyone who wants them, but it still should work without recognizing any of them.

  ‘‘I have an odd trajectory for an Israeli writer, because Israeli writers are only allowed to write about a few things. Holocaust novels and WWII novels are regarded as two different things. Then there’s the kibbutz novel, which I really feel like I should do one day – the Great Kibbutz Novel. And obviously terrorism. I’ve already done that one.

  ‘‘Osama was a very honest book, because it’s really about me and my wife, even though it starts in Vientiane. The narrative tone alternates between noir and reportage, and the pulp bits are supposed to be pulp. I’m obsessed with Israeli pulp fiction. When I was growing up on the kibbutz, we’d occasionally go to the ‘nearby’ city of Haifa (an hour’s drive), and there were these wonderful secondhand bookshops with a lot of science fiction.

  ‘‘But I was also writing about real people and real events. For Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, I spent over a day desperately trying to find out what brand of shoes he was wearing! (Apparently, it’s a bit of a fashion industry secret you can’t easily find out. I think they covered it up.) The hardest part was the ghost stories from the points of view of people who died in the various attacks.

  ‘‘Osama was percolating in my head for a long time – getting up the courage to sit down and try to write it – and a book I really wanted to write, whether it would be successful or not. It came out from a small publisher, after just about every publisher in the world rejected it. I don’t see the book as science fiction, but it depends on how you read it. And why should I know any better than the readers? My degree is in literature, where the writer is never the best judge. There’s a multiplicity of meanings, a ‘democracy of meanings.’

  ‘‘Both of the two novels I have coming out this year – Martian Sands and The Violent Century – are partly set in WWII. I realize that people don’t necessarily know the history, but for me, it is a very personal thing. I come from a Holocaust-surviving family (my Mum was born in a refugee camp after the war). Martian Sands is a very odd novel, it’s got sort-of time travel and the Holocaust and Martian pulp. And The Violent Century is a WWII love story and murder mystery and a sort of meditation on superheroes.

  ‘‘For some reason, faith as a drug just keeps coming up in my work. I’m kind of jealous of people who do have faith. I don’t think it’s something you can control, so the whole argument about religion’s a bit silly – you either believe something or you don’t believe. In Gorel and the Pot-Bellied God, the novella that won the British Fantasy Award, it’s a fantasy world where you have gods, and gods are literally addictive. In my SF stories, you can take faith as a drug, artificially stimulate it: just pop a pill. I’ve been working on this kind of religion in all the science fiction short stories. My guess is that quite a few people would be mainlining faith.

  ‘‘I would like to be recognized for doing short fiction, as well as novels. I’ve been doing science fiction stories consistently, all set in this big future-history that I’d really like to collect one day. It’s all interlinked. I’m doing more stories I don’t think anyone at the science fiction magazines would take, so I put them up on my blog. Asking for reader donations doesn’t work very often, but sometimes you just want to put a story up. And since it’s the story that’s supposed to talk to you, I never respond to comments. I’ve said my piece.

  ‘‘One story I’m thinking of publishing on the blog was conceived when I was looking at all the stories that win Hugos and Nebulas, and I decided I’d write a story called ‘How to Win a Hugo Award’, with elements from all the stories that win. There’s gonna be space whales (obviously), probably Mormons, emotionally manipulative feel-good robots, cats – the secret masters of the universe. And there has to be a very self-referential nostalgia for a better age of science fiction. It would be a slapstick sort of story, very broadly funny.

  ‘‘For some reason reason I keep writing conventions into books. The Bookman had a massive convention section that got cut out, sort of a Victorian science fiction convention with a murder mystery, and Nir Yaniv and I wrote a Hebrew novel set at an Israeli convention: he gets murdered and I appear in it as a writer who’s complaining all the time: ‘I’m never appreciated, never nominated for awards!’ But at least my character wasn’t knocked-off!’’

  –Lavie Tidhar

  Return to In This Issue listing.

  PEOPLE AND PUBLISHING

  MILESTONES

  JAY LAKE, 48, underwent surgery in February 2013 to remove three tumors from his liver, but surgeons discovered additional tumors elsewhere. All were successfully removed. This is likely to be his final surgical intervention. Lake explains on his blog, ‘‘We are no longer treating me with the expectation of a cure, but rather we are treating me for life extension and quality of life.’’

  Jay Lake (2011)

  PETER DAVID, 56, who suffered a stroke in December 2013 while on vacation in Florida, was released from a rehabilitation facility and returned home in early February.

  J.K. ROWLING was named the 13th most powerful woman in Britain, according to a survey by the program Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4. Random House UK CEO GAIL REBUCK came in at #10. The top 100 (unranked below #20) also includes URSULA MACKENZIE, CEO of Little, Brown Book Group UK.

  AWARDS

  CLIVE BARKER and ROBERT R. McCAMMON are winners of the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Awards, to be presented June 15, 2013 at the Stoker Awards Weekend, incorporating World Horror Convention 2013, in New Orleans LA.

  Clive Barker (2007) and Robert R. McCammon (2013) winners of the HWA Lifetime Achievement Awards

  ALLEN M. STEELE and YOJI KONDO (who writes as ERIC KOTANI) are this year’s recipients of the 2013 Robert A. Heinlein Award, presented ‘‘for outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings to inspire the human exploration of space.’’ Awards will be presented during Balticon 47, May 24-27, 2013 in Hunt Valley MD.

  Musician and SF writer/editor JANIS IAN won a Grammy Award for the audiobook of her memoir Society’s Child: My Autobiography (Audible) in the Best Spoken Word Album Category, presented February 10, 2013.

  BOOKS SOLD

  CHARLES STROSS sold a new trilogy set in the world of the Merchant Princes series to David Hartwell at Tor and Bella Pagan at Tor UK via Caitlin Blasdell of Liza Dawson Associates. The publishers will re-release the first six books in a set of three omnibuses.

  CHERIE PRIEST sold Jacaranda, a Clockwork Century novella, to William K. Schafer at Subterranean Press via Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.

  LEV GROSSMAN sold the third novel in his Magicians series, The Macigian’s Land, to Allison Lorentzen at Viking vi
a Tina Bennett of William Morris Endeavor.

  SHERRILYN KENYON’s Born of Fury and two books in the League series sold to Monique Patterson at St. Martin’s via Robert Gottlieb of Trident Media Group.

  JULIET MARILLIER sold Dreamer’s Wood, first in the new Blackthorn & Grim fantasy series, set in a world inspired by medieval Ireland, to Anne Sowards at Ace via Russell Galen of Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency.

  Cherie Priest (2011)

  SEANAN McGUIRE sold InCryptid novels Half Off Ragnarok, Pocket Apocalypse, and Profession Gore-Eography, and October Daye novels The Winter Long, A Red Rose Chain, and Once Broken Faith to Sheila Gilbert at DAW via Diana Fox of Fox Literary.

  RICHARD KADREY’s Dead Set, about a woman who bargains to save her father from the queen of the underworld, went to Diana Gill at Voyager via Ginger Clark at Curtis Brown. He delivered Kill City Blues to Gill.

  LAVIE TIDHAR sold The Violent Century, described as ‘‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy meets Watchmen,’’ and a second book to Anne Perry at Hodder via John Berlyne of the Zeno Agency. PS Publishing will produce a limited edition of The Violent Century.

  SIMON GREEN sold a collection of Nightside short stories to Ginjer Buchanan at Ace via Joshua Bilmes of JABberwocky Literary Agency.

  ILONA & ANDREW GORDON, writing as ILONA ANDREWS, sold three new Kate Daniels novels to Anne Sowards at Ace via Nancy Yost of Nancy Yost Literary Agency.

  DAVID J. SCHWARTZ sold fantasy Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib to David Pomerico at 47North, to be published digitally in several installments as a ‘‘Kindle serial.’’

  BRADLEY BEAULIEU sold the Song of the Shattered Sands trilogy to Betsy Wollheim at DAW via Russell Galen of Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency.

  JACKIE MORSE KESSLER sold To Bear an Iron Key to Georgia McBride of Month9Books via Miriam Kriss of Irene Goodman Agency.

  R.S. BELCHER’s The 32 Killers of Golgotha (sequel to The Six-Gun Tarot) and ‘‘modern noir fantasy’’ The Greenway sold to Greg Cox at Tor via Lucienne Diver of The Knight Agency.

  MARK SMYLIE sold standalone fantasy The Barrow to Lou Anders at Pyr.

  SUSAN DONOVAN’s Mermaid series – three novels and a novella about a mermaid legend – went to Claire Zion at NAL via Irene Goodman of Irene Goodman Agency.

  CHRISTOPHER FARNSWORTH’s Bimini, about the Fountain of Youth, sold to Rachel Kahan at William Morrow in a pre-empt via Alexandra Machinist of Janklow & Nesbit.

  PETER WARD sold SF Time Rep to Mary Cummings at Diversion Books via Olivia Morris of Diane Banks Associates.

  J.D. HORN sold The Line and two more in a fantasy series set in Savannah GA to David Pomerico at 47North via Susan Finesman of Fine Literary.

  BOB OVIES sold The Rising to Fr. Fessio at Ignatius Press, with Vivian Dudro editing, via Barbara Zitwer.

  RICHARD DANSKY’s Vaporware sold to Christopher Payne at JournalStone via Robert Fleck of the Fleck Agency.

  MERCURIO D. RIVERA sold story collection Across the Event Horizon to Ian Whates at Newcon Press.

  CHRYSOULA TZAVELAS sold Infinity Key, sequel to Matchbox Girls, to Kate Sullivan at Candlemark & Gleam.

  HEATHER KILLOUGH-WALDEN sold Warrior’s Angel and Samael in the Lost Angels romantic fantasy series to Claire Zion at NAL via Robert Gottlieb of Trident Media Group.

  ROBIN OWENS sold three books in the Ghostlayer paranormal romance series to Cindy Hwang at Berkley via Deidre Knight of The Knight Agency.

  ELISABETH STAAB’s Guardian of Honor, latest in the Chronicles of Yavn vampire series, and another book went to Deb Werksman at Sourcebooks via Eric Ruben of the Ruben Agency.

  C.J. BARRY sold Soul Game to Megha Parekh at Forever Yours via Roberta Brown of the Brown Literary Agency.

  Ekaterina Sedia (2009)

  JAMIE WYMAN sold fantasy Technical Difficulties to Liz Pelletier at Entangled via Jennie Goloboy of Red Sofa Literary.

  R.L. NAQUIN’s Pooka In My Pantry, sequel to Monster in My Closet, and a second book went to Angela James at Carina Press.

  TIMOTHY JOHNSTON sold The Furnace, The Freezer, and The Void to Angela James at Carina Press via Carolyn Forde of Westwood Creative Artists.

  CARRIE RYAN & JOHN PARKE DAVIS sold The Pirate Stream: The Map to Everywhere, first in a new children’s fantasy series, to Amber Caraveo at Orion Children’s via Angharad Kowal of Writers House UK on behalf of Merrilee Heifetz at Writers House in the US.

  TOBIAS S. BUCKELL sold YA SF novel The Island in the Sky and sequel Against the Fall of Stars to Patrick Nielsen Hayden for Starscape via Joe Monti.

  RACHEL NEUMEIER sold Black Dog and a second book to Amanda Rutter at Strange Chemistry via Caitlin Blasdell of Liza Dawson Associates.

  COLLEEN HOUCK sold a new novel about a teen who meets an Egyptian ‘‘mummy-turned-handsome-sun-god’’ and a second book to Krista Vitola at Delacorte via Alex Glass of Trident Media Group.

  SARAH MLYNOWSKI sold humorous SF novel Don’t Even Think About It and a second title to Wendy Loggia at Delacorte via Laura Dail at Laura Dail Literary Agency.

  LYDIA KANG sold Catalyst, sequel to SF novel Control, to Kathy Dawson at Kathy Dawson Books via Eric Myers of the Spieler Agency.

  JANA OLIVER sold Briar Rose to Rachel Petty at Macmillan UK Children’s via Meredith Bernstein of Meredith Bernstein Literary Agency.

  JULIE KAGAWA sold a new series to Natashya Wilson at Harlequin Teen for seven figures for ‘‘multiple books’’ via Laurie McLean of Larsen Pomada Literary Agents.

  RACHEL SEARLES sold YA SF The Lost Planet and a second book to Liz Szabla at Feiwel and Friends via Joanna Volpe of New Leaf Literary & Media.

  KELSEY SUTTON’s sequel to Some Quiet Place went to Brian Farrey-Latz at Flux via Beth Miller of Writers House.

  AMALIE HOWARD sold SF YA Waterfell and another title to Natashya Wilson at Harlequin Teen via Liza Fleissig of Liza Royce Agency.

  David J. Schwartz (2009)

  CAROL SNOW’s Bubble World, describes as ‘‘Pretties/Uglies meets The Truman Show with a dash of The Matrix’’ sold to Kate Farrell at Holt Children’s via Stephanie Kip Rostan of Levine Greenberg Literary Agency.

  KRISTEN LIPPERT-MARTIN sold Tabula Rasa, about a teen who undergoes a procedure to erase her memory, to Alison Weiss at Egmont via Molly Jaffa of Folio Literary Management.

  MARTY CHAN’s Devil’s Island, first in the Ehrich Weisz Chronicles steampunk series about a teenage Harry Houdini, sold to Christie Harkin of Fitzhenry & Whiteside in Canada via Monica Pacheco of Anne McDermid Associates.

  LISA BERGREN sold the dystopian YA Remnant trilogy – Of a Distant Eden, As Hades Rises, and Call of a Warrior – to Jacque Alberta at Zonderkidz via Steve Laube of the Steve Laube Agency.

  KAREN KING sold dystopian YA Perfect Summer to Stephanie Taylor at Astraea Press.

  REBECCA HAHN’s debut, A Creature of Moonlight, sold to Reka Simonsen at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s.

  New writer SARA RAASCH sold the Snow Like Ashes trilogy to Kristin Day Rens at Balzer + Bray in a pre-empt via Mackenzie Brady of Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency.

  VANESSA BARGER’s first novel, YA Whispered Darkness, sold to Georgia McBride of Month9Books via Jennifer Mishler of the Literary Counsel.

  SKYLAR DORSET’s first novel Breathless, a YA fantasy, sold to Aubrey Poole at Sourcebooks via Andrea Somberg of Harvey Klinger.

  EKATERINA SEDIA will edit The Mammoth Book of Gaslit Romance for Duncan Proudfoot at Constable & Robinson via Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.

  BOOKS RESOLD

  JOHN BRUNNER’s estate resold 20 titles to Richard Curtis at E-Reads for digital publication.

  SEAN WILLIAMS resold YA near-future Twinmaker trilogy to Stella Paskins at Egmont UK and Eva Mills at Allen & Unwin in Australia via Jill Grinberg of Jill Grinberg Literary Management. Herp Children’s will publish in the US.

  Sean Williams (2011)

  PAUL DI FILIPPO so
ld 11 backlist titles to Richard Curtis at E-Reads.

  PAUL KEARNEY resold The Way to Babylon, Riding the Unicorn, and A Different Kingdom to Ben Smith at Solaris via John Jarrold.

  PEPPER PACE’s self-published Urban Vampire series sold to Krishan Trotman at Ellora’s Cave.

  DAVID DALGLISH sold his self-published epic fantasy Shadowdance series – A Dance of Cloaks, A Dance of Blades, and A Dance of Death – to Devi Pillai for Orbit US and UK.

  BOOKS DELIVERED

  REAGAN ARTHUR is being promoted from editorial director of her eponymous imprint to senior vice president and publisher of Little, Brown as a whole, and will also join Hachette’s management board. JAMIE RAAB was promoted to president and publisher of Grand Central Publishing. Current publisher MICHAEL PIETSCH is being promoted to CEO of Hachette Book Group USA.

  LEE HARRIS has been promoted to senior editor at Angry Robot.

  MELISSA FRAIN, KRISTEN SEVICK, and WHITNEY ROSS have all been promoted to editor at Tor.

  KATHARINE DUCKETT has joined the staff of Tor.com as publicity coordinator in charge of publisher outreach.

  MEDIA

  PHILIP K. DICK’s The Man in the High Castle is being developed as a four-hour miniseries on cable channel Syfy, to be executive produced by Ridley Scott and Frank Spotnitz; the latter would write the first two hours and supervise the writing of the rest.

  DAN SIMMONS’s The Terror is being developed as a drama TV series by AMC, executive produced by Scott Free TV, Television 360, and Alexandra Milchan, and written by David Kajganich.

  Film rights to MARY DORIA RUSSELL’s The Sparrow and sequel Children Of God were optioned by AMC via Jane Dystel of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management.

  Film rights to JAMES RENNER’s The Man from Primrose Lane were optioned by Kevin McCormick of Langley Park and Bradley Cooper and 22nd & Indiana at Warner Bros., with Cooper to star, via Howard Sanders and Dana Borowitz of UTA on behalf of Julie Barer at Barer Literary.