Fiction Crossing Boundaries

We are absolutely delighted to announce our first truly crossover novel. We’re a huge fan of the crossover, and have been working hard behind the scenes to bring you something truly special and innovative. Something that will make other publishers think Why didn’t I think of that?

Novels that cross genre boundaries are not new, but with the release of Perl One (1 December, 2009) we’re not just crossing genres, we’re crossing media! Perl One is a space opera, huge in scope, with one big difference – it’s a “knit your own adventure”.

It can be read front-to back as a standard novel (and what a great novel it is!) but the truly innovative part is that the bottom 20% of every page is set aside for knitting instructions (in a mid-grey font so as not to detract from the prose). As the knitter completes each page, another clue is revealed within their fabric, and by halfway through, the knitter is able to influence the outcome of the story by choosing to knit one here, drop a stitch there, etc. There really has been nothing like this in fiction, ever!

The beauty of the format is that non-knitters can read the story like a straightforward novel (set on the asteroid Perl One, a renegade supersoldier must be brought to justice), and will lose nothing of the vitality of the story. Knitters, however, will get the added bonus of reading the first science fiction novel ever written with them in mind!

Perl One will be available to pre-order from May, and the sequel – The Needle of Axos - will be published by Angry Robot in mid-2010.