This coming weekend, Angry Robot authors and Overlords will be strutting their funky stuff (Oh, no!) to the musical stylings of Mr Craig Charles as well as lounging in various bars and appearing on panels and signing books – you know the drill.

Authors appearing:
Dan Abnett, Adam Christopher, Anne Lyle, Andy Remic, David Tallerman, Lavie Tidhar, Guy Haley and Ian Whates

And the Angry Robot office crew:
Marc Gascoigne, Lee Harris, Darren Turpin, and Amanda Rutter

These are the various panels/signings we’ll be taking part in (Angry Robots are listed in bold):

FRIDAY

12.00pm – The Bar is Open

3.00pm – Elf Preservation
Gav Thorpe, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Graham McNeill, Juliet McKenna and Joe Abercrombie ponder if it’s really fantasy if it doesn’t have magic and monsters. Jared Shurin hosts.

3.00pm – Signing: Dan Abnett and Adam Christopher

4.00pm – Using History
Adam Christopher, Paul Cornell, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Pat Kelleher and Maria Dahvana Headley talk about how the past can help your fiction. Hosted by Sandy Auden.

5.00pm – How do you put the Punk into Steampunk?
Lavie Tidhar, Stephen Hunt and Robert Rankin talk to Jonathan Green.

5.00pm – Signing: Guy Haley and Gav Thorpe

6.00pm – How to get Published
Anne Lyle, Anne Clarke and others. Guy Haley hosts the discussion.

6.00pm – Signing: Andy Remic and Lavie Tidhar

SATURDAY

12.00pm – Space Opera
Dan Abnett, Peter F Hamilton, Jaine Fenn, Michael Cobley and Aaron Dembski-Bowden ask if books are the only medium flying the flag for spaceships. Alastair Reynolds hosts.

1.00pm – Ready, Steady, Flash!
Lee Harris challenges Paul Cornell, Stacia Kane, Tony Lee and Juliet E McKenna to write short stories in just five minutes.

4.00pm – It’s not a Story – It’s a Map!
David Tallerman, Ian Whates, China Miéville and Gaie Sebold wonder: does fantasy place world-building over character? Juliet E McKenna hosts.

5.00pm – Signing: David Tallerman and Ian Whates

_____________

*Disclaimer: Applicable only to people near Prestatyn, Wales.

Last year we relaxed our submissions guidelines, and opened the door to unagented authors who had written novels they thought would interest us. Throughout March we received an average of 32 submissions a day! And that’s in addition to all the great work we had being submitted through the usual channels!

So far we’ve contracted three authors (a minimum of six books) from that process:

Cassandra Rose Clarke (The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, The Assassin’s Curse)
Lee Collins (The Dead of Winter, She Returns From War)
Lee Battersby (The Corpse-Rat King, Marching Dead)

and we’re not quite finished, yet!

This year, we’re going to narrow the focus, somewhat. Angry Robot are specifically looking for classic fantasy (high, epic, medieval, magical, etc etc), and Strange Chemistry (our YA imprint) will be looking for all forms of sf and fantasy YA. The doors will be open from April 16th through April 30th.

Full details can be found here.

The novel stars one of Matt’s most popular recurring characters – Luff Imbry (Old Earth’s foremost thief).

Luff has been around for a while, and Matt has written a whole bunch of great short stories starring this quite brilliant character, and to celebrate the novel’s shortlisting, Matt has given us some stories to make available in our eBook store.

There are 7 of Matt’s Luff Imbry short stories there, plus stories by many of our other authors. (Click on “Short Fiction” on the left-hand menu, or search for an author).

They’re only 59p each (or approximately US$0.79), but if you buy 10, you get them for just £3.49! (Approximately US$4.65) What a great deal!

What are you still doing here? Go, browse, download!

Well, the website has now gone live, and to get the ball rolling we’ve commissioned a few pieces (with thanks to the mighty Mur Lafferty for helping to run the project).

The phenomenally talented JR Blackwell has provided us with stills from the (non-existent) 1946 noir movie adaptation of Empire State. There’s an example below, and you can find plenty more over at the main site (EmpireState.cc).

Also at the site is a short story from Hugo and Nebula Award winner, James Patrick Kelly. Empire State inspired his first ever superhero tale, The Biggest.

“The Biggest” by James Patrick Kelly

Big, known to his dear departed mother as Filbrick Van Loon, was startled out of his reverie when a heavy in a cheap gabardine suit dropped into the seat in front of him like a piano falling out of a skyscraper. In his drowsy confusion, Big thought the train itself had derailed, but as he gathered his wits he realized that the Empire State Express was pulling out of Union Station, finally headed south to New York City.

“Guess who I just seen?” said the heavy.

“Can’t.” A woman’s voice oozed boredom. “Jimmy Cagney?”

The seatback shuddered as the heavy thrashed disagreement. “What would Cagney be doing in Albany?”

“Babe Ruth?” said his companion.

“Nope.”

“Rin Tin Tin? Judge Crater?

“The Governor.”

“Roosevelt?”

Big stopped feeling sorry for himself and leaned forward to eavesdrop, although the heavy had a voice they could probably hear him in Buffalo.

“How did you know it was him?”

“Been in the newsreels, hasn’t he? Believe me, this is the guy. He could barely walk cause of the polio.”

Big stood and pulled his suitcase off the overhead rack.

“They say he got better.” The woman was still skeptical.

“If that was better, I’d hate to see worse.”

Read it all, here.

We’d love for you to go and see what’s happening as part of our WorldBuilder project, and we’d love it even more if you were to join in. There are some free sample chapters from Empire State at the site, and the novel is available to purchase now in paperback, ePub and Kindle formats from your favourite stores.

There were some great entries (and some not so great). Where there were multiple entries based on the same novel we chose not to take the first entry, but the one we thought funniest or closer to the tone of the original title.

So, the runners-up (who all receive a copy of the ARC):

• @Pat_JG with A Scanner Darkly Dreaming Dexter
• @debutdrmag with Murder on the Orion Express and The Maltese Millennium Falcon
• @Stephenwest with Evil Under Twin Suns

and

• @erik_lundqvist with Murder She Blogged (yes, it’s not SF, but we liked it, and it’s our competition, so shut it!)

and the winner (who will receive a copy of the ARC plus something else from the Angry Robot cupboard of cool):

• @markhwilliams with The Girl with the Dragon Tatooine

Congratulations, everyone – your books should reach you before the weekend!

___

*Some international competitions, coming soon…

SFX Magazine says:

Breathless pace… Damasco resembles a landlocked version of Jack Sparrow… The atypical backdrop,self-aware style and downplaying of magics bring to mind the contemporary fantasies of Scott Lynch and Joe Abercrombie.

Meanwhile, Starburst had this to say:

I’m finding it hard to dislike anything about this book. It’s a fun, entertaining read, everything a good story should be… David Tallerman’s first novel is a gripping yarn, one that is difficult to put down once started, and this reviewer is eagerly awaiting the next tale of Easie Damasco.

Over at A Fantastical Librarian, they confidently state that

If you’re up for a fun, fast-paced adventure featuring rogues, giants and lots of fighting, you won’t want to miss it!

and Publishers Weekly tells us:

“Best known for an eclectic variety of short stories, Tallerman debuts with a breezy novel of a man with his eye on the prize … Tallerman’s charming, devil-may-care hero has plenty of swashbuckling roguishness to carry him through the planned sequels.”

And Fantasy Nibbles was impressed, too:

This really is a fun read. Saltlick is adorable, I want one! It’s straightforward, linear, smack down the middle fast-paced goodness.

Giant Thief is released in mass market paperback in the US and Canada on January 31st, and in the UK on February 2nd. The eBook is released worldwide on January 31st in ePub and Kindle formats.

Adam reads from Empire State at the UK launch

The launch for Adam’s Empire State at Forbidden Planet on Thursday last week was a great success. We’re still waiting for the firm numbers to come in, but FP have told us that it is one of the most successful launch/signings they have ever held there.

Which is nice.

A good time was had by all, and after reading a tantalising excerpt from the novel, Adam was kept extremely busy by the long queue of eager readers.

And if you missed the news at the weekend, the Financial Times said this of Empire State:

Suffused with a love for noir fiction and the golden age of American comic books, Christopher’s Empire State is something of a tour de force. If, somehow, Raymond Chandler and Philip K Dick had collaborated on a Superman story, they might well have produced this novel.

Congratulations to Adam on a fine launch, and our thanks go to Danie and the team at Forbidden Planet for making it all happen.

New Yorkers – don’t forget Adam’s signing at the Mid-Manhattan Library tomorrow evening from 6.30-7.30pm. (Details here, or click the image to the right).

Empire State is out now in paperback and eBook formats. Order a copy from your favourite indie, chain or online retailer.

First up – City of Light and Shadow by Ian Whates, reviewed by Eric Brown in the Guardian:

Whates has developed an intriguing metropolis every bit as fascinating as his varied cast of characters… Compulsively readable.

And Empire State by Adam Christopher reviewed by James Lovegrove for the Financial Times:

Suffused with a love for noir fiction and the golden age of American comic books, Christopher’s Empire State is something of a tour de force. If, somehow, Raymond Chandler and Philip K Dick had collaborated on a Superman story, they might well have produced this novel.

Click on the links to read the full reviews, then go buy/order from your favourite indie, chain, or online retailer (including the Angry Robot eBook Store).

Adam will be signing and reading from the novel, and it’s a great chance to meet him and get hold of a copy of one of the most exciting debuts of the year from one of the most exciting debut novelists of the year.

For all you UK peeps:
A reading/signing at Forbidden Planet Megastore, Shaftesbury Avenue, London.
This Thursday (5th January) from 6.00pm-7.00pm.
Details here.

For New Yorkers:
A reading/signing at the Mid-Manhattan Library
Tuesday January 10th, from 6.30pm-7.30pm.
Details here.

“Adam Christopher’s debut novel is a noir, Philip K Dick-ish science fiction superhero
story… a novel of surreal resonances, things that are like other things, plot turns
that hearken to other plot turns. It’s often fascinating, as captivating as a
kaleidoscope… just feel it in all its weird glory.”
- Cory Doctorow, author of Makers and Little Brother

As is traditional, we’ve listed below all the works we have published that are eligible for consideration. If you have read any of them, and if you consider those that you have read to be Hugo-worthy, the instructions for nominating can be found here.

Eligible Novels:

• Zoo City by Lauren Beukes*
• Death’s Disciples by J. Robert King
• Point by Thomas Blackthorne (John Meaney)
• Amortals by Matt Forbeck*
• Vegas Knights by Matt Forbeck
• City of Hope and Despair by Ian Whates
• Embedded by Dan Abnett
• Camera Obscura by Lavie Tidhar
• The Damned Busters by Matthew Hughes
• Vampire Warlords by Andy Remic
• Dead Streets by Tim Waggoner*
• Dark War by Tim Waggoner
• Walking the Tree by Kaaron Warren*
• Mistification by Kaaron Warren
• The World House by Guy Adams*
• The World House: Restoration by Guy Adams
• Hard Spell by Justin Gustainis
• Reality 36 by Guy Haley
• The Crown of the Conqueror by Gav Thorpe*
• Pretty Little Dead Things by Gary McMahon*
• Dead Bad Things by Gary McMahon
• Roil by Trent Jamieson
• Debris by Jo Anderton
• Darkness Falling by Peter Crowther
• Harbinger of the Storm by Aliette de Bodard
• Master of the House of Darts by Aliette de Bodard
• King’s Justice by Maurice Broaddus
• King’s War by Maurice Broaddus