Floor to Ceiling Books: Signings and Agents and Books, Oh My!

I've had a tumble of interesting press releases fall into my inbox, so I thought I would do you a quick round-up of the fun and games going on in the speculative fiction arena.

First up, Agent Ring has struck again! With absolute stealth and cunning, Agent Ring has managed to secure the services of one Gareth L Powell. Here is the official version:

Gareth L Powell and Sharon Ring sign author/agent contract.
Gareth L Powell has signed up with Literary Agent Sharon Ring. Sharon Ring will act as agent in regard to five titles, Revenant Skies; Reclaiming The Dead; Silversands (originally published with Pendragon Press); The Last Reef (originally published with Elastic Press); The New Ships.

Gareth is rapidly gaining a reputation as a “strong new voice in epic science fiction” (Solaris). In addition to his previously published novel (Silversands) and collection (The Last Reef), Gareth has appeared in several anthologies, including including Shine (Solaris Books, 2010), Conflicts (NewCon Press, 2010), 2020 Visions (M-Brane, 2010), Dark Spires (Wizard’s Tower, 2010), and Future Bristol (Swimming Kangaroo, 2009). His short story Ack-Ack Macaque won the Interzone Readers’ Poll for best short story of 2007; and Solaris will publish his second novel The Recollection in September this year.

Gareth said, "With two novels and a collection under my belt, I'm glad to have someone with Sharon's contacts and chutzpah to help me scout out the territory ahead. I expect this will be a successful and productive partnership for us both."

Sharon said, “Gareth is an ideal writer to join forces with at this time. The more I read his work, the more I feel he is poised to have wider success in the science fiction community. He has a strong narrative voice; concise, direct and, above all, very human in the exploration of his chosen themes. I’m delighted to be forming this partnership.”

You can find out more about Gareth L Powell at his website, while any queries should be directed to Sharon.

Next the news that Angry Robot Books have signed Trent Jamieson:

Australian wunderkind Trent Jamieson has signed to Angry Robot for a new series of steampunk fantasy novels. Already attracting rave notices for his urban fantasy Death Most Definite (Orbit), Trent’s latest creation takes us to a dying land of decaying clockwork technology that is being devoured by a great rift in reality, the Roil.

The deal was arranged between Trent, agent Sophie Hamley, and AR’s publishing director Marc Gascoigne. It includes publication in the UK and US, in paperback, ebook and audio formats.

Trent had this to say: “Angry Robot have been publishing some bloody excellent books in the last couple of years, so I’m thrilled to be part of their list. Roil and Night’s Engines take me in some rather different directions to anything I’ve done before. They’re Steampunk Fantasy, fast, dark and crammed to bursting with monsters. You’ll meet psychopathic Vergers, Quarg Hounds, and Hideous Garment Flutes, and see the terrors of the Obsidian Curtain up close and personal. This is a world I’ve been writing about, and living in, for ten years, and I’m so excited to finally share it with people.”

Roil is scheduled to hit bookstores in September 2011, with its sequel Night’s Engines following in late Spring 2012.

Check out the Angry Robot website for more deets on this one!

Now some information from Solaris about two books coming from them in March 2011.

The first is by Andy Remic:

The fourth novel in the rock-hard Combat K series!

Junks, an evil alien scourge, are flooding Quad-Gal with terror. Combat K are sent on a mission to find an alien artifact which could win the war all at once.
SLAM-dropped to Cloneworld – a planet ravaged by violent civil war – Combat K get caught in a global conflict between augmented mechanised war machines and genetically-modified humans who have the ability to clone themselves. Combat K must fight their way to victory to save the Four Galaxies. But how can they possibly succeed, when their main foes are their own elite, deadly clones?

The hardest man in science fiction has done it again! Pippa and Franco, the last surviving members of the gun-toting, sword-swinging, no-holds-barred Combat K squad, are sent down to the war-torn, TV-obsessed planet of Cloneworld, in search of an artifact that may bring peace to the Four Galaxies. They will find pain. They will find betrayal. They will find a seemingly endless supply of CubeSausage, PreCheese and horseradish. But will they find the truth?

The second by Conrad Williams:

A new book from the three-times winner of the British Fantasy Society Award!

Commercial pilot Paul Roan is in command of a Boeing 777 when it is involved in a near miss. Nerves shot, he resigns and re-launches his life running a small hotel in a coastal village with his girlfriend, Tamara.

On the day they move to their new home, Paul is hit by a speeding car. Emerging six months later from a coma, he discovers that Tamara has left him, and the villagers, astonished by his cheating of death, now see him as a talisman. They bring him secrets too awful to deal with themselves. He burns the things they bring him, wishing he could rid himself of his own darkness. He is suffering from terrible dreams of a crippled black airliner screaming through the night, its pitted engines streaked with carbon and blood. He knows that, somehow, this jet – and its terrible cargo – is coming for him.

Finally, we have the artwork for four books coming in May 2011 from Tor UK, written by David Weber. All artwork is by Chris Moore.

1) Off Armageddon Reef - David Weber