Welcome back to Editorially Speaking. Last week we told you about some books coming from Fran Wilde and Adrian Tchaikovsky. Consulting Editor Jonathan Strahan has acquired three new novellas for us by Gwyneth Jones, Walter Jon Williams, and Kij Johnson. Strahan is a World Fantasy and Locus Award winner and multiple Hugo Award nominated editor and podcaster.
From Jonathan Strahan:
“I’m delighted to be working with three of my favourite writers—Walter, Gwyneth and Kij—to bring some widely different but really exciting stories to Tor.com! I love Walter’s space opera, Gwyneth’s hard SF is some of the best the field has seen, and Kij’s re-imagining of Lovecraft is extraordinary. I think readers are in for a real treat.”
Gwyneth Jones and Proof of Concept
A science fiction tale from one of our favorite writers!
On a desperately overcrowded future Earth, crippled by climate change, the most unlikely hope is better than none. Governments turn to Big Science to provide them with the dreams that will keep the masses compliant. The Needle is one such dream, an installation where the most abstruse theoretical science is being tested: science that might make human travel to a habitable exoplanet distantly feasible. A little closer to reality, Long Duration Mission teams are in permanent rehearsal for the next big push in solar-system space exploration. When the Needle ‘s director offers her underground installation (temporarily offline for equipment tests) to the LDM people as a training base, Kir Heilesen is thrilled to be invited to join the team. Even though she knows it’s only because her brain is host to a qAI called Altair.
Altair knows something he can’t tell. Kir, like all humans, is programmed to ignore future dangers. It’s frustrating. Between the artificial blocks in his mind, and the blocks evolution has built into his host, how is he going to convince her the sky is falling?
This one’s a long way out—you’re going to have to wait until early 2017 before you read this one, but don’t worry, we’ll remind you.
Walter Jon Williams and Impersonations
Nebula Award winning author Walter Jon Williams returns to the sweeping space opera adventure of his Praxis universe with an exciting new adventure featuring the hero of Dread Empire’s Fall!
Having offended her superiors by winning a battle without permission, Caroline Sula has been posted planet Earth, a dismal backwater where careers go to die. But Sula has always been fascinated by Earth history, and she plans to award herself a long, happy vacation amid the ancient monuments of humanity’s home world.
Sula may be a fan of Earth’s history, but there are aspects of her own history she doesn’t want known—and exposure is threatened when an old acquaintance turns up unexpectedly. There’s a mysterious warship in Earth’s dockyard. Plus someone seems to be forging evidence that would send her to prison. And then someone tries to kill her.
If she’s going to survive, Sula has no choice but to make some history of her own…
You’ll get to read Impersonations some time in 2016.
Kij Johnson’s The Dream-Quest of Velitt Boe
Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award winner Kij Johnson joins Tor.com with a major new novella that gives us an exciting modern interpretation of H.P. Lovecraft’s classic “The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath.” Johnson wrote Tor.com’s first award-winning story, “Ponies,” as well as our perennial favorite “The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles,” so we’re thrilled to have her on board with a novella.
Vellitt Boe is the professor of mathematics at Ulthar Women’s College. When one of her most gifted students elopes with a dreamer from the waking world, Vellitt must retrieve her, which sends her on a quest across the Dream-lands and into her own mysterious past.
Look out for this next summer!
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