Tordotcom Publishing is thrilled to announce the acquisition of two novellas by Christopher Rowe. The two-book deal, for World English rights, was brokered by DongWon Song at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency.
Jonathan Strahan has acquired These Prisoning Hills, a standalone novella set in the same Kentuckian post-apocalyptic setting as his previous stories “The Voluntary State” and “The Border State.”
Said editor Jonathan Strahan:
I fell in love with Christopher Rowe’s stories when I first stumbled across his early collection Bittersweet Creek and Other Stories, and I have eagerly chased down every new story that he has published since. His work and his writing voice is intimate and local—he’s from Kentucky and his work is steeped in the feel of the Bluegrass State—but his work deals with the stuff of cutting edge SF. “The Voluntary State” was a landmark of the 2000s, bringing the SF concerns of cyberpunk to Rowe’s Commonwealth, a Kentucky overwhelmed by nanotech, AI, and war. It was nominated for the Hugo and Nebula and is a classic. I’m delighted to be part of bringing Christopher’s work to the Tordotcom novella program and even happier that These Prisoning Hills—a wonderful standalone tale—further extends his fictional Commonwealth.
Ellen Datlow has acquired The Navigating Fox, a standalone novella set in the same world as his anthropomorphic murder mystery short story “Knowledgeable Creatures,” published on Tor.com in 2019.
Said editor Ellen Datlow:
Ever since Christopher sent me his charming and poignant mystery “Knowledgeable Creatures” taking place in an alternate world where animals are able to reason and are capable of human speech, I and many other readers have been bugging him to write more in that fantasy world. And now he has, with his novella The Navigating Fox.
Christopher Rowe is the author of the acclaimed story collection Telling the Map, as well as a middle grade series, the Supernormal Sleuthing Service, co-written with his wife, author Gwenda Bond. He has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Neukom, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards. He lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with his wife and their many unruly pets.
These Prisoning Hills is forthcoming from Tordotcom Publishing in 2022, with The Navigating Fox following in 2023.
