What’s better than a brand new novella? Three of them! Tor.com Publishing is proud to announce the acquisition of new projects by Carrie Vaughn, Eddie Robson, and Alex Irvine.
First up: Lee Harris has acquired World English rights for Carrie Vaughn’s The Ghosts of Sherwood and a second novella. The deal was negotiated by Seth Fishman of The Gernert Agency.
Robin of Sherwood and Maid Marian are married. It’s been decades since they defeated the Sheriff of Nottingham with a band of misfits and they’ve achieved an uneasy peace with King John, who sits on the throne. The past is the past.
But when the Locksley children are stolen away by persons unknown, they’ll need the help of everyone they’ve ever known, including the ghosts who may or may not haunt Sherwood. And their children—especially their eldest daughter, Mary—are not without tricks of their own.
Said Carrie Vaughn:
One of the fun things about being a writer is sharing my obsessions with the world. “Look at this cool thing I’ve been researching!” Or maybe it’s more like, “Oh god I’ve been spending so much time on this, how can I make it look like I’ve actually been working?” (Binge watching all of the mid-80s cult TV show “Robin of Sherwood” in the space of three weeks was entirely work-related, I swear.) The obvious answer is: write some novellas for Tor.com Publishing. I’m very happy to share my current obsession and my own version of the legend of Robin Hood in The Ghosts of Sherwood.”
Said Lee Harris:
Tales of Robin Hood are eternally popular. The Ghosts of Sherwood feels like a natural future history of Robin and his band of misfits and is written with a deep and abiding love for and knowledge of the lore. I am thrilled we’ll be publishing this. Set in Robin of Loxley’s future, his daughter at one point opines, “Everything about father is stories.” Well, everything about Carrie Vaughn is stories, too, and you’re going to love her Sherwood tales!
Carrie Vaughn’s latest novels include the post-apocalyptic murder mystery, Bannerless, winner of the Philip K. Dick Award, and its sequel, The Wild Dead. She wrote the New York Times bestselling series of novels about a werewolf named Kitty, along with several other contemporary fantasy and young adult novels, and upwards of 80 short stories, two of which have been finalists for the Hugo Award. She’s a contributor to the Wild Cards series of shared world superhero books edited by George R. R. Martin and a graduate of the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop. An Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic childhood and managed to put down roots in Boulder, Colorado. Visit her at her website.
The Ghosts of Sherwood will be available from Tor.com Publishing in 2020.
Next: Lee Harris has also acquired World English rights for Hearts of Oak by Eddie Robson.
The king of the land sits atop his tower, eating and gazing down on his subjects. He rarely makes a proclamation, but is lauded by his citizens whenever he leaves the safety of his castle, usually accompanied by his best friend and closest advisor, a cat. But that’s all perfectly natural and normal and nothing at all to invite comment.
Iona has been the planet’s chief architect since her earliest memory. Which, when she comes to think of it, wasn’t actually that long ago. When a colleague dies and a replacement is employed, she starts to notice that things around her are odd. People are behaving strangely. And her work—which has always been a source of pride and delight—is beginning to feel redundant.
And the shadows that live beyond the borders? They’re getting restless.
Said Eddie Robson:
I’m absolutely thrilled Hearts of Oak has found a home at Tor.com Publishing. While writing it, I kept thinking “This is quite strange, will anyone get it?” but they absolutely did. I can’t believe it’s going out into the world with such a prestigious publisher!
Said Lee Harris:
I’ve followed Eddie’s work for some years, and his radio comedy series “Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully!” is a favourite of mine (it’s available at Audible, and you should all buy it, right now) so when I saw him mention on Twitter that he was just finishing up a novella, I had to get in touch and ask to see it. I am so happy he said yes. Hearts of Oak is such a fun story—you’re going to love it.
Eddie Robson is a scriptwriter, novelist and journalist. His debut novel, Tomorrow Never Knows, came out in 2015. He created and wrote the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Welcome To Our Village, Please Invade Carefully and is a regular contributor to 2000AD.
Hearts of Oak will be available from Tor.com Publishing in 2020.
And finally, consulting editor Jonathan Strahan has acquired World English rights to Anthropocene Rag by Alex Irvine, a Huck Finn-meets-Willy Wonka tale of a United States overwhelmed by and remade by renegade nanotechnology, a place where emergent artificial intelligences try to unpack their own becoming by recreating myths and legends of their human creators.
Prospector Ed, an emergent AI, travels across a future United States trying to understand the people who created him. He assembles a ragtag team to reach the mythical Monument City.
Said Alex Irvine:
Anthropocene Rag is the confluence of two different ideas that I started thinking about years apart. One was a lunatic scheme to save the world’s monuments in the face of ongoing disaster, putting them all together in a secret location that becomes a Willy Wonka-esque myth to the outside world. The other was a question: When emergent digital intelligences appear, what stories will they tell themselves about their origins? How will they respond to the myths of their creators, and what myths will they create in turn… especially about their creators? Once those two things simmered together for a while, what came out was this story.
I couldn’t be happier to have Anthropocene Rag join Tor.com Publishing’s novella roster, and I hope readers enjoy experiencing the story as much as I did creating it.
Said Jonathan Strahan:
I read Alexander C. Irvine’s astonishing debut novel, A Scattering of Jades, way back in 2002 and have followed his career ever since. He’s always been a wonderful short fiction writer but Anthropocene Rag is something really special. This rich, crazy carny tale of the rise and rise of artificial intelligence in a time of climate change and disaster is everything Mark Twain never dreamed of, a gonzo glimpse of just how the pure product of America might go crazy. I was completely enchanted by Anthropocene Rag and I think you will be too!
Alex Irvine’s original fiction includes Buyout, The Narrows, Mystery Hill, and A Scattering of Jades, as well as several dozen short stories. He has also written licensed novels, comics, and transmedia, including the best-selling artifactual “metanovel” The Division: New York Collapse. His full-length graphic history The Comic Book Story of Baseball appeared last year, with art by Tomm Coker and C.P. Smith. Currently he is writing the games Marvel Battle Lines and The Walking Dead: Road to Survival, and working on new projects in every storytelling mode he can think of. A native of Ypsilanti, Michigan, he lives in South Portland, Maine, with his wife and four children (and two dogs, a bird, a snake and a fish.) You can find him on Twitter or Facebook.
Anthropocene Rag will be available from Tor.com Publishing in 2020.
