Following last year’s incredible novella, Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You, we are delighted to announce the acquisition of two novels by Seattle-based playwright, Scotto Moore. His debut novel, Battle of the Linguist Mages will be published in hardcover, ebook and audio from Tordotcom Publishing in early Winter 2022, and followed by a second novel in 2023.
In modern day Los Angeles, a shadowy cabal led by the Governor of California develops the arcane art of combat linguistics, using it to subvert society and plant the seeds of a future totalitarian empire.
The young gamer Isobel Bailie—queen of the medieval rave-themed VR game “Sparkle Dungeon”—may be the key to the cabal’s future success. Her prowess in the game makes her an ideal candidate to learn the secrets of power morphemes: unnaturally dense units of meaning that warp perception when skillfully pronounced. But the cabal has attracted much bigger and weirder enemies than the anarchist resistance (which has inevitably arisen), emerging from dark and vicious dimensions of reality and heading straight for planet Earth!
Editor Lee Harris said:
“When I bought Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You, Scotto’s writing pulled me in and wouldn’t let go. He has a way with words that would make the most seasoned novelist weep with envy. Combine that with his wild imagination, and it’s a recipe for success! I asked him to write me a novel, and he didn’t disappoint. Battle of the Linguist Mages will have you cheering, and laughing and giving sideways glances to the camera with each page you read! It’s an amazing book. Strap yourself in, fire up the latest version of Sparkle Dungeon, and be prepared for the most epic battle ever to be spoken aloud!”
Scotto Moore agreed:
“I’m thrilled to get another chance to work with Lee and Tordotcom on Mages. The whole team at Tor.com was a true pleasure to collaborate with on Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You, and I’m really quite excited to be doing it again with such a creative team.”
Scotto Moore is the author of Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You, a sci-fi/horror novella published by Tor.com. For fourteen years, he was an active playwright in Seattle, with major productions nearly every year during that time, and 45 short plays produced during that time as well. He wrote book, lyrics, and music for the a cappella sci-fi musical Silhouette, which won the 2018 Gregory Falls Award for Outstanding New Play, presented by Theatre Puget Sound. He also wrote, directed and produced three seasons of the sci-fi/comedy web series The Coffee Table; and wrote and starred in the horror/comedy play H.P. Lovecraft: Stand-up Comedian!
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Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You
