The Hotties: 2010 Year End Awards

Pat's Fantasy Hotlist has issued their "The Hotties: 2010 Year End Awards."

I'm honored that Pyr has been named "Publisher of the Year." Pat writes, "With three Pyr titles in the Top 5 and four in the Top 10, it couldn't be any other publisher! The folks at Pyr celebrated their 5th anniversary this year. Keep up the great work! And long live!"

Meanwhile, Stephan Martiniere's cover for Kay Kenyon's Prince of Storms gets the Best Cover Art Award.

And I'm thrilled to receive the "MVP Award" for the second year in a row. Pat writes, "Yes, two years in a row! Last year I said that as the heart and soul behind the Pyr imprint, this man is pretty damn close to being a genius. Scratch that! He is a genius! Though he doesn't have the means of the genre powerhouses at his disposal, Lou Anders nevertheless manages to work wonders year in and year out. To the powers that be at Prometheus Books: Give this man a raise! God knows he deserves it!" Can't argue with those sentiments.

Kay Kenyon's The Entire and the Rose: A Landmark SF Series

From Greg L Johnson at SF Site:

"When Bright of the Sky, the first novel in The Entire and the Rose appeared, comparisons were quickly made between Kenyon's Bright, Larry Niven's Ringworld, and Philip José Farmer's Riverworld. With the publication of Prince of Storms, it's just as easy to make comparisons to C.J. Cherryh's many novels dealing with the relationships of power in society, and to Frank Herbert's examination in Dune of the dangers inherent in trying to control the future. That's pretty rarified company, and in the case of The Entire and the Rose completely deserved. With The Entire and the Rose, Kay Kenyon has crafted one of the most captivating multi-universe, multi-cultural settings in science fiction history, and used it tell a story of tragedy and loss, of decisions made and regretted, sacrifices made, and an ultimate re-birth and renewal. It's a grand theme that more than matches its brilliant setting, and that makes The Entire and the Rose a landmark science fiction series of the twenty-first century, one that deserves a place on the bookshelf of science fiction readers everywhere."

Pretty much every single review, and there has been a LOT of them, praise this series as landmark. With the final book out in hardcover now and coming out in trade paperback in August, and the entire series now up on the Kindle, maybe it's time to check it out?

SFcrowsnest: Top 100 SFF Novels of 2009

SFcrowsnest has released their "top one hundred SFF novels of 2009" as voted for by SFcrowsnest.com's readers. As of this post:

#6 Ian McDonald's Cyberabad Days

#11 Mike Resnick's Stalking the Unicorn

#32 Mike Resnick's Stalking the Vampire

#53 Kay Kenyon's City without End


#84 Mike Resnick's Starship: Flagship


Nice. Especially if your name happens to be Resnick.

Riverworld, Ringworld, Dune, and now The Entire

Greg L Johnson, at SF Site, on Kay Kenyon's City without End (The Entire and the Rose, Book 3):

"...a series that wowed at the beginning for the complexity and creativity of its invented setting, earning comparisons to classics like Riverworld and Ringworld, has now filled that setting with characters whose motives and aspirations are often hidden and always conflicting, a situation that makes The Entire and the Rose at least as comparable to Dune and the tension-filled novels of C.J. Cherryh as it is those other works. Which means that at the end of City Without End, even though several story lines have been concluded, a couple in surprising and dramatic fashion, the crux of the problem still remains. Titus Quinn's family and loved ones are scattered across two different universes, and whether he can save or hold on to any of it remains in serious doubt. The stage is now set for the final volume in what is already looking like one of the classic science fiction series of our time."

Got that? "One of the classic science fiction series of our time." We keep hearing that about Kay's series.

City Without End: One Hell of a Novel

“City without Endis to be admired and appreciated. It is to be enjoyed. City Without End is one hell of a novel. It is better than the A World Too Near,which in turn was better than Bright of the Sky.That would be saying something if the series did not start out strong. Since Bright of the Sky was a strong opening volume, it marks City Without End as something special. Truly, this is a series that demands to be read. Only, be sure to start at the beginning. You don’t want to miss a word.” -Fantasy Magazine, May 7, 2009

You see that there, "demands to be read" ? Now remember when SFRevu said, "This may well be the most ambitious epic science fiction series of the current decade." That's it folks. No more excuses.

New Pyr slogan: Got Kenyon?

David Louis Edelman: One Last Adventure Before the End

I'm still reeling under the news that one of my favorite podcasts, Adventures in Sci Fi Publishing, is closing up shop, if not forever, at least for the indefinite future. Shaun's podcast is essential listening in my book, and I think I'd say that even if I wasn't his most frequent guest (learned that recently, and now no one can take my crown away! But I'd rather they still had the opportunity to try.)

Meanwhile, I'm honored that Shaun is going out on a string of Pyr-related interviews. First he interviewed Yours Truly (jointly with Joe Mallozzi), then Chris Roberson, and now David Louis Edelman. I know he's recently recorded an interview with Kay Kenyon, so that should still be forthcoming, though I'm assuming the planned talk with James Enge didn't make the cut.

But I'm grateful for the years of support Shaun Farrell has shown us, as well as the window into the rest of the SF&F community he's provided me over the years (I don't get to read much outside my own list, so podcasts are how I stay informed). I'm going to miss this show terribly, and I hope Shaun returns in 2010 as promised. It's going to be a long wait!

This makes me smile...

From Pat's Fantasy Hotlist: "With Bright of the Skyand A World Too Near,Kay Kenyon established herself as one of the most underrated science fiction authors out there. In my opinion, The Entire and the Rose is without a doubt one of the most fascinating scifi series on the market today. In City Without End,Kenyon elevates this series to new heights.... Kay Kenyon's latest is full of surprising twists and turns, and the plot moves forward at a crisp pace. No offense to Peter F. Hamilton and other scifi authors in the middle of ongoing series, but The Entire and the Rose could well be the best game in town right now. I commend this series to your attention. Can't wait to see how the author will close the show!"

Kay Kenyon Shortlisted for 2009 Reading List Award

The American Library Association has announced their selections for the 2009 Reading List award, and in the Science Fiction category, they chose Hunter's Run by Martin, Dozois, and Abraham. Congratulations, guys! Meanwhile, I'm please to see their four book shortlist includes one of our own. Woot. Kay made the list last year as well.

Shortlist
The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez
City at the End of Time byGreg Bear
Matter byIain M.Banks
A World Too Nearby Kay Kenyon

The End has Arrived!

Chris Roberson's End of the Century is now in stock at Amazon. And at B&N.com as well. Expect it on retail shelves soon too.

Oh, and look, Kay Kenyon's City Without Endis too.

(Reports of sightings in the wild appreciated.)

Fortunately, 2008 Not a Criminal

Over on SFSite, Kay Kenyon's A World Too Nearcomes in at #7 in Greg L. Johnson's Best of 2008! Which is a good thing, since the sadly-now-defunct Realms of Fantasy wrote last year that, "It would be criminal if this novel didn’t make year’s best lists at the end of 2008.”

And look, the trade paperbackwas just released! Imagine that...

I Won't Argue With this

From Pat's Fantasy Hotlist's The Hotties: 2008 Year-End Awards:

"The market is no level playing field, and yet year in and year out Pyr titles manage to stand out from the competition. Kudos to Lou Anders and his team. The guy deserves a Hugo Award and a raise!;-)"

You'll get no argument from me, Pat.

In other, non-Lou news, Pat gives Pyr his "Publisher of the Year Award," and he gives shout outs to what seems like an impressively statistically-high number of Pyr books & authors in the rest of his list:

From his SFF TOP 10 OF 2008:

4- MultiRealby David Louis Edelman
5- Last Argument of Kingsby Joe Abercrombie

And, coming in just below the fold in the runner-up category:
11- A World Too Nearby Kay Kenyon

From his MOST IMPROVED AUTHOR AWARD

David Louis Edelman

Pat writes, "Infoquakewas a smashing scifi debut, but Edelman came up with a tighter novel with its sequel, MultiReal. Can't wait to read the final volume of this trilogy!"

His MOST ACCESSIBLE AUTHOR AWARD

- Joe Abercrombie

His MOST UNDERRATED NOVEL AWARD

- A World Too Near by Kay Kenyon

His MVP AWARD: SFF AUTHOR OF THE YEAR

- Joe Abercrombie

Pat writes "For demonstrating that in this age of doorstopper fantasy series that seem endless, you can still tell a compelling story without a back story which goes back 300,000 years into the past, without hundreds of characters, without dozens of convoluted storylines. Abercrombie showed that, if you play your cards right, you can still do it with an honest-to-god trilogy. "

Thanks, Pat, for really making my Monday morning!

City Without End takes Silver Spectrum Award

A huge congratulations to Stephan Martiniere, whose cover illustration for the third book in Kay Kenyon's ongoing space opera quartet entitled The Entire and the Rose, the forthcoming City Without End, just won the Silver Spectrum award in the book category. All of Stephan's covers in this series have been amazing. Book one, Bright of the Sky,made the Spectrum annual the year it was released, and we're hearing good things about A World Too Near- which just hit shelves this week. (For a look at these two covers side by side, see Kay's website.) And now, unveiled here for the first time, the winning cover of City Without End. This is my favorite of the three "Entire" pieces, and maybe one of my favorite Martiniere illustrations ever.

What do you think?

Bright of the Sky: PW's Best Books of the Year 2007

This week's Publishers Weekly Cover Story is their Editor Picks for PW's Best Books of the Year 2007.

According to PW, three thousand books are published daily in the U.S., and PW reviewed more than 6,000 of them in 2007, in print and online. From that astounding number, they've culled a best books list covering their favorites in fiction, poetry, nonfiction, comics, religion, lifestyle and children's—150 in all. (That's right, only 150 total books from 6,000 reviewed titles.) And in the SF/Fantasy/Horror category PW selected only seven titles, one of which, we are very pleased to say, is our very own Bright of the Sky: Book One of The Entire and the Rose!

Congratulations to Kay Kenyon from everyone at Pyr/Prometheus! We couldn't be happier!

PW says, "Deft prose, high-stakes suspense and skilled, thorough world building lift this first in a new far-future SF series involving a mishap in interstellar space that sends a family into a parallel universe." Remember, you can read an excerpt from Bright of the Sky here. And feel free to drop by Kay's Journal and congratulate her here.

Kay Kenyon is Still Writing

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