News surfaced a few months ago that Solaris Books, whose catalog includes Gail Z. Martin, Paul Kearney and Simon R. Green, was for sale. Well, it took a bit of time, but it looks like a buyer has been found.
The press release:
REBELLION ACQUIRES SOLARIS IMPRINT FROM GAMES WORKSHOP
This week, Rebellion, Europe’s leading independent games developer and owner of the iconic comic 2000 AD and sci-fi and fantasy imprint Abaddon Books, completed the acquisition of the Solaris book publishing imprint from Games Workshop for an undisclosed sum.
This well-known and highly successful brand offers a mixture of new and traditional science fiction, fantasy and horror books and has many bestselling titles from both upcoming and established names such as Brian Lumley, Gail Z. Martin, Eric Brown and Simon R. Green, amongst others.
Solaris will sit alongside, and be run in parallel with, Rebellion’s own Abaddon Books.
Jason Kingsley, CEO of Rebellion said, “We’ve been aware of the Solaris imprint for some years now and have admired its success with fantastic stories and great writers. Acquiring Solaris will allow us to continue to push our publishing trajectory upwards and expand the quantity, whilst maintaining the quality, of all our titles.”
George Mann, Games Workshop’s Head of Publishing said, “We’re delighted that Solaris has found a new home with Rebellion. After a period of fantastic growth with our Games Workshop related titles, we decided the time was right for us to focus all of our attention on our Black Library imprint. We’re sure Rebellion will now take Solaris forward to even greater heights.”
Rebellion has also entered into a sales and distribution agreement with Simon and Schuster. Under the agreement, Simon & Schuster will continue to handle sales, distribution and fulfilment of all Solaris titles for all new and backlist titles to trade and specialty accounts. The agreement is effective August 31st, 2009.
Simon & Schuster, a part of CBS Corporation, is a global leader in the field of general interest publishing, dedicated to providing the best in fiction and nonfiction for consumers of all ages, across all printed, electronic, and audio formats. Its divisions include Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, Simon & Schuster Audio, Simon & Schuster Digital, and international companies in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit our website www.simonandschuster.com
Distribution for Solaris will continue to be represented by Simon and Schuster.
Oddly, Rebellion is best known as a Videogame developer, but a closer look ties them to the comic book industry (2000 AD) and even the Speculative Fiction publishing world, as owners of Abaddon Books.
I don’t know a whole lot about Rebellion, nor do I have any experience with Abaddon Books, but looking at Rebellion‘s lineup of videogames, I don’t have the utmost faith in them. Still, it’s nice to know that Solaris, and its staff, will continue to operate, more or less, as normal.
Rebellion were a successful video game design company who took over 2000AD, Judge Dredd Megazine and Abbadon Books a few years ago. They haven’t done much in the way of big games ever since. Last I heard they were working on a new JUDGE DREDD movie.
Huh?
They’re still heavily involved in Videogame development. From wikipedia:
# Delta Force: Black Hawk Down (2005, PlayStation 2)
# James Bond: From Russia with Love (2006 PSP)
# Dead to Rights: Reckoning (2006, PSP)
# GUN Showdown (2006, PSP)
# Rogue Trooper (2006, PC, Xbox and PS2, 2009 Wii)
# Miami Vice (2006, PSP)
# Delta Force: Black Hawk Down: Team Sabre (2006, PlayStation 2)
# Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron (2007, PSP)
# Free Running (2007, PlayStation 2, PSP)
# Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007, PSP)
# The Simpsons Game (2007, PlayStation 2, PSP, Wii)
# Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (video game) (2007, PSP)
# Call of Duty: World at War: Final Fronts(2008, PS2)
# Shellshock 2: Blood Trails (2009, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC)
# PDC World Championship Darts 2009 (2009 Wii)
# Rogue Warrior: Black Razor (2009, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC)
# Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron (2009, PSP)
# Aliens vs Predator (2010, PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
Not something to be ashamed of, but certainly not a lineup that I’m slobbering over, either. Still, I expect they’ll be letting Solaris run more or less as it always has, which is a good thing.
Can I just make a tiny amendment to the above? None of the staff are moving with the imprint and Rebellion will be using their existing publishing staff along with some new recruits to man Solaris.
Like I said, they haven’t done any games which have picked up much press or acclaim. Those Star Wars Battlefront games are the PSP versions, not the huge-selling console ones, and in fact they seem to be surviving by doing PS2 or PSP ports of other, bigger games.
Sensible and a steady source of income, but they haven’t done anything ‘big’ in quite some time.