Mark Chadbourn, author of the Jack of Ravens series, and writing machine (seriously, I don’t think the guy sleeps) has some disheartening news about Solaris:
The Solaris SF/F imprint has been put up for sale by its owner, Games Workshop. Solaris is publishing Lord of Silence in July, and I’m told that publication will still go ahead, as will every book announced up to early 2010.
Hopefully the Solaris, who have been very supportive of A Dribble of Ink from the start, can come out the other end of this even stronger. Best of luck, all!
Argh! I’m guessing this leaves Paul Kearney’s future works and his Monarchies of God reprints in doubt, which is very sad news. Hopefully they’ll get picked up by another publisher in the interim.
Well, if we’re lucky, Solaris will get picked up by another company and things will continue like normal.
Worst case scenario, I think Kearney and his work would fit in well with Orbit.
Kearney has been shuttled around half the SF&F publishers in Britain by this point (Gollancz, Bantam, Solaris), so I suppose another change won’t phase him too much, especially as by all accounts THE TEN THOUSAND did quite good business.
I’ve been waiting to read The Monarchies of God for ages, I’ll be crushed if someone doesn’t pick him up. Especially considering the success he seems to have had with The Ten Thousand.
Like I said, in a perfect world he’ll get to stay with Solaris and they’ll continue to thrive.
I have heard rumours of a surprising potential buyer.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Prometheus/Pyr swoop in – something of a synchronicity and partnership (Lou Anders editing a Solaris anthology and Solaris publishing MMPB of Edelman’s novels) already exists.
According to Paul the Monarchies reprints are going ahead whilst the new Macht books are on hold.
Rob B: this would be interesting, especially if Pyr wanted to put a toe in the UK market as well (Solaris publishes in both).