Posts Tagged: Angry Robot Books

The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley

Publisher: Angry Robot Books - Pages: 544 - Buy: Book/eBook
Cover art for The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley

In the world of Kameron Hurley’s The Mirror Empire, where magic users draw their power from one of three heavenly satellites, a dark star is rising, one whose ascendance heralds a time of cataclysmic change and war between realities. For Lilia, who crossed from one world to another in childhood, fleeing the wrath of an alternate, militaristic version of the peaceful Dhai culture she now inhabits, this means discovering her mother’s hidden legacy before it can destroy her. For Akhio, the younger brother and now unexpected heir of Dhai’s deceased leader, Oma’s rise brings politicking and treachery, both from Dhai’s traditional enemies and from within his own state. For Zezili, the half-blood daijian general of matriarchal Dorinah, charged by her alien empress with exterminating the nation’s daijian population, it means an uneasy alliance with women from another world; women whose plans are built on blood and genocide. For Rohinmey, a novice parajista who dreams of adventure, Oma brings the promise of escape – but at a more terrible cost than he could ever have imagined. And for Taigan, a genderfluid assassin and powerful omajista bound in service to the Patron of imperial Saiduan, it means watching cities burn as invading armies walk between worlds with the aim of destroying his. How many realities are there? Who can travel between them? And who will survive Oma’s rise?

The Mirror Empire hooked me in from the very first page.

The Mirror Empire, the first volume of the Worldbreaker Saga, is Hugo Award-winning writer Kameron Hurley’s fourth novel, and from the minute I first saw the blurb, I knew I had to read it. The entire concept – backstabbing politics, polyamorous pacifists, violent matriarchs, sentient plant-monsters, doors between worlds – is basically my personal catnip, and when you throw in my enjoyment of Hurley’s first novel, God’s War, my expectations at the outset were understandably high. Which is ordinarily a risk factor: the more I invest in a story beforehand, the more likely I am to wind up disappointed. But The Mirror Empire, with its sprawling, fascinating mix of original cultures, political wrangling – both within the narrative and as cultural commentary – and vivid, brilliant worldbuilding, hooked me in from the very first page. The only reason it took me so long to read, in fact, was a personal reticence to have the story end: I’ve been drawing it out over weeks and months, prolonging the inevitable.

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lee-harris-tor-dot-com

Tor.com announced this morning that Lee Harris, Senior Editor at Angry Robot Books, will be joining their new short fiction imprint as Senior Editor. Harris will join Publisher Fritz Foy, Associate Publisher Irene Gallo, and Editorial Assistant Carl Engle-Laird at the imprint. They are still searching for a Publicity Manager, Marketing Manager, and Designer.

“The Tor.com role is full-time,” Harris revealed to me. This means that his time as Senior Editor at Angry Robot Books is coming to an end. This news comes just days after Osprey Media announced the closure of two of Angry Robot Books’ sister imprints: Strange Chemistry and Exhibit A. Harris maintained through his website that the timing is entirely coincidental. “The new role is an amazing opportunity for me, and if it had been advertised six months ago, or six months from now, I would still have applied. In a note to my authors I said that in many ways it’s the role that Angry Robot had been preparing me for over the last five years.”

Harris has been a part of the Angry Robot Books team since its earliest days, and leaving the imprint was not an easy decision for him. “Handing in my notice to Angry Robot was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It was a genuinely emotional meeting – Angry Robot is more than just my job, it’s my baby, and it always will be.”

With Harris moving to Tor.com in August, Angry Robot Books is on the search for a new Senior Editor. “Marc will need to find a replacement for me at Angry Robot. And you know what? Whoever gets that gig is going to have the time of their life.” Do you have what it takes? Read More »

Company Town by Madeline Ashby Madeline-Low-Res-02-e1348636903481

I’m a working futurist, so I’m supposed to know all about it. The problem was, I didn’t really have any answers.

Madeline Ashby’s debut novel, vN, caught a lot a readers by surprise with its sophisticated take on humanity’s convergence with the technology we’ve created. Stefan Raets of Tor.com lauded it for examining “a fairly complex future almost exclusively from the limited perspective of an immature and confused non-human character,” and Cory Doctorow said, “Ashby’s debut is a fantastic adventure story […] It is often profound, and it is never boring.”

The sequel, iD, established Ashby as one of the genre’s most exciting young writers. Now she’s back with a new novel, a standalone called Company Town.

“After I wrote the most fucked-up book about robot consciousness ever, followed by an even more fucked-up sequel, people started asking me about the Singularity,” Ashby told io9 when they asked about the inception of Company Town. “I’m a working futurist, so I’m supposed to know all about it. The problem was, I didn’t really have any answers. So I decided to write a fucked-up book about it. And sex work. And serial killers.”

Erik Mohr‘s cover design is as gritty and darkly attractive as Ashby’s description of the book. Read More »

Cover art for The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley

When Angry Robot Books announced that they had acquired Kameron Hurley’s The Worldbreaker Saga, the first epic fantasy from the author of God’s War, I knew readers were in for a treat. Hurley’s series, beginning with The Mirror Empire, is one of my most anticipated novels of 2014, and Angry Robot Books is known for their fun and progressive approach to cover art. It’s a match made in heaven, right? Read More »

God's War by Kameron Hurley

Buy God’s War by Kameron Hurley: book/eBook

Yesterday, Angry Robot Books announced the Worldbreaker Saga, a new fantasy/science fiction trilogy from Kameron Hurley (remember her?). “The Mirror Empire will be published worldwide in September this year, with the sequel to follow a year later,” explains Angry Robot.

Surprising to note, The Mirror Empire is set to release this September, a very quick turnaround in the world of traditional publishing, and sure to set some readers to shuffling around their fall reading list. It’s instantly become one of my most anticipated novels of 2014.

Hurley’s best known for her Bel Dame Apocrypha, a slim trilogy (by genre standards) about the bounty hunter Nyx, which Dan Hartland of Strange Horizons described as, “like a live grenade, lobbed with abandon and not a little mischief.” So, I was rightfully surprised when she described The Mirror Empire to me. “This is Game of Thrones meets Fringe,” she said. “Across three respectable doorstoppers.”

Along with the announcement, we also have an early synopsis:

On the eve of a recurring catastrophic event known to extinguish nations and reshape continents, a troubled orphan evades death and slavery to uncover her own bloody past… while a world goes to war with itself.

In the frozen kingdom of Saiduan, invaders from another realm are decimating whole cities, leaving behind nothing but ash and ruin. At the heart of this war lie the pacifistic Dhai people, once enslaved by the Saiduan and now courted by their former masters to provide aid against the encroaching enemy.

Stretching from desolate tundra to steamy, semi-tropical climes seething with sentient plant life, this is an epic tale of blood mages and mercenaries, emperors and priestly assassins who must unite to save a world on the brink of collapse. As the dark star of the cataclysm rises, an illegitimate ruler struggles to unite a country fractured by civil war; a precocious young fighter is asked to betray his family to save his skin; and a half-Dhai general must choose between the eradication of her father’s people or loyalty to her alien Empress.

Through tense alliances and devastating betrayals, the Dhai and their allies attempt to hold against a seemingly unstoppable force as enemy nations prepare for a coming together of worlds as old as the universe itself.

In the end, only one world will rise – and many will perish.

Art by Jung Park

Art by Jung Park

I caught up with Hurley to chat about the new deal an what to expect of her new trilogy. “his book has been a long time coming,” she said. “It’s one of those projects that brews at the back of your brain for nearly twenty years, waiting for you to achieve the skill you need to actually pull it off.”

Hurley’s first trilogy has been a huge critical success (most recently, God’s War was nominated for a BSFA), but she wasn’t ready to return to that world for novel-length material, so began this new project.

“After I finished my God’s War trilogy, I needed a break from writing a world mired in apocalyptic war… so of course I sat down and wrote The Mirror Empire, which is about a world at the brink of apocalyptic war with multiple worlds. Because one world at war just isn’t, you know, enough for me. It’s the most intricate and complex book I’ve ever written, and I had a lot of help along the way, in particular from my agent, Hannah Bowman, who has a very keen sense for how to thread together multiple plot lines over multiple worlds and… well… a lot of multiple things, as folks will note pretty early on.”

“I’m pretty jazzed to see what folks think of it.”