We’re wishing If Found, Return to Hell by Em X. Liu a very happy book birthday! A wizarding firm intern gets more than they bargained for in our second 2023 Solaris Satellites novella…
Being an intern at a wizarding firm sounds magical on the page, but in practice mostly means getting yelled at by senior mages—and angry clients who’ve been turned into platypuses. So when Journeyman Wen receives a frantic call from a young man who’s awoken to a talisman on his bedroom wall and no memory of how it got there, they jump at the chance to escape call center duty and actually help someone for once.
But the case ends up being more complicated than Wen could ever have anticipated. Their client has been possessed by a demon prince from Hell, and he’s not interested in leaving…
Solaris is delighted to announce the acquisition of its third and final Solaris Satellite novella for 2023, A Theory of Haunting by Sarah Monette.
Monette, who also wrote the critically acclaimed The Goblin Emperor as Katherine Addison, returns to the world of 19th century museum archivist Kyle Murchison Booth in this haunted house mystery for fans of M. R. James and Sarah Waters. The star of a series of short stories previously collected in The Bone Key, Booth attracts yet more supernatural mishaps in his latest adventure that welcomes new and familiar readers alike.
A Theory of Haunting will be released in August 2023.
Exclusive World English Language Rights were acquired by Amanda Rutter from Cameron McClure at the Donald Maass Literary Agency.
Author Sarah Monette on the acquisition:
“It took me a long time to write this novella, so I’m very excited to be working with Solaris to see it in print.”
Acquiring Editor Amanda Rutter:
“Having been an ardent fan of Sarah in her Katherine Addison guise, I was absolutely thrilled to learn that there was a whole other world and wealth of stories to explore in the Kyle Murchison Booth canon. This standalone novella about Mr Booth is the perfect way to discover the necromantic mysteries he dwells within, and I am delighted that Solaris will be publishing A Theory of Haunting.”
Sarah Monette and Katherine Addison are the same person. She has published more than sixty short stories, eight solo novels, and four collaborations with her friend Elizabeth Bear. Her most recent novel is The Grief of Stones (Tor Books/Solaris, 2022). The Goblin Emperor (Tor Books, 2014) won the 2015 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and was a finalist for the Hugo, the Nebula, and the World Fantasy Award. The Angel of the Crows (Tor Books/Solaris, 2020) was a finalist for the Locus Award. The Witness for the Dead (Tor Books/Solaris, 2021) was a finalist for the Locus Award and shortlisted for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award. The Grief of Stones was longlisted for the British Science Fiction Award for Best Novel. You can find her on Patreon as pennyvixen. She lives, with spouse, cats, and books, somewhere in the Upper Midwest.
Asher has been training her entire life to become a Sor-Commander. One day, she’ll give her soul to the gilded, mechanical body of the Sor and become a commander to a whole battalion of Dedicates. These soldiers, human bodies encased in exoskeletons, with extra arms, and telepathic subordination to the Sor-Commanders, are the only thing that’s kept the much larger Levastani army of conquest at bay for decades.
But while on a training journey, Asher and her party are attacked, and her commander is incapacitated, leaving her alone to lead the unit across a bitterly cold, unstable mountain. Worse, one of the Dedicates is not what they seem: a spy for the enemy, with their own reasons to hate their mechanical body and the people who put them in it.
To get off the mountain alive, Asher and her unit will need to decide how much they’re willing to sacrifice — and what for.
“I would follow Asher into any battle, no matter how uncomfortable she would personally feel about that fact.” — Freya Marske, author of The Last Binding Trilogy
“Come for the clockwork battle nuns and fascinating worldbuilding, stay for a profound, moving conclusion that goes straight for the soul.” — Ren Hutchings, author of Under Fortunate Stars
“A brilliant science fantasy adventure, perfect for fans of Murderbot and Becky Chambers.” — Zen Cho, author of Black Water Sister
Solaris is thrilled to announce the acquisition of If Found, Return to Hell by Em X. Liu, the second of the 2023 Solaris Satellites novellas, to be published in June 2023.
Being an intern at One Wizard sounds magical on the page, but in practice mostly means getting yelled at by senior mages and angry clients alike. And so, after receiving a frantic call from a young man who’s awoken to a talisman on his bedroom wall—and no memory of how it got there—Journeyman Wen jumps at the chance to escape call-center duty and actually help someone for once.
But the case ends up being more complicated than Wen could ever have anticipated. The client has been possessed by a demon prince from Hell, and he’s not interested in leaving.
World English Language Rights were acquired by David Moore from Penelope Burns at Gelfman Schneider.
Author Em X. Liu on the acquisition:
“If Found, Return to Hell is an attempt to rediscover the magic in mundanity: carving out satisfaction in your work, how to balance a helping instinct with your own happiness, living with the guilt of not calling your mom for weeks, a warm meal, friends that turn into family, etc. I am so excited to bring it to you with the help of the Solaris Satellites program; I hope it will be the perfect size to dig into, but not too hearty—a nourishing meal in these trying times.”
Acquiring Editor David Moore:
“Em could hardly have found a more susceptible editor! As an immigrant myself I delighted in the found family storyline, and as a parent I ached with the impulse to protect someone a little bit helpless; but the frustration and tedium of the call centre? That I felt right in the bottom of my crusty old Gen-X soul. If Found, Return to Hell is strange, lovely, incredibly humane and utterly delightful.”
Em X. Liu is a writer and recent biochemistry graduate, which means they love stories about artificial intelligence and Shakespeare in equal measure. Since immigrating to Canada, they never go long without hopping on a plane to wander new places. But out of all the cities they’ve been to, they still love their home in Toronto the most. Their debut novel, The Death I Gave Him, will be published by Solaris in September 2023.
Solaris is delighted to announce the acquisition of The Iron Children by Rebecca Fraimow, the first of the 2023 Solaris Satellites novellas, to be published in April 2023.
Asher has spent her adolescence preparing to become a Dedicate, one of the telepathically controlled, iron-carapaced soldiers who have kept the Levastani army at bay for decades. When Asher and her party are attacked on a training journey, it’s up to her to lead the unit across a bitterly cold, unstable mountain and discover which of the Dedicates is a traitor.
World English Rights were acquired by Jim Killen, with Amy Borsuk editing, from Bridget Smith at JABberwocky.
Author Rebecca Fraimow on the acquisition:
“I’m so excited to have the opportunity to share this story, and really thrilled that this novella will be included among the amazing and thought-provoking work in Solaris’ Satellites line-up!”
Editor Amy Borsuk:
“I’m delighted to be working with Rebecca on this compelling novella for our Satellite series. She sure knows how to make robot-nuns both completely badass and the basis for thought-provoking storytelling about war and faith.”
Rebecca Fraimow is an author and archivist living in Boston whose short fiction has been featured in venues such as Kaleidotrope, PodCastle, and Diabolical Plots, as well as anthologies such as Consolation Songs: Speculative Fiction for a Time of Pandemic and The Long List: More Stories From the Hugo Award Nomination List. For more information about Rebecca’s work, visit rebeccafraimow.com.
We’re delighted to be wishing Unto the Godless What Little Remains by Mário Coelho, the third and final of our 2022 Satellites novellas, a very happy book birthday!
Each of our Solaris Satellites novellas is available in eBook, audiobook and as a limited signed paperback, available directly from our webstore! Grab a digital or print season pass and you’ll receive all three of this year’s novellas.
In Unto the Godless What Little Remains, a mortal man faces termination at the hands of an authoritarian agent when the internet falls in love with him…
Liverloin is a fractured man, a collection of personas—artificial constructs of wants, fears and needs—created by underground science-artists to help him hide in a hyper-connected world. But he can’t hide from Big Momma.
She is the living internet, a benevolent AI who knows everything and everyone… and somehow is in love with Liverloin.
Agent Stevly works for DAIS, an AI on the other side of the internet: the darkness to Big Momma’s light. DAIS’s agents manipulate news, information and media and pull the strings behind world events, but DAIS cannot control Big Momma or understand why she loves Liverloin. Agent Stevly, bound body and soul to DAIS, will stop at nothing to find the answer.
We’re over the moon that the first of our 2022 Solaris Satellites novellas, Kid Wolf and Kraken Boy by Sam J. Miller, is out now!
Each of our Solaris Satellites novellas is available in eBook, audiobook and as a limited signed paperback, available directly from our webstore! Treat yourself to a digital or print season pass to buy all three of this year’s novellas.
In Kid Wolf and Kraken Boy, Sam J. Miller invites you to a 1920s New York brimming with queer love, societal change and tattoo magic…
“Kid” Wolffe is an up-and-coming boxer in 1920s New York. An honest fighter’s got little chance at success on the mob-controlled circuit—until ambitious lieutenant “Hinky” Friedman starts making moves to take over her boss’s business, and sees a use for the kid.
Teitelstam is a struggling tattoo artist, whose natural talent for ink magic won’t amount to much without formal training. So he’s got no idea why Hinky would offer him ten times what he’s worth to come work for her.
But Hinky has a vision for a better world, and her high-stakes plan to make it reality requires both Wolffe’s fists and Teitelstam’s magic. What neither Wolffe nor Teitelstam expects is to fall in love; and in this world, love might be more dangerous than deadly magic or an underworld turf war…
We’re over the moon to announce this year’s series of Solaris Satellites! Now entering its second year, our annual SFF novella program is back and will see the release of three incredible brand new stories from Sam J. Miller,Kwaku Osei-Afrifa, and Mário Coelho!
Available in signed limited edition paperback and eBook exclusively from the Rebellion Publishing webshop, as well as audiobook from Penguin Random House Audio, the Satellites novellas are an exciting way for us to bring the freshest SFF writing directly from publisher to reader.
All three of this year’s outstanding novellas are available to pre-order now exclusively from the Rebellion Publishing webshop. You can also buy a Season Pass for both the signed limited edition paperbacks and the eBooks to make sure you don’t miss out and get all three of our 2022 Satellites as they’re released.
“Kid” Wolffe is an up-and-coming boxer in 1920s New York. An honest fighter’s got little chance at success on the mob-controlled circuit—until ambitious lieutenant “Hinky” Friedman starts making moves to take over her boss’s business, and sees a use for the kid.
Teitelstam is a struggling tattoo artist, whose natural talent for ink magic won’t amount to much without formal training. So he’s got no idea why Hinky would offer him ten times what he’s worth to come work for her.
But Hinky has a vision for a better world, and her high-stakes plan to make it reality requires both Wolffe’s fists and Teitelstam’s magic. What neither Wolffe nor Teitelstam expects is to fall in love; and in this world, love might be more dangerous than deadly magic or an underworld turf war…
Kid Wolf And Kraken Boy launches on on 13 July 2022
Elerie Astrada is hanging in almost-space, awaiting launch.
Ultsurf is a popular, high-stakes relay race contested at the edge of a planet’s atmosphere. It’s fast, hard and dangerous: it isn’t a bloodsport, but blood is often spilled. It is also highly illegal. And Ele is at the top of her game, just a few wins away from the major leagues.
But making the fastest Split isn’t Ele’s biggest challenge. When her childhood friend India blackmails her with knowledge of her Ultsurfing career, Ele’s thrown into the politics of money and power, and way over her head. As a pawn in India’s scheme, Ele digs up everything she can on her Ultsurf rivals, the Royals—through drugs, espionage and violence—to ensure her team’s victory.
It’s brought her to this moment. Everything is in place, every deal done. Then the starter whistle blows…
Unto The Godless What Little Remains by Mário Coelho
The internet is a lonesome god.
Liverloin is a fractured man, a collection of personas—artificial constructs of wants, fears and needs—created by underground science-artists to help him hide in a hyper-connected world. But he can’t hide from Big Momma.
She is the living internet, a benevolent AI who knows everything and everyone… and somehow is in love with Liverloin.
Agent Stevly works for DAIS, an AI on the other side of the internet: the darkness to Big Momma’s light. DAIS’s agents manipulate news, information and media and pull the strings behind world events, but DAIS cannot control Big Momma or understand why she loves Liverloin. Agent Stevly, bound body and soul to DAIS, will stop at nothing to find the answer.
Unto The Godless What Little Remains launches on 14 September 2022
Sam J. Miller’s books have been called “must reads” and “bests of the year” by USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, and O: The Oprah Magazine, among others. He is the Nebula-Award-winning author of Blackfish City, which has been translated into six languages and won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Sam’s short stories have won a Shirley Jackson Award and been nominated for the World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon, and Locus Awards, and have been reprinted in dozens of anthologies. He’s also the last in a long line of butchers. He lives in New York City.
Twitter: @sentencebender
Website: samjmiller.com
Kwaku Osei-Afrifa is a writer and commissioning editor living in London. Either side of a two-year stint as a chef, they worked at Canongate, Titan, and Unbound and Hodder & Stoughton’s new imprint: Hodder Studio. They have previously written for Manchester Evening News, Huffington Post, and the Bookseller. The Surf is their first novella, a second is on the way, alongside about a million other things.
Twitter: @pennilessartist
Instagram: @them__fatale
Mário Coelho is a writer from Portugal, a country he leaves often, but never for too long. When the existential dread strikes and his crap car behaves, Mário can be found driving around Europe, stopping here and there to photograph street cats and write little poems about them. Most of his stories can be considered weird fantasy, but he often ventures into horror, sci‑fi, and literary fiction. They have appeared in places like Strange Horizons and PseudoPod.
Twitter: @MSeabraCoelho
Website: mario-coelho.com
For press enquiries please contact Jess Gofton: jess.gofton@rebellion.co.uk
We’re absolutely thrilled to say These Lifeless Things by Premee Mohamed is out now! It’s the first release in our new Solaris Satellites series, in which we bring brilliant SFF novellas directly from publisher to reader. The Solaris Satellites series brings new, exciting voices to the page, with each novella available in limited signed edition paperback, eBook and audiobook, plus a digital or print season pass giving readers release day access to all three 2021 novellas.
She’s not sure what she survived, exactly, only that They invaded without warning, killed nearly all of humanity, and relentlessly attack everyone who’s left.
All she can do to stay sane, in the blockaded city that’s no longer home, is keep a journal about her struggle. Fifty years later, Eva’s words are found by Emerson, a young anthropologist sent to the ruins to study what happened.
The discovery could shed light on the Invasion, turning the unyielding mystery of the short war into a story of hope and defiance.
“Premee Mohamed writes with a joyous velocity that careens through genre-lines, whipping the reader helplessly after her. One of the most exciting voices I’ve heard in a long time.” – John Hornor Jacobs
“One of the most exciting new voices in speculative fiction.” – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Rebellion Publishing is thrilled to announce Solaris Satellites, a new series of SFF novellas delivered directly from the publisher to the reader. Solaris Satellites will begin by releasing three novellas per year, bringing new and exciting voices of genre fiction to the page. These novellas will be available as limited signed edition paperbacks and eBooks from Rebellion Publishing, in addition to audiobooks from Penguin Random House Audio.
The series starts strong with work by Premee Mohamed (Beneath the Rising), Derek Künsken (The House of Styx), and Wayne Santos (The Chimera Code) coming in 2021.
“Novellas are where the genre is at right now: a neat little package, with more room to breathe than a short but without the hulking commitment of a novel (or series!). Some of the cleverest, most exciting stories of the past few years have been novellas, and we’re thrilled to be adding more of them to our schedule.”
Commissioning editor David Thomas Moore, who the project was conceived by
These Lifeless Things by Premee Mohamed
Eva is a survivor. She’s not sure what she survived, exactly, only that They invaded without warning, killed nearly all of humanity, and relentlessly attack everyone who’s left. All she can do to stay sane, in the blockaded city that’s no longer home, is keep a journal about her struggle. Fifty years later, Eva’s words are found by Emerson, a young anthropologist sent to the ruins to study what happened. The discovery could shed light on the Invasion, turning the unyielding mystery of the short war into a story of hope and defiance.
“This novella has had a long journey to publication, and I’m thrilled that it’s found a home with Solaris and David Moore, who appreciates weirdness and unerringly finds ways to help it shine!”
Premee Mohamed on the novella
Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta. Her short fiction has appeared in a variety of venues, including Analog, Escape Pod, Augur, and Nightmare Magazine. Her debut novel, Beneath the Rising, is out now from Solaris Books, with the sequel A Broken Darkness due out in 2021. She can be found on Twitter at @premeesaurus and on her website at www.premeemohamed.com.
The Difficult Loves of Maria Makiling by Wayne Santos
Maria is, in no particular order: a concept artist at one of Canada’s biggest videogame studios, the goddess of Mount Makiling in the Philippines, and in love. And right now, being in love is her biggest problem. Because when Maria falls in love, tragedy and death follow—and always have. For hundreds of years. If she wants to break the cycle, it’s going to take everything a goddess, her newly-befriended, anime-obsessed demon-horse, and Canadian national treasure Margaret Atwood have to make it happen.
“The Difficult Loves of Maria Makiling is a weird, tangential story about love, diaspora dilemmas and demon horses. I was never certain it would find a home, but I’m pleased and amazed that Rebellion are crazy enough to unleash it on the world.”
Wayne Santos on the novella
Wayne Santos has been an ad copywriter, a TV scriptwriter, a magazine contributor, an editor, and a freelance writer for too many things on the Internet to count. He is the author of the science fiction/fantasy novel, The Chimera Code and is a multi-disciplinary geek with a double major in science-fiction and fantasy, specializations in novels, comics, anime, TV and film, and a minor in video games. Follow Wayne on Twitter @waynepsantos.
Pollen From A Future Harvest by Derek Künsken
Major Chenesai Okonkwo is an Auditor for the Sub-Saharan Union. Her mission: to find out why if Sixth Expeditionary Force’s newly discovered time gate has been compromised. Is the Union’s revolutionary discovery already doomed, eleven years in the future? But there is another, more personal mission. The possible murder of her husband remains unsolved. But are the two things connected? Can she navigate the world of aliens, spies, politics and time paradoxes to find the truth, and save her people’s future?
“Pollen came from the question of ‘what might evolve around a time travel device?’ It was also my first novella and my first mystery. I loved it so much that Pollen became the spark and foundation for my novel The Quantum Magician.”
Derek Künsken on the novella
After leaving molecular biology, Derek Künsken worked with street kids in Central America before finding himself in the Canadian Foreign Service. He now writes science fiction in Gatineau, Québec. His first space opera novel, The Quantum Magician was a finalist for the Aurora, the Locus and the Chinese Nebula Awards. The House of Styx, the start of a new space opera duology has received starred reviews from Publishers’ Weekly and the Library Journal. Pollen From a Future Harvest is his first novella and also part of the Quantum Evolution universe. Find out more at DerekKunsken.com or follow Derek on Twitter @DerekKunsken.
