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OUT NOW: We Are All Ghosts in the Forest by Lorraine Wilson

We’re wishing the happiest of book birthdays to We Are All Ghosts in the Forest by Lorraine Wilson!

A beautifully melancholic literary sci-fi for fans of Emily St. John Mandel and Zoe Gilbert, We Are All Ghosts in the Forest unravels in a world set in the aftermath of the internet’s collapse—a world haunted by its ghosts and a rampant digital disease, where a woman and the wordless boy with her name in his pocket search for the truth, and a possible cure.

When the internet collapsed, it took the world with it, leaving its digital ghosts behind – and they are hungry. Former photojournalist Katerina fled the overrun cities to the relative safety of her grandmother’s village on the edge of a forest, where she lives a solitary life of herbal medicine and beekeeping.

When a wordless boy finds her in the marketplace with nothing but her name in his pocket, her curiosity won’t allow her to turn him away. But haunting his arrival are rumours of harvest failure and a rampant digital disease stirring up the ghosts, and the mood in the village starts to sour.

Accused of witchcraft, Katerina and Stefan escape into the forest, searching for his missing father and the truth behind the disease. If there is a cure, Katerina alone might find it, but first she must find the courage to trust others – because the ghosts that follow her aren’t just digital.

“Haunting and atmospheric, with a really excellent ghost cat.” —Naomi Kritzer, Hugo Award-winning author of “The Year Without Sunshine”

“Eerie and original.” SFX

“A poignant and lyrical portrayal of intimate frailties and quiet strength.” —Nicholas Binge, author of Ascension

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OUT NOW: Interstellar MegaChef by Lavanya Lakshminarayan

We’re wishing Interstellar MegaChef by Lavanya Lakshminarayan a very happy book birthday!

This sophomore novel from the Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated author of The Ten Percent Thief explores colonialism, classism, and the future of food in a sci-fi tale following one woman’s determination to win the greatest cooking competition in the galaxy. It’s out now in North America, but don’t worry UK fans – it’ll be on bookshelves near you this Thursday!

Looking for your one shot to rise to the “top of the pots” in the cutthroat world of interstellar cuisine? Look no further—you might have what it takes to be an Interstellar MegaChef!

Stepping off a long-haul star freighter from Earth, Saras Kaveri has one bag of clothes, her little flying robot Kili… and an invitation to compete in the galaxy’s most watched, most prestigious cooking show. Interstellar MegaChef is the showcase of the planet Primus’s austere, carefully synthesised cuisine. Until now, no-one from Earth—where they’re so incredibly primitive they still cook with fire—has ever graced its flowmetal cookstations before, or smiled awkwardly for its buzzing drone-cams.

Corporate prodigy Serenity Ko, inventor of the smash-hit sim SoundSpace, has just got messily drunk at a floating bar, narrowly escaped an angry mob and been put on two weeks’ mandatory leave to rest and get her work-life balance back. Perfect time to start a new project! And she’s got just the idea: a sim for food. Now she just needs someone to teach her how to cook.

A chance meeting in the back of a flying cab has Saras and Serenity Ko working together on a new technology that could change the future of food—and both their lives—forever…

“A lot of fun.” New Scientist

“An engaging story that dives into themes about the appreciation of food, colonization, and xenophobia and features two morally gray queer women attempting to find their footing with each other.” Library Journal, starred review

“Absolutely bursting with flavor and thrumming with possibility – this is science fiction at its best.” —Tashan Mehta, author of Mad Sisters of Esi

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Solaris to publish cosmic space opera The Immeasurable Heaven by Caspar Geon

Solaris is delighted to announce the acquisition of The Immeasurable Heaven by Caspar Geon.

In a long settled galaxy, a race known as the Sovereigns possess the means to visit parallel realities, appearing inside the body of someone, or something, else. The Well, where horrors are flung, runs through the realities like a fissure, and the king-turned-sorcerer who’s been trapped there for more years than he can say trudges the wastelands for a way out. When news breaks of a priceless map of the realities, a kaleidoscopic cast of alien characters race each other across reality to the Well—and quite possibly to their own deaths.

A cosmic adventure that reads like a fable from another galaxy, The Immeasurable Heaven will be released in July 2025.

World All Language Rights were acquired by David Thomas Moore from Ed Wilson at Johnson & Alcock Ltd.

Author Caspar Geon on the acquisition:

“I’m so happy that The Immeasurable Heaven has found such a good home with Solaris, and looking forward to sharing my strange tale of another galaxy next year.”

Acquiring Editor David Thomas Moore:

“I seriously can’t wait to share The Immeasurable Heaven with you all. Vast and cosmic, smart and witty, pacy and fun, human (ironically given there are no humans in it) and personal. One of the most original science fiction books you’ll read.”

Caspar Geon has lived many lives in many different dimensions, and published books in all of them. THE IMMEASURABLE HEAVEN is his first book set in the infinite parallel realities of the Phaslairs.

For press enquiries please contact Jess Gofton, PR & Marketing Manager: jess.gofton@rebellion.co.uk.

For rights enquiries please contact Sam Birkett, Rights Manager: sam.birkett@rebellion.co.uk.

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OUT NOW: Lady Eve’s Last Con by Rebecca Fraimow

We’re wishing Lady Eve’s Last Con by Rebecca Fraimow a very happy book birthday! It’s out today in the US and will be released in the UK on Thursday 6 June.

Con artist Ruth’s quest for revenge against the man who broke her sister’s heart is complicated when she meets his unfairly attractive sister in this sapphic sci-fi rom-com!

Ruth Johnson and her sister Jules have been small-time hustlers on the interstellar cruise lines for years. But then Jules fell in love with one of their targets, Esteban Mendez-Yuki, sole heir to the family insurance fortune. Esteban seemed to love her too, until she told him who she really was, at which point he fled without a word.

Now Ruth is set on revenge: disguised as provincial debutante Evelyn Ojukwu and set for the swanky satellite New Monte, she’s going to make Esteban fall in love with her, then break his heart and take half his fortune. At least, that’s the plan. But Ruth hadn’t accounted for his older sister, Sol, a brilliant mind in a dashing suit… and much harder to fool.

Sol is hot on Ruth’s tail, and as the two women learn each other’s tricks, Ruth must decide between going after the money and going after her heart.

“A delightful story about what happens when the billionaire target of your galactic revenge plot has a terrifyingly sexy half-sister. It’s got zest, it’s got style, it’s got society balls, dramatic reversals, incredible outfits, and a beach episode. Fraimow knows exactly what she’s doing.” —Emily Tesh, author of Some Desperate Glory

Wildly fun and incredibly romantic, all the glitter of the Jazz Age and the brilliance of space opera in one story.” —Everina Maxwell, author of Winter’s Orbit

“Compulsively readable and totally delightful.” Publishers Weekly, starred review

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The Ten Percent Thief is an Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee!

We’re thrilled to see The Ten Percent Thief by Lavanya Lakshminarayan on the 2024 Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist!

The winner will be announced at a ceremony on 24th July 2024 and you can check out the full shortlist here.

Set in a futuristic Bangalore known as Apex City, where a person’s rights are dictated by their usefulness to society, The Ten Percent Thief is a fresh, dystopian mosaic novel following the city’s inhabitants from across the social spectrum—and the rebellion that’s brewing underneath it all…

For fans of Red Rising and Poster Girl, The Ten Percent Thief is out now in paperback, and Lavanya’s brand new novel, Interstellar MegaChef, is available to preorder!

Nothing has happened. Not yet, anyway. This is how all things begin.

Welcome to Apex City, formerly Bangalore, where everything is decided by the mathematically perfect Bell Curve.

With the right image, values and opinions, you can ascend to the glittering heights of the Twenty Percent – the Virtual elite – and have the world at your feet. Otherwise you risk falling to the precarious Ten Percent, and deportation to the ranks of the Analogs, with no access to electricity, running water or even humanity.

The system has no flaws. Until the elusive “Ten Percent Thief” steals a single jacaranda seed from the Virtual city and plants a revolution in the barren soil of the Analog world.

Previously published in South Asia only as Analog/Virtual, The Ten Percent Thief is a striking debut by a ferocious new talent.

“Lavanya Lakshminarayan breathes new life into dystopia” — The Washington Post

“Smart, vivid, engaging” — The Guardian

“A new masterpiece”SciFiNow

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Revealing the cover of The Unkillable Princess by Taran Hunt!

We’re so excited to share the cover of The Unkillable Princess by Taran Hunt, sequel to beloved 2022 favourite The Immortality Thief, designed by Martin Stiff at Amazing15!

Sean grapples with family – the one he’s found and the one that’s found him – in this rollicking sequel which will hit bookshelves in February 2025.

How far would you go for family?

Having escaped the dangers of the Nameless with the Philosopher Stone data, Sean thought his troubles were over. Until he gets a call for help from his sister Brigid–his long-dead sister.

Brigid is sparse on the details, but she needs Sean to go to the Republican city of Illin to retrieve something called a “Purifier” for her. Reeling from the desperate hope that his sister is alive, Sean aims for Illin, dragging his new companions, Tamara Gupta formerly a Republican soldier, and Indigo, the Minister responsible for the destruction of Sean’s home, into the fray.

But as usual, Sean hasn’t quite thought this through. The three of them are all wanted by Republican authorities, and Illin happens to be on the same planet as Sean’s old friend Senator Ketel. Y’know, the one who blackmailed and nearly murdered Sean. With every move Sean makes he discovers more intrigue, more people on his tail, and more ways that his little adventure could be the spark for war between the Republic and the Ministers. And to what end? Is it really his sister, a chance for family, and safety, on the other side?

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Why Solaris authors write science fiction

It’s no secret that we love science fiction here at Solaris – and that we’re lucky enough to publish so much of it! – but what is it about the genre that entices our authors?

Well, to celebrate Star Wars Day, we asked some of them just that! And here’s what they had to say…

Lavanya Lakshminarayan

Science fiction holds endless possibilities; it’s as limitless as spacetime, as reflective as an infinity mirror. It can bend and reshape perspectives on reality, and it can frame our visions for the future.

I grew up in India, and we didn’t always have access to a ton of science fiction, but I was lucky enough to have a family that raised me with a sense of wonder. When I was very young, my mother introduced me to Star Wars. The first show I was allowed to stay up late to watch on a school night was Star Trek. One summer, I stumbled upon stacks of science fiction novels in my grandparents’ library—all the classics from the 60’s and 70’s—and I devoured them all.

I didn’t realize until I was much older that I’d seldom encountered characters with names like mine. I possessed a deep-rooted sense of wonder, but while I was tracing the outlines of all these futures, the vastness of the universe didn’t seem to have room for people like me…

And so, I write science fiction to envision the lives of people like me in the future, where our backgrounds and histories and cultures influence the shape of the future, so we get to live that sense of wonder for ourselves, instead of being on the outside looking in.

Science fiction is a place of freedom, where all things are possible, and everyone can belong. This is what keeps me coming back to the page, every single time.

Derek Künsken

Sure, the world is an interesting place, but are there lightsabers here? Phasers? Monsters to trick or fight? Does the real world have cool helmets? What about shiny Cylons? Sure, there’s danger in the world, but is it containable? Defeatable? Punchable? Does real world danger come in bright laser blasts with special effects sounds? Sure, there’s heroism in the world, but do the actions of one person tip the scales, save the good guys? There are cool places in the world, but are they forest moons, gas giants, asteroids, and the dark vacuum of space? There are lots of readers looking for detective mysteries, heart-racing romances of yesteryear or the here and now, political thrillers and so on, but I’ve always wanted to be transported in books and film to other worlds, peopled with strange aliens, to adventures unknown in my world. That’s what I need to see. I don’t know why I write. I just always have – I’ve always needed to. And in writing, I transport myself to other places, other times, and other realities, and hopefully bring along some readers too.

Rebecca Fraimow

Fiction can do a lot of incredible things, but for my money, two of the most powerful are the shock of the new and the shock of the familiar: when a book presents you with a thought, image, or idea that you’ve never had before; when a stranger on a page expresses something that immediately makes you think ‘oh, me too’. I love speculative fiction because it lets you imagine all kinds of different lives that people might live — every possible ‘what if’ under the sun — and the stranger it gets, the more powerful those moments of connection and recognition become. I love the moments when a character who lives in a galaxy far far away experiences something that feels indescribably strange to me, and I love the moments when they experience something that’s so profoundly human that it could have happened to me yesterday buying groceries.

Yoon Ha Lee

It’s 90% true that I’m in sci-fi for the big space battles, because I can be counted on to lower the discourse. But the other reason is that I am very boring and health prevents me from having adventures, and I suspect “trapped in a desperate no-win situation by a maniacally cackling author” is way more fun to read (write?) than to experience. I love that sci-fi allows me to imagine adventures in extraordinary circumstances; that it lets me pose the terrible over-the-top questions, inhabit the terrible over-the-top scenarios, that I would never go near in real life. In real life, I want hot running water, kthx (I have lived in a house without it). I experience the ordinary everyday by existing. It’s the extraordinary, the outright impossible, that I crave.

Also I was that extremely gullible kid who spent years searching my grandma’s closets for Narnia, so there’s that, too.

Ren Hutchings

Science fiction takes us on adventures to worlds both familiar and strange, from eerily-possible near-futures to fantastical alternate realities, and I love it in all its flavours. I adore worldbuilding, and I love discovering more about a fictional universe as a series or franchise expands. But so much of what I love about all genre fiction is the character journeys. Throw in some of my favourite character tropes and I’m all in.

I love a rag-tag crew suddenly pulled into an adventure, I love bickering opposites who’ve lived vastly different lives being thrown together to cooperate, I love an ordinary person called upon to do something extraordinary. Placing a compelling character story against a sci-fi backdrop is the recipe for many of my favourite movies, shows and books, and the original Star Wars trilogy was definitely a formative part of my inspiration to create sci-fi stories of my own.

As I work on the next books in my own series, I’ve thought a lot about how to craft fictional universes that feel like they expand far beyond what’s seen on the screen or on the page. And by contrast, the way a small moment or a tiny corner of that universe can feel immense when seen through a certain character’s lens. Because sci-fi is not only the discovery of new worlds and experiences, but their discovery specifically through the eyes of the characters that live in them.

Edward Ashton

I didn’t set out to be a science fiction writer. I first made a (small) name for myself writing the sort of stories that are published in journals with names like The Southern Missouri Literary Review. After my first child was born, though, I took a break from writing, and when I came back to it years later I decided to try writing the kinds of stories I really loved to read rather than the ones that my writing professors had drilled into my head.

Science fiction has two great virtues that have drawn me to it as both a reader and a writer. First and most obviously, the genre permits incredible creativity. Contemporary fiction is constrained by the contemporary world. That has its own virtues—the defined form of a haiku or a sonnet forces the poet to express herself with far greater precision than free verse—but speculative fiction allows the writer to invent a world purpose-built to illustrate whatever message she’s trying to communicate.

More importantly, the fact that science fiction allows the writer to set a story in a time and place that has no obvious connection to the contemporary world allows the writer to speak directly to the reader about contemporary issues without having emotional blinders get in the way. If I write a critique of modern capitalism set in contemporary New York, some large fraction of my readers will take what I’m saying as a direct criticism of themselves and their lifestyle, and at that point all communication stops. If I set that same critique a thousand years in the future and a dozen light years away, though? Now I’ve at least got a chance of getting my point across.

Also, of course, science fiction has dragons. Who doesn’t love dragons?

Taran Hunt

There are so many reasons to appreciate and enjoy science fiction that I could not narrow down the appeal to a single cause. Instead, here are five reasons that I love science fiction:

  1. I watched Star Trek: Voyager as a child and imprinted like a baby duck.
  2. I studied physics in college. Calculating time dilation makes me feel alive.
  3. Every author must have something inexplicably wrong with them. Art comes from this unresolvable fault in the soul. The fault in my soul involves aliens, somehow.
  4. Science fiction allows the exploration of what might exist: either elsewhere in the universe, or in our own future. Familiar inter- and intrapersonal conflicts can be represented by unfamiliar and fantastic settings and concepts. The hypothetical and the unfamiliar focus on the familiar in an exciting way.
  5. Only in science fiction can you find swords on spaceships. Swords. On spaceships.

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Solaris acquires dark sci-fi debut The Ganymedan by R.T. Ester

Solaris is thrilled to announce the acquisition of The Ganymedan by R.T. Ester, a dark and compelling science fiction debut that examines agency and sacrifice through one man’s desperate attempt to reach home.

The prodigal son of an anti-AI rebel faction, Kerwin Dotnet tried to make a life for himself as a mixologist on Mars. Now his tyrannical employer, the richest man alive, has been murdered, and K-Dot must depend on first-generation AI spaceship TR-8901 to get him to safety on Jupiter—or suffer a fate worse than death. But TR has a direct interest in identifying the murderer, and its devotion to law and order is the only thing keeping it from purposely self-destructing after 200 years of obsolescence.

World English Language Rights were acquired by Amy Borsuk from Jason Yarn at Jason Yarn Literary Agency.
The Ganymedan will be released in November 2025.

Author R.T. Ester on the acquisition:

“I am very pleased to have joined the Solaris family. Meeting Amy Borsuk last November, I connected instantly with her vision for The Ganymedan, her very observant take on its protagonist, and her enthusiasm for the themes it explores. I was quickly assured the story had found its home and, seeing a notable commitment to publishing thought-provoking fiction, I am thrilled it will be in the caring hands of the Solaris team. I look forward to working with Amy and everyone else to get my scorpion-and-turtle retelling that blends the transhumanist noir of Altered Carbon with the gritty spacefaring of The Expanse out into the world.”

Acquiring Editor Amy Borsuk:

“I’m so excited to be the editor for this provocative and brilliantly intense sci-fi story from R.T. Ester! This compelling story of one man’s doomed and determined journey home explores thought-provoking themes of agency and autonomy, and sacrifice in the name of goodness. It also has a brilliant outmoded, sentient spaceship who acts as counterpoint to everything. R.T. is a brilliant writer and those ready for darker shades of sci-fi, or journeys home, or sentient AI, will love this book.”

Originally from Nigeria, R.T. Ester moved to the United States in 1998 and, catching the creative bug early on, studied art with a focus on design. While working full time as a graphic designer, he began to write speculative fiction in his spare time and, since then, has had stories published in Interzone and Clarkesworld. The Ganymedan is his first novel.

For press enquiries please contact Jess Gofton, PR & Marketing Manager: jess.gofton@rebellion.co.uk.

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OUT NOW: Redsight by Meredith Mooring

We’re wishing Redsight by Meredith Mooring a very happy book birthday!

A blind priestess must learn to take control of the power she never knew she had in this own voices science fantasy debut for fans of Dune and Sisters of the Vast Black.

Heresy is power. Chaos is divine.

Korinna has simple priorities: stay on the Navitas, stay out of trouble, and stay alive. She may be a Redseer, a blind priestess with the power to manipulate space-time, but she is the weakest in her Order. Useless and outcast. Or so she has been raised to believe.

As she takes her place as a navigator on an Imperium ship, Korinna’s full destiny is revealed to her: blood brimming with magic, she is meant to become a weapon of the Imperium, and pawn for the Order that raised her. But when the ship is attacked by the notorious pirate Aster Haran, Korinna’s world is ripped apart.

Aster has a vendetta against the Imperium, and an all-consuming, dark power that drives her to destroy everything in her path. She understands the world in a way Korinna has never imagined, and Korinna is drawn to her against her better judgment.

With the Imperium and the justice-seeking warrior Sahar hot on her heels, Korinna must choose her side, seize her power and fulfil her destiny–or risk imperiling the future of the galaxy, and destroying the fabric of space-time itself.

“Redsight combines the vastness of Dune and Childhood’s End with a visceral, reality-warping journey of self-discovery to create a beautiful, bloody testament to the possibilities of compassion and love.” Ryka Aoki, author of Light From Uncommon Stars

“Redsight is a stellar debut, born from a collision between epic space opera and bewitching cosmic horror. Meredith Mooring weaves echoes of classic sci-fi into a breathtakingly original tapestry — an intoxicating blend of the visceral and the romantic, the monstrous and the mythical.” —Ren Hutchings, author of Under Fortunate Stars

“A brutal, vivid, emotional gut punch of a book. With stakes both deeply personal and universe-altering, Redsight is a cutting examination of the complexities of duty, faith, and moral obligation, helmed by a trio of compellingly flawed characters wielding immense cosmic power. This fresh, high-concept SFF is perfect for fans of Gideon the Ninth and Sisters of the Vast Black.” J. S. Dewes, author of The Last Watch

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Solaris snaps up new and backlist titles by Aliya Whiteley

Solaris is thrilled to announce the acquisition of two brand new novels, and four backlist titles, by Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated author Aliya Whiteley.

A meta coming of age tale of stories within stories, Three Eight One follows Rowena Savalas, a curator of the 21st century’s primitive internet in the year 2314, who stumbles upon a story posted online in the summer of 2024 that leads her to question her own life choices and whether the truth behind the story really matters at all.

Previously published by Unsung Stories, Solaris will also reissue The Beauty, The Loosening Skin, The Arrival of Missives and Greensmith, with a tenth anniversary edition of The Beauty to be published in Summer 2024.

Three Eight One will be released in January 2024. World All Languages Rights for Three Eight One and a second title and exclusive rights in all languages and territories for The Beauty, The Loosening Skin, The Arrival of Missives and Greensmith were acquired by David Moore from Max Edwards at Aevitas Creative Management. Titan will continue to sublicense North American English language rights to The Beauty, The Loosening Skin and The Arrival of Missives from Solaris, as they previously had from Unsung Stories.

Author Aliya Whiteley on the acquisition:

“It’s a delight and a reassurance to know that Solaris will be publishing my novels and novellas, starting with my latest novel of adventure and discovery, Three Eight One, from 2024. Many thanks to David Moore and all at Solaris for deciding to champion my stories into the future.”

Acquiring Editor David Moore:

“Aliya is a ferocious talent, creating some of the smartest, weirdest, most hauntingly beautiful stuff in genre at the moment, and it’s an honour to be a part of that. Three Eight One is a gorgeous book, a coming-of-age story that’s also a road trip that’s also an exploration of generational tension that’s also a meandering commentary on authorship and authenticity that’s also one of the coolest bits of metafiction you’ll read this year.”

Aliya Whiteley’s strange novels and novellas explore genre, and have been shortlisted for multiple awards including the Arthur C Clarke award, BFS and BSFA awards, and a Shirley Jackson award. Her short fiction has appeared in many places including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, F&SF, Strange Horizons, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Lonely Planet and The Guardian. She writes a regular non-fiction column for Interzone magazine.

For press enquiries please contact Jess Gofton, PR & Marketing Manager: jess.gofton@rebellion.co.uk.

For rights enquiries please contact Reitha Pattison, Rights Manager: reitha.pattison@rebellion.co.uk