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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 to publish The Immortality Thief sequel, The Unkillable Princess

Solaris is thrilled to announce the acquisition of The Unkillable Princess by Taran Hunt, sequel to the much-loved The Immortality Thief.

Linguist Sean Wren and his found family of misfits return to salvage data in another sci-fi adventure when someone from Sean’s past unexpectedly returns, seeking aid. The Unkillable Princess will be released in 2025.

World All Languages Rights were acquired by Amy Borsuk from Hannah Bowman at Liza Dawson Associates.

Author Taran Hunt on the acquisition:

“I’m delighted to work with the wonderful team at Solaris on the sequel to The Immortality Thief. Sean Wren is a character very dear to my heart, and I look forward to continuing his story and the story of those closest to him!”

Acquiring Editor Amy Borsuk:

“I’m so excited to work with Taran on the next stage of her thrilling Kystrom Chronicles! The Unkillable Princess promises to be as fun and suspenseful as The Immortality Thief, with a good helping of new challenges for Sean and probably more puns.”

Taran Hunt is the author of The Immortality Thief. She studied physics in college and loves languages. If she could have a swordfight aboard a spaceship, she would. She works in theatre in New York, where she lives with her partner and their increasingly round cat.

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

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Six Solaris authors longlisted for the BSFA Awards!

We’re beyond delighted that six Solaris authors have been longlisted for this year’s British Science Fiction Association Awards!

Presented annually since 1970, the awards are voted on by members of the BSFA and members of the national science fiction convention, Eastercon. The winners will be announced at this year’s Eastercon, held at the Birmingham Metropole from 7 – 10 April 2023.

Best Short Fiction

Best Novel

The vote for the shortlists is now open until 19 February! For more information about the awards and how you can take part, click here.

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OUT NOW: The Immortality Thief by Taran Hunt

Happy book birthday to the fantastic The Immortality Thief by Taran Hunt!

Indiana Jones meets Event Horizon in this spooky and adventurous sci-fi tale of linguistics, abandoned spaceships, monsters and found family.

Don’t worry UK readers, you only have to wait until Thursday to get your hands on it!

Far off the edge of human existence, beside a dying star lies a nameless ship abandoned and hidden, lost for a millennium. But there are secrets there, terrible secrets that would change the fate of humanity, and eventually someone will come looking.

Refugee, criminal and linguist Sean Wren is made an offer he knows he can’t refuse: life in prison, “voluntary” military service – or salvaging data in a long-dead language from an abandoned ship filled with traps and monsters, just days before it’s destroyed in a supernova. Data connected to the Philosopher’s Stone experiments, into unlocking the secrets of immortality.

And he’s not the only one looking for the derelict ship. The Ministers, mysterious undying aliens that have ruled over humanity for centuries, want the data – as does The Republic, humanity’s last free government. And time is running out.

In the bowels of the derelict ship, surrounded by horrors and dead men, Sean slowly uncovers the truth of what happened on the ship, in its final days… and the terrible secret it’s hiding.

“Fun, resonant and compulsively readable” — Veronica Roth

“Fun, fast-paced, cutting-edge, and full of epic twists” — Library Journal, starred review