Solaris has acquired world English mass market rights to Lavie Tidhar’s highly-praised and BSFA Award-nominated novel Osama. Lauded as one of the most significant genre books of the year, the mass market version of Osama will be released in October 2012.

The most exciting, daring and sensitive fictional engagement with the post-9/11 era, Osama is set in an alternate world without global terrorism. Joe, a private detective, is hired by a mysterious woman to find a man: the obscure author of pulp fiction novels featuring one Osama Bin Laden – Vigilante…

Joe’s quest to find the man takes him across the world, from the backwaters of Asia to the European Capitals of Paris and London, and as the mystery deepens around him there is one question he is trying hard not to ask: who is he, really, and how much of the books are fiction? Chased by unknown assailants, Joe’s identity slowly fragments as he discovers the shadowy world of the refugees, ghostly entities haunting the world in which he lives. Where do they come from? And what do they want? Joe knows how the story should end, but even he is not ready for the truths he’ll find in New York and, finally, on top a quiet hill above Kabul—nor for the choice he will at last have to make…

The critical reception of Osama has been nothing short of astonishing and it was nominated for the prestigious BSFA award last year. The hardback from PS Publishing was published in October last year.

Lavie Tidhar was in Dar-es-Salaam during the American embassy bombings in 1998, and stayed in the same hotel as the Al Qaeda operatives in Nairobi. Since then he and his now-wife have narrowly avoided both the 2005 London, King’s Cross and 2004 Sinai attacks—experiences that led to the creation of Osama.

Tidhar brilliantly delves into the modern global subconscious, mixing together film noir, non-fiction, alternative history and thrillers to create an unsettling yet utterly compelling portrayal of our times.

Solaris presents the first in a new trilogy by one of its most popular authors: Greatshadow is the first book in the Dragon Apocalypse series by James Maxey, author of the Dragon Age series. It will be published in the US and Canada on 31 January 2012 and in the UK on 2 February 2012.

“The Church of the Book has assembled a team of twelve battle-hardened adventurers to slay Greatshadow, the evil elemental dragon who spies through every candle flame, once and for all.

But tensions run high between the leaders of the team who view the mission as a holy duty, and the superpowered mercenaries who add power to their ranks but who view this as a chance to claim Greatshadow’s vast treasure. If the warriors fail to slay the beast, will they doom mankind to death by fire?

A striking mix of adventure, fantasy and lurking menace, Greatshadow promises to be the beginning of a stand-out new series in 2012, written by a real master of the genre.”

Full information HERE

The Faceless, a new novel from Simon Bestwick, will be published by Solaris in the UK on 2 February 2012 and in the US and Canada on 31 January 2012.

“In the Lancashire town of Kempforth, people are vanishing.

When two-year-old Roseanne Trevor disappears, the local kids blame ‘The Spindly Men’. But even as Detective Chief Inspector Renwick vows to stop at nothing until she finds her, terrifying visions summon TV psychic Allen Cowell and his sister Vera back to the town they swore they’d left forever and local historian Anna Mason pieces together a history of cruelty and exploitation almost beyond belief.

Meanwhile, in the decaying corridors and lightless rooms of a long abandoned hospital, something terrible is waiting for them all.

In a chilling tale of contemporary small-town horror, Bestwick has truly evoked the terror of films such as The Orphanage and the writing of James Herbert, Adam Nevill and M R James.”

Full details on the Solaris website

Solaris Books have released Christopher Fowler‘s Hell Train – his homage to the Hammer Horror films of old.

“Imagine there was a supernatural chiller that Hammer Films never made. A grand epic produced at the studio’s peak, which played like a cross between the Dracula and Frankenstein films and Dr Terror’s House Of Horrors…

Four passengers meet on a train journey through Eastern Europe during the First World War, and face a mystery that must be solved if they are to survive.

As the ‘Arkangel’ races through the war-torn countryside, they must discover: What is in the casket that everyone is so afraid of? What is the tragic secret of the veiled Red Countess who travels with them? Why is their fellow passenger, the army brigadier, so feared by his own men? And what exactly is the devilish secret of the Arkangel itself?

Bizarre creatures, satanic rites, terrified passengers and the romance of travelling by train, all in a classically styled horror novel.”

Full details on the Solaris website HERE

‘Solaris Books have acquired Hunter’s Moon by Gaie Sebold, a sequel to Babylon Steel – the opening volume of a fast-moving fantasy series which is published in January 2012, and which bestselling author Mike Carey has characterised as: “Ingenious, gripping and full of pleasures on every level.  Exceptional”.

The agent was John Jarrold, and the deal was for UK/US rights.  Solaris provisionally plan to publish early in 2013.

Babylon Steel, former Avatar of the goddess of sex and war, runs the best brothel in Scalentine; a city with gateways to many worlds and a widely varied and occasionally violent populace.  Babylon has also become, somewhat against her will, bodyguard to the controversial new member of the ruling council in the nearby country of Incandress.  Not to mention ‘unofficial Scalentine envoy’ or, to put it more bluntly, ‘spy’.  And while she is trying to protect her charge, avoid clashing with Incandress’s rigid morality laws, and stop the whole country plunging into race massacre and civil war, someone back on Scalentine is killing weres.  The city militia can’t, or won’t, catch them.  And when your lover is the Chief of the city militia, who also happens to be a were, this is more than a little worrying…

Gaie Sebold works for a charity.  She has won a few awards for poetry and has sold short stories to magazines including Black Gate, Legend and City Slab, the recent Under the Rose anthology (Norilana) and the forthcoming End of an Aeon anthology (Fairwood Press).  She is an occasional performance poet.  She was born in the US but has lived in the UK most of her life, currently in an ‘up and coming’ area of London which doesn’t appear to have got very high yet. She is a member of T Party Writers, a London-based genre critique group.’

“Solaris is proud to announce it has commissioned the next book from one of the most exciting new voices in science fiction, Gareth L. Powell. Ack-Ack Macaque will be published in January 2013. Based on a short story published in 2007, the author describes the story as ‘a fusion of alternate history and gonzo cyberpunk’.

In a world where France and Great Britain merged in the late 1950s, Powell has crafted an environment where nuclear-powered Zeppelins encircle the globe, electronic ghosts stalk the living, and a king lies dying; a world in which a half-brained woman struggles to solve a deadly riddle in order to regain her stolen soul, and a monkey sets about killing as many online gamers as possible, in order to avert Armageddon.

With the scale of Iain M. Banks and the intrigue of Alistair Reynolds, Powell’s The Recollection was published by Solaris earlier this year and brought a stunning breath of fresh air into epic science-fiction – an astounding novel about both personal human relationships and their place in the vastness of time and space.”

‘Solaris Books is very proud to announce its latest exciting debut author – BFS member Lou Morgan. The Brighton-based author is a distinctive new voice in Urban Fantasy and her debut novel, Blood and Feathers, will be released in August 2012.

Pitched as ‘Alice in Wonderland goes to hell’, Blood and Feathers is about the search for family set against the backdrop of the continuing war against heaven and hell. But her angels are hardly ‘angelic’ – funny, wise and sometimes utterly horrifying, Morgan’s characterisation and dialogue sparkle in a novel that is both heart-breaking and thrilling, and introducing an exciting new voice into urban fantasy and a fresh take on the eternal battle between the forces of good and evil.

“What’s the first thing you think of when I say ‘angel’?” asked Mallory. Alice shrugged. “I don’t know… guns?” Alice isn’t having the best of days – late for work, missed her bus, and now she’s getting rained on – but it’s about to get worse.

The war between the angels and the Fallen is escalating and innocent civilians are getting caught in the cross-fire. If the balance is to be restored, the angels must act – or risk the Fallen taking control. Forever. That’s where Alice comes in. Hunted by the Fallen and guided by Mallory – a disgraced angel with a drinking problem he doesn’t want to cure – Alice will learn the truth about her own history… and why the angels want to send her to hell.

What do the Fallen want from her? How does Mallory know so much about her past? What is it the angels are hiding – and can she trust either side? Caught between the power plays of the angels and Lucifer himself, it isn’t just hell’s demons that Alice will have to defeat…‘

‘Jonathan Oliver, commissioning editor of Solaris Books, has acquired the sequel to Helix by Eric Brown, which was published by the company in 2007 and has reprinted ever since, selling regularly.  Helix Wars will be delivered in the spring of 2012, for an autumn publication. The agent was John Jarrold, and the deal was for UK/US rights.

Eric explains the basis of the amazing artefact that is Helix:

“Helix is a vast spiral construct, wound around a main sequence G-type sun, and is the work of an ancient alien race known only as the Builders. The helix resembles a spiral staircase made up of eight ‘twists’, four above the sun and four below. Each twist or circle consists of well over two thousand ‘sections’ or worlds, amounting to some ten thousand worlds. Each one is approximately forty thousand miles wide, with an ocean in between. Each ‘planet’ is barrel-shaped and rotates on a lateral, equatorial axis, like a bead on a string, and each has its own unique atmosphere and duration of rotation. The arms of the helix at the top and bottom, being further away from the sun, are polar in make-up; those closer to the sun are more clement. The alien races of the helix number some six thousand, at varying levels of technological accomplishment.” ‘

‘Continuing its commitment to digital publishing through its READ ANYTHING campaign, Solaris Books is delighted to announce a preview book now available on iTunes – for free!

The Wizard’s Coming is now available as a free ebook on iTunes, which serves as an excellent introduction to the brand new epic fantasy series, The Hadrumal Crisis by Juliet E. McKenna.

Discover the fallout from the events in The Wizard’s Coming in McKenna’s Dangerous Waters, which was published in August and is also available on iTunes.

READ ANYTHING is the campaign by Solaris and Abaddon Books, two of the freshest genre publishers in the UK today, to encourage people to use their eReaders to explore genres outside of their usual comfort zones. The revolution in eReaders gives readers the freedom to read whatever they want – fantasy, science-fiction, horror, urban fantasy, Steampunk, historical action, ANYTHING. They’re perfect to explore genre fiction you never knew even existed!

The Wizard’s Coming is just the first of the free ebooks that will be made available on iTunes.

“Electronic publishing and e-books provide a whole host of opportunities for the publisher and reader,” said Jon Oliver, editor-in-chief of Abaddon Books and Solaris. “We can get our books out now to an even wider audience and we’re looking forward to welcoming new fans to the world of genre.” ‘

Links for The Wizard’s Coming:

iTunes UK

iTunes US

Links for Dangerous Waters, the first book in the The Hadrumal Crisis series:

iTunes UK

iTunes US

The BookSeller.com reports that Orbit has appointed Jenni Hill, previously of Solaris Books, as its commissioning editor. She will take up her post on 31 October 2011.

See full article HERE