Several years ago I read the manuscript of a stunning novel about the eighteenth century slave trade in Africa and the Americas. Although E-Reads’ stock in trade is reissues of previously published books, not new and unpublished ones, this one was so absorbing that I was compelled to make an exception. That’s how we came to publish our first original work of fiction, Ama by Ghanian author Manu Herbstein. The judges of the annual Commonwealth Prize concurred with my judgment and awarded it the prize for Best First Book of 2002.

It chronicles the life of Nandzi, who is given the name “Ama”, a name strange to her tribal culture. Abducted with her little brother from her village, thrust into a foreign land and stripped of her identity, she is forced into a life of bondage, violence and brutality. Yet she never lets herself lose her core humanity. Her entrancing story of defiance starts from the day she is brutally seized and raped. But she is smart enough to learn the language of her captors, and it becomes her ticket to freedom. The courage and resilience of Ama’s spirit engrossed me from the first page to the last, and I’m very proud to have played a part in bringing it into the world.

- Richard Curtis

Amazon has just posted its list of best science fiction and fantasy books of 2007 and Dan Simmons’s The Terror is the top-rated book in the category. If you haven’t read this masterpiece I can’t imagine what you’re waiting for. Simmons’s recounting of the doomed Franklin expedition in search of the Northwest passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific will freeze your blood. Bad enough that two ships lay icebound for several years, but the lurking presence of a malevolent and unnameable predator takes the book into the territory of Melville and Conrad.

E-Reads is proud to carry two earlier novels by Dan Simmons, Song of Kali and Phases of Gravity.

- Richard Curtis

We mentioned a while back that Dave Duncan had been nominated for two awards for one of his recent novels, Children of Chaos. The Prix Aurora winners were announced this past weekend at VCON 32 in British Columbia, Canada. The nominees for Best Long-Form Work in English were:

• Regeneration: Species Imperative 3, Julie E. Czerneda (DAW Books)
• Children of Chaos, Dave Duncan (Tor Books)
• Smoke and Ashes, Tanya Huff (DAW Books)
• Sun of Suns: Book One of Virga, Karl Schroeder (Tor Books)
• Blindsight, Peter Watts (Tor Books)
• Righteous Anger: Part Two of the Okal Rel Saga, Lynda Williams (EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing)

And, of course, the winner was our hometown favorite Dave Duncan. Congratulations, Dave!