Or is there? There’s this nerdy kid Charles who has a scheme so risky and preposterous that in all likelihood it will blow up in his face like some schoolboy chem lab experiment. Except its not a chem lab. It’s a planet.

Well, how many schoolboys have let that discourage them?

But Casseia believes in him. She’s the rebellious daughter of a conservative family, and she sees Charles’s cockeyed idea as fuel for the student protests she’s leading. It’s hard to imagine a less likely love object than Charles, but maybe Casseia could learn to get attached to someone who thinks he knows how to save their world. Maybe this tender love story explains why it wasn’t just the science fiction reviewers that loved Moving Mars (“…an accomplished, thoroughly mature novel that should be placed at the top of anyone’s ‘to be read’ stack” – Science Fiction Age), but the romance reviewers too (“…a grand adventure in hard science fiction” – Romantic Times).

E-Reads carries a great list of Greg Bear’s backlist titles and there are more to come!

- Richard Curtis

(Above image of Mars courtesy of NASA.)

In Against the Light  the Hierarchy, high priests of the religious order the Light, has installed King Ethan as the monarchical figurehead, ruling both the magical kingdom of Albi and its predominant religion. Scattered throughout the land, worshippers in the old ways of the Earth Mother are persecuted as heretics. And when young missionary student Rollo Woodbridge returns home to Albi, he is immediately arrested for heresy and treason, setting off a chain of events that plunges the land into utter chaos.

The Hierarchy has more treacherous motives, however, and when Rollo is rescued from jail, his family’s home is destroyed—but Rollo and his siblings are left alive. While Rollo tries diplomacy to end the religious and political conflict, his brother and sister swear vengeance. With the hours to deliverance counting down and their lives hanging in the balance, they must decide whether to stay and fight or leave Albi forever in the suspenseful, action-packed Against the Light.

If you like Against the Light as much as we think you are going to, you’ll find lots more Dave Duncan fiction on his author page on the E-Reads website.

Empress of Light

In this sequel to Shanji, Kati has used the light of creation to win a war bringing her to the throne as Empress of her planet, and she has forged new alliances with former enemies. Her daughter Yesui is born with powers exceeding her own, and Kati discovers that raising a super-being is no simple task. Yesui is willful and a prankster, enjoys torturing her baby brother Mengjai, who turns out to be much more than he seems to be. But Yesui is the true Empress of Light, and is later called upon to save a dying gaseous planet by adding mass to its core. She finds love with a gentle empath there and must help in resisting a coup that endangers his family. Along the way, she discovers there are living beings in the universe with powers even greater than her own, and that death is only a transformation to something new.

Of Shanji Algis Budrys proclaimed “It comes pretty close to singing.”

The reissue program will begin with fifteen titles, but E-Reads has an option to acquire the balance of Aldiss’s enormous output. The author is writing new introductions.

The deal was handled by John R. Douglas of E-Reads and Robin Straus of the Robin Straus Agency, Aldiss’s United States literary agent. Says Douglas, “I’ve been reading Aldiss for more than forty years and had the pleasure of working on the original publication of some of his works. It’s a privilege and delight to bring his books back as e-books. And to publish an original work of his – Finches of Mars – is a huge bonus.” Finches of Mars, Aldiss recently explained at a writers conference, is about a predominantly female colony on the red planet where some men are kept for reproductive purposes.

To read E-Reads’ press release in its entirety click here.

Brian Aldiss (photograph (c) Mike Gerson

E-Reads
171 East 74th Street
New York, NY 10021
www.ereads.com

January 17, 2012

For Immediate Release

E-Reads Acquires Brian Aldiss Backlist

E-Reads, a leading independent e-book publisher and a powerhouse in fantasy and science fiction, has acquired US e-book and print rights to fifteen titles by British science fiction Grandmaster Brian Aldiss, winner of two Hugo Awards, a Nebula Award and a John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Included in the trove are his Helliconia trilogy, the Squire quartet, and such other classics as Greybeard, Dark Light Years, and Galaxies like Grains of Sand. E-Reads will also publish a new work, Finches of Mars.

The reissue program will begin with fifteen titles, but E-Reads has an option to acquire the balance of Aldiss’s enormous output. The author is writing new introductions.

The deal was handled by John R. Douglas of E-Reads and Robin Straus of the Robin Straus Agency, Aldiss’s United States literary agent. Says Douglas, “I’ve been reading Aldiss for more than forty years and had the pleasure of working on the original publication of some of his works. It’s a privilege and delight to bring his books back as e-books. And to publish an original work of his – Finches of Mars – is a huge bonus.”

Brian Aldiss

Brian W. Aldiss (http://brianaldiss.co.uk/) was born in Norfolk, England in 1925. Over a long and distinguished writing career, he has published award-winning science, bestselling popular fiction including the three-volume Horatio Stubbs saga and the four-volume The Squire Quartet and many other iconic and pioneering works including the Helliconia Trilogy. His most famous story, Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, was adapted for film by Stanley Kubrick and produced and directed after Kubrick’s death by Steven Spielberg as A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

E-Reads

E-Reads (www.ereads.com), founded in 2000 by Richard Curtis, is a leading publisher of backlist fiction in such genres as fantasy, science fiction, romance, mysteries and thrillers. Brian Aldiss will be in the company of such masters of fantasy and science fiction published by E-Reads as Piers Anthony, Greg Bear, Jeff Bredenberg, Jeffrey Carver, John DeChancie, William C. Dietz, Dave Duncan, George Alec Effinger, Harlan Ellison, Alan Dean Foster, James Gunn, Fritz Leiber, R. A. McAvoy, John Norman, Rudy Rucker, Pamela Sargent, Dan Simmons and George Zebrowski.

For information, contact John Douglas, 212 772 7363, johnrjdouglas@gmail.com
Robin Straus, 212 472 3282, robin@robinstrausagency.com

In Nebula and Hugo Award winner Greg Bear’s Eon [now available in Kindle for the first time], the arrival of a 300-kilometer long stone was the answer to humanity’s desperate plea to end the threat of nuclear war. Inside the deep recesses of the stone lay the remnants of a human society versed in English, Russian and Chinese. The artifacts of this familiar people foretell a great Death caused by the ravages of war. Deeper still within the stone is the Way. For some the Way meant salvation from death, for others it was a parallel world where loved ones live again. Here is some of the outpouring of acclaim for Eon:

“Eon may be the best constructed hard SF epic yet.”
—The Washington Post

“Sharing aspects of Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama, its uniqueness arises from Bear’s bold imagination. Bear is a writer of passionate vision. Eon is his grandest work yet.”
—Locus

“A powerful, imaginative novel.”
—Library Journal

“The only word for it really is blockbuster. It is big and breathtaking; the story and the concepts are ambitious to the point of mind boggling.”
—Isaac Asimov’s SF Magazine

Now, in Eternity, Bear returns to the Earth of Eon and it’s clear that the first novel was a prequel to an even grander story. The crew of the asteroid-starship Thistledown has thwarted an attempt to sever the link to the Way, an endless corridor that spans universes. The asteroid had settled into orbit around Earth and discovered that the tunnel snaked away, forming a contained universe of its own. Forty years later, war breaks out to reopen The Way. And humankind is about to discover just how completely it has underestimated its ancient adversaries.

Eternity completes a trilogy that includes the prequel Legacy, and all three titles are now available for download at E-Reads as well more than a dozen other unforgettable works by the author rightfully described as the heir to the late Arthur C. Clarke’s mantle.

RC

Dan Simmons

John Kwok, a leading Amazon reviewer and blogger, has chosen Dan Simmons as one of “the best living American writers of science fiction.”

“Dan Simmons is a prolific award-winning writer of both excellent mainstream and science fiction and fantasy fiction. His ‘Hyperion Cantos’ (Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion and The Rise of Endymion) raised the stakes with regards to writing literary space opera science fiction, drawing from sources as diverse as the poetry of John Keats and cyberpunk. A more recent literary space opera is his superb take on the Homeric epics, Iliad and Odyssey, set on a distant future Earth and Mars; Ilium and Olympos. One of my favorite novels of his is a most engrossing fictional account of the writer Ernest Hemingway indulging in spying on Nazis in Cuba during the early years of World War II, The Crook Factory [Mulholland Books reissue coming soon]. Dan Simmons’ latest novel is the near future dystopian thriller Flashback.”

E-Reads carries two masterpieces by Simmons, Phases of Gravity and Song of Kali.

On the outskirts of the Ayne Sector sits Pock’s World. Years ago, humankind settled the planet. Now, it might or might not have been infested by humanoid aliens, hidden amongst the populace, waiting to interbreed and use humans as incubators for their parasitic spawn.

Five people are chosen to travel to the quarantined Pock’s World to find out whether it should be sterilized of all life–a ruthless priest, a scandal-seeking reporter, an ambitious politician, a bureaucrat, and a questionable billionaire. Each has his or her own agenda as to what they wish to find on that distant planet. Instead, they discover the unexpected–a web of deceit, love, politics, and religion. With very little time left, there don’t seem to be any simple answers in the complicated universe of Pock’s World.

“Entertaining, fast-moving and thoughtful SF, with engaging characters.” – S. M. Stirling

You can purchase the e-book of Pock’s World here, or click here to buy the printed version published by Edge.

In Legacy, the prequel to Eon, Greg Bear continues to explore the possibilities presented by the asteroid Thistledown, a remnant of a lost human civilization. The Way is a tunnel through space and time that leads to other worlds, some more like planet Earth than Earth itself. It is perhaps the most formidable discovery in Thistledown and with it come disputes as to the nature of the Way and how it should be used. The Way can be reached only through Axis City, the only space station of Thistledown. The ruling body of Axis City, the Hexamon, has decreed that other worlds reached by The Way must be left untouched as an insurance against future needs of the human race. But then the Hexamon hear of a group of clandestine colonists who have settled on one of the new worlds. Olmy Ap Sennon is an eager young career soldier who must go and investigate this illegal colony, and at the same time confront his own humanity. As he witnesses the hardship and beauty of the outlaw human colony, he learns what it means to struggle with war, ecological disaster, love, and death.

Air Force lieutenant Rick Walsh has just gotten off a twelve-hour flight from Guam at the Tucson Airport. All he wants right now is too see his girlfriend Maia and maybe have a short rest before reassignment. What Lieutenant Walsh finds instead is a month-old infant and a mystery that spans two universes.

Maia has disappeared, leaving behind her newborn, Gus, a baby with Walsh’s eyes. It seems that a disturbing number of Tucson residents have gone missing as well and the authorities don’t have a clue. As Walsh races to track down Maia and her possible kidnappers, a conspiracy unfolds as the search leads him deep into the desert and then on to someplace…else. What awaits Walsh in this other land proves sinister and dangerous, and it seems to have its eye on our world.

In Dragon Season , author Michael Cassutt weaves classic suspense and modern fantasy into a wild ride that readers won’t soon forget.

When we first meet Courane, he must face down TECT, the self-aware computer that has come to control the Earth and its colonial planets. Exiled to Planet D, Courane races to solve the debilitating disease that attacks each of the planet’s residents, even as his own memory begins to fade. Unfortunately, his only source of information about the illness is TECT, itself, and the computer’s agenda doesn’t seem to line up with Courane’s.

In the seven other stories contained in A Thousand Deaths, Courane becomes detached from what is reality and what is story as Effinger expertly plays with narrative conventions. However, these aren’t simply the whims of a SF writer; they are the frameworks the Nebula and Hugo Award-nominated author uses to answer questions about existence no one else even thought to ask.