#Gollancz

[garadinervi]

Ursula K. Le Guin, Dancing at the Edge of the World. Thoughts on Words, Women, Places, Gollancz, London, 1989

#graphic design #book #cover #book cover #ursula k. le guin #gollancz #1980s

[gollancz]

Hello, and welcome to the Official Tumblr for Gollancz, the oldest dedicated publisher of SFF and Horror fiction in the world.

I set this up because I'm not allowed to touch the company Instagram or TikTok accounts ("you'll break the algorithm" psht) and I got told off for retweeting too much stuff.

We were founded in 1927, and became a specialist SFF imprint in 1962, meaning that we were able to celebrate our 60th birthday and our upcoming 100th birthday only a handful of years apart.

We have a wikipedia page, which makes us feel very Special and Important.

People We Have Published:

Leigh Bardugo

Joe Abercrombie

Brandon Sanderson

Terry Pratchett (and Neil Gaiman That One Time)

Arthur C. Clarke

Ursula K. Le Guin

Philip K. Dick

Dhonielle Clayton

George Orwell (No I'm serious I found one of his royalty statements in a box in archives from the 1930s)

Peter S. Beagle

Joe Hill

Stephen King (Hodder and Stoughton will pry The Green Mile from our cold dead fingers)

Jonathan Sims

Frank Herbert

Aliette de Bodard

Joanne Harris

Ben Aaronovitch

Kurt Vonnegut

And MANY OTHERS. SO MANY. Across 60-100 years and two lists (Gollancz, and our archive project the SF Gateway) we have hoarded some of the most incredible and exciting SFF and Horror ever written.

We love space, and magic, and robots, and unicorns, and things you see in a cheese-related fever nightmare. They're our favourites.

#gollancz #science fiction #fantasy #horror #science fiction books #fantasy books #horror books #greetings from the beyond

[ijustkindalikebooks]

Review: A Witch's Guide To Fake Dating A Demon by Sarah Hawley.

Mariel Spark is prophesied to be the most powerful witch seen in centuries of the famed Spark family, but to the displeasure of her mother, she prefers baking to brewing potions and gardening to casting hexes. When a spell to summon flour goes very wrong, Mariel finds herself staring down a demon—one she inadvertently summoned for a soul bargain.

Ozroth the Ruthless is a legend among demons. Powerful and merciless, he drives hard bargains to collect mortal souls. But his reputation has suffered ever since a bargain went awry—if he can strike a bargain with Mariel, he will earn back his deadly reputation. Ozroth can’t leave Mariel’s side until they complete a bargain, which she refuses to do (turns out some humans are attached to their souls).

More romances like this please.

When I requested this book all I saw was witch and was just automatically there for it, and thank god I was, this book is charming, fun and just gently pulls you in from the first page and I loved every second of it.

The chemistry on paper these two characters build gently in this book is just perfection. They have such a good connection and it makes for a funny and creative dynamic that I would love to see more of in the future - these two are just that endearing. Mariel is just a sweetpea, honestly, she's a friend goal and Ozroth for a demon is very human really.

It does give me cosy fantasy romance vibes, which is never gonna lose with me of course, Mariel and Ozroth are great characters that really shine on the page and the plot, I love it. There are good twists, cute romance and moments that make you hold your breath just enough to make this book a great read!

Utterly charming, I loved it and if you love a combination of magical and romance, this is the book for you.

Thanks to Netgalley and @gollancz for the ARC!

#book review #book reviews #fiction #the witch's guide to fake dating a demon #sarah hawley #gollancz #booklr #bookblr

[geekynerfherder]

Orbit Books have revealed the final batch of cover art for new hardcover editions in Andrzej Sapkowski's 'The Witcher' series; 'The Lady Of The Lake' and 'Season Of Storms'.

'The Lady Of The Lake' and 'Season Of Storms' will be available in November 2022, and released in the UK by Gollancz in 2023.

#Art #Melanie Delon #The Lady Of The Lake #Tyler Jacobson #Season Of Storms #The Witcher #Orbit Books #Gollancz #Books #Book Cover #Book Cover Art #Cover Art #Fantastical Art #Imaginative Realism

[whimsicaldragonette]

ARC Review: The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard

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Publication Date: November 24, 2022

Synopsis:

Xích Si: bot maker, data analyst, mother, scavenger. But those days are over now-her ship has just been captured by the Red Banner pirate fleet, famous for their double-dealing and cruelty. Xích Si expects to be tortured to death-only for the pirates' enigmatic leader, Rice Fish, to arrive with a different and shocking proposition: an arranged marriage between Xích Si and herself.

Rice Fish: sentient ship, leader of the infamous Red Banner pirate fleet, wife of the Red Scholar. Or at least, she was the latter before her wife died under suspicious circumstances. Now isolated and alone, Rice Fish wants Xích Si's help to find out who struck against them and why. Marrying Xích Si means Rice Fish can offer Xích Si protection, in exchange for Xích Si's technical fluency: a business arrangement with nothing more to it.

But as the investigation goes on, Rice Fish and Xích Si find themselves falling for each other. As the interstellar war against piracy intensifies and the five fleets start fighting each other, they will have to make a stand-and to decide what kind of future they have together…

An exciting space opera and a beautiful romance, from an exceptional SF author.

My Rating: ★★★★★

*My Review and Favorite Quotes below the cut.

My Review:

I love Aliette de Bodard's books, but they are probably the most intellectually challenging books I read on a regular basis. Especially the mindship books. I think on the one hand there's the Vietnamese-inspired names and foods and customs which are so different than what I'm used to (a good thing! Reading is for expanding one's horizons!) and on the other hand there's the whole human-falls-in-love-with-a-sentient-spaceship oh and also there is the physical plane and then there are overlays and avatars and bots that have physical form but can also be used a lot like coding but you can (I think) think the commands at them and have the information appear directly in your brain rather than having to rely on a pesky computer, oh and you can simultaneously have conversations out loud and other conversations virtually in your head -- and my brain refuses to make sense of it all. I don't regularly read a lot of sci-fi, so there's that. I generally spend the first third of these books trying to wrap my head around how it all works and the next two thirds slowly sinking into the story and becoming immersed in it while the details stop being so confusing and fade to the background. And falling in love with the story and characters and romance

Aliette de Bodard's writing is poetic and evocative and also understated, with a tendency to leave things unsaid for the reader to infer. This, too, takes a bit to get used to, but I really love it. I don't especially like having everything spoon-fed to me all the time, and while I read and love a lot of 'easier' fantasy and romance, I appreciate having to really engage my brain to pick up on most of what's happening. (I'm sure I don't pick up on all of it.)

Some of the descriptions, especially of Rice Fish's avatar, with her hair flowing into the floor of the ship and patterned with stars and nebulae, were so satisfying and just gorgeous. I had trouble with a mental picture of the characters (other than Rice Fish), but I think that's just me -- I rarely get a clear mental picture of characters in the books I read. I did get a clear picture of the Pirate Citadel - enough that I felt like I was there, walking beside Xích Si and experiencing it with her.

This is first and foremost a romance, one between a human who has been beaten down for years living on the edge of getting by as a scavenger, and a sentient spaceship who is also an influential leader of a pirate faction in a society she helped to build and carries deep emotional wounds left by her murdered wife, however unintentionally.

Xích Si, the scavenger, has been captured by pirates at the opening of the book and is forced to leave everything she knows - including her young daughter - behind. She understandably is scared and angry and fears the worst. Rice Fish, the mindship she is travelling on and head of the pirate faction who captured her, shocks her by proposing marriage -- a 'business arrangement only.' Together they face a rebellious son, an endangered daughter, authorities determined to erase the scourge of pirates, treachery from within, and questions of the future of the entire pirate alliance. Not to mention their own bruised and bleeding hearts.

They make mistakes, they hurt one another, and -- they learn. They learn to love, they learn to trust, they learn to hope and dream again and how to heal themselves. And the journey of how they get to that point is beautiful.

I would like to add that I have seen some criticism of ace rep in this book and I strongly disagree. I would not categorize Rice Fish's murdered wife as ace, no matter that she did not want the physical aspect of the relationship that Rice Fish did. It's not that simple. It was mentioned several times that she took her lovers outside of the marriage partnership ("Huan, for her part, had collected flings the way scholars collected books and vids", "I watched Ma collect her friends and lovers and never get the intimacy she craved") -- she just did not want such a relationship with Rice Fish. I don't know whether it was that she simply was not attracted to Rice Fish that way or whether she truly believed that any physical / romantic relationship between them would sully the partnership and what they were trying to build. But I think criticizing it for "bad ace rep" misses the point and is not fair. (Disclaimer: I am ace and I wanted to address this criticism because I have seen it more than once.)

The scenes with Xích Si's daughter, and some with Rice Fish's son, tug at the heartstrings. Alliette de Bodard knows how to use a few brushstrokes to create poignant, touching family scenes. I appreciate them more, I think, since having a child myself. It's clear that she gets what it's like, having to guide a child and be strong for them but also show yourself to be vulnerable, and eventually to let them go.

Even though this is a romance, it's very politics-heavy. The different factions within the pirate fleet, the warring empires, the scavengers and wealthier scholars and beaurocrats… There is a lot of information to unpack and a lot of things that aren't quite said out loud that are perhaps easy to miss. At first, it is very hard to grasp what is going on, which actually makes a lot of sense, as Xích Si is also unfamiliar with how the pirate fleet functions and also struggles to grasp it all. She learns and becomes more comfortable with it as the reader does, which makes it easy to identify with her.

Despite the heaviness of the themes (indentured servants are discussed quite a bit from several perspectives, as well as raiding and capturing merchants to hold for ransom, as well as emotional trauma and pain) and the dense, somewhat obscure way the text is written, and the sci-fi aspects, this also has quite a bit of adventure and mystery. I spent the last 40% or so on the edge of my seat wondering how it would all go down. I came away knowing that I absolutely loved and will recommend it, while at the same time I will need to read an easier book next just to give my brain a break.

*Thanks to NetGalley, Gollancz, and JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc. for providing an advance copy for review.

Favorite Quotes:

She was still kneeling, but she did it like an empress.

---

Rice Fish nodded, and said nothing more — and for a time that felt like ten thousand years, they remained side by side, looking at the stars.

---

A pirate consort - no, a pirate queen in her own domain, and she was beautiful and she was terrible and so, so vulnerable in that moment. The air trembled with a distant music, a distant heartbeat.

---

Tam looked sheepish, which was a whole look on a pirate with a gun in her belt.

---

Xích Si sipped the tea - it tasted like fungi, like the greenhouses after the watering cycle, muddy and damp and unexpectedly sour.

---

...and every time she looked at him, Xích Si fought her own instincts to jump for the nearest suit - he looked like a walking habitat breach.

---

Xích Si realised that had been her, once upon a time. That she’d kept her head down and not dared to dream large, because she knew she would always get kicked in the teeth. It wasn’t the habitat that was smaller. It was that she had outgrown it.

---

“Yes. But that’s not what matters. It’s being afraid and doing it anyway. And…” She hesitated, but what else could she do other than fling herself bodily into the void. “Love means we’re always going to know how to hurt each other. We choose not to. Or to repair our hurts”

---

But it was his choice to make, and he was her son, not an extension of her. So often, being a parent was about letting go.

#red scholar's wake #aliette de bodard #the red scholar's wake #queer romance #sentient spaceship #human x mindship #science fiction #sapphic space pirates #orbit #gollancz #arc review #shilo reads #netgalley

[rathacat13-blog]

Clan Ground UK edition - Gollancz jacketed hardcover (1987 ?)

#intelligent big cats #British edition #Gollancz

[sedgewicke]

Normally I'd be ashamed of myself, but nah, Gollancz dropped the quality between WoK and WoR. British spines: as tight as British asses.

For comparison, this went on vacation with me to Florida.

#the stormlight archive #the way of kings #words of radiance #books #publishing #UK publishing #gollancz #brandon sanderson

[theeloquentpage]

The Sinister Booksellers fo Bath by Garth Nix

New Review: The Sinister Booksellers of Bath by Garth Nix #review #fantasy @gollancz

Please note, The Sinister Booksellers of Bath is a direct sequel to The Left Handed Booksellers of London. With that in mind it is entirely possible, if you’ve not read book one in this series, what follows might contain the odd spoiler or two. Consider yourself duly warned! There is often trouble of a mythical sort in Bath. The booksellers who police the Old World keep a careful watch there,…

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#Fantasy #Garth Nix #Gollancz #The Sinister Booksellers of Bath

[jenmedsbookreviews]

The Dying Squad by Adam Simcox

Today I'm sharing my thoughts on The Dying Squad by Adam Simcox, the first book in his very original series abut Ghostly investigators. @adamsimcox @Gollancz #books #BookTwitter #booktwt #TheDyingSquad

Today I’m sharing my thoughts on The Dying Squad by Adam Simcox. I found this book when I attended an Orion panel at Harrogate last year and, with a mixture of ghosts and crime, it sounded right up my street. Here’s what it’s all about: Source: Owned CopyRelease Date: 22 July 2021Publisher: Gollancz (more…) “”

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#Adam Simcox #Daisy-May #Drug Gangs #Dying Squad #Gollancz #Joe Lazarus #Murder #Supernatural

[thegirlwiththelantern]

2023 Fantasy Releases

The Enchanted Hacienda by J.C. Cervantes | 16 / 05 / 23 – Hachette After losing her dream job and realising that her boyfriend is a jerk, Harlow Estrada decides to flee New York City and head back to the one place she can always call home – the enchanted Hacienda Estrada.The Estrada family farm in Mexico houses an abundance of charmed flowers cultivated by the women in Harlow’s family. By…

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#2023 #Angry Robot #Bloomsbury Publishing #Books #Del Ray #Fantasy #Ghost Orchid Press #Gollancz #Hachette #HarperVoyager #Hodder and Stoughton #Mantle #Orion Books #Penguin #releases #Solaris #St. Martin&039;s Press #Titan Books #Tor

[dynamobooks]

Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun, Volume 1: Shadow and Claw (1980-1981)

#gene wolfe #science fiction #fantasy #fantasy masterworks #gollancz #the shadow of the torturer #torture #autarch #far future #book of the new sun

[tea-books-and-middleearth]

Review: Angel Mage by Garth Nix

Review: Angel Mage by Garth Nix

Angel Mage by Garth NixYoung Adult | FantasyPublished by: GollanczRelease date: 30/09/2019Length: 534Rating: ★★★★☆Goodreads | Waterstones | Publisher Synopsis:More than a century has passed since Liliath crept into the empty sarcophagus of Saint Marguerite, fleeing the Fall of Ystara. But she emerges from her magical sleep still beautiful, looking no more than nineteen, and once again renews her…

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#4 stars #angel mage #book review #fantasy #garth nix #gollancz #young adult

[gollancz]

Gollancz in the 2023 Locus Awards!

Locus magazine announced the finalists for their 2023 awards earlier this week, and we are GIDDY to see some of our books in such distinguished company!

BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

The Red Scholar's Wake, Aliette de Bodard

Achingly romantic, beautifully imagined, this space opera with a sapphic love story at the centre involves pirates, sentient space ships, and is heavily influenced by Chinese and Vietnamese culture.

Eversion, Alastair Reynolds

Clever, complex, and twisty, this phenomenal book is cinematic in scope, examining selfhood, agency and identity into an adventure story that wraps around itself to pull you along into something special.

BEST FIRST NOVEL

The Mountain in the Sea, Ray Nayler (published by our buddy imprint W&N)

Described as 'David Mitchell meets Arrival', this literary wonder explores the dangers, and necessities, of communicating with a new species - you might not like what they have to say, but can you risk not finding out? (you are also Not Prepared for how neon this bad boy is in real life good lord)

BEST PUBLISHER

Gollancz

We're always excited to be nominated for awards! Particularly now as we ramp up to our 100th anniversary and are putting together big plans over the next few years to celebrate! We love what we do, and love working with readers and authors to do it well.

BEST ARTIST

Charles Vess

Charles is a phenomenal artist, and it's great he's getting this recognition. If you've seen our stunning Ursula K. Le Guin illustrated hardbacks, that's Charles' work.

We're also delighted to see some of our authors nominated in other categories too, including Wole Talabi for Best Novelette ("A Dream of Electric Mothers") and the BSFA award-winning "Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances" by Aliette de Bodard for Best Novel.

Congratulations to everyone who is nominated, can't wait to see the winners!

#Locus Awards #SFF Awards #Gollancz #Aliette de Bodard #Alastair Reynolds #Ray Nayler #Wole Talabi #Charles Vess #Booklr

[dzelonis]

Peter Higgins - Wolfhound Century (Wolfhound Century #1)

Links uz grāmatas Goodreads lapu Izdevniecība: Gollancz Manas pārdomas Detektīvs Vissarion Lom negaidīti tiek izsaukts no attāla rajona centra uz galvaspilsētu Mirgorod. Negaidīti, bet varbūt vides maiņa pat nāktu par labu, jo nesen nogalinājis/saucis pie atbildības slepkavnieciski noskaņotu kolēģi. Un kaut arī nozieguma atklāšana pārsvarā uzskatāma par labu lietu, tad savējo aiztikšana ne…

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#Alternate history #Dystopia #dystopian #Gollancz #Peter Higgins #SFF #Wolfhound Century

[geekynerfherder]

Orbit Books have revealed cover art for new hardcover editions of 'Baptism Of Fire' and 'The Tower Of Swallows', books 3 and 4 in Andrzej Sapkowski's 'The Witcher' series.

'Baptism Of Fire' and 'The Tower Of Swallows' will be available in October 2022, and released in the UK by Gollancz in 2023.

#Art #The Witcher #Baptism Of Fire #The Tower Of Swallows #Andrzej Sapkowski #Scott M Fischer #Rovina Cai #Orbit Books #Gollancz #Books #Book Cover #Cover Art #Book Cover Art

[angstmagnet]

Thank you Gollancz! (I was the Asker)

Such a kind response from whoever at Gollancz is looking after the Tumblr account - thank you! I asked the question but cannot seem to reply directly either 😕

#gollancz #open submissions #amwriting