John Jarrold

Michael Joseph has acquired the revenge thriller A Kiss After Dying by Ashok Banker.

Publisher Joel Richardson acquired world rights in the novel from John Jarrold at the John Jarrold Literary Agency.

The novel begins with the chance meeting of two young people, Ricky and Hannah – or so Ricky thinks. Soon he finds himself falling for this enigmatic young woman, but we already know the danger he’s in: Hannah has revenge on her mind. And Ricky is only the beginning…

Banker is an Indian author born in Mumbai, now living in Los Angeles. The novel marks his international thriller debut, and was inspired by Ira Levin’s classic A Kiss Before Dying.

Richardson said: “You will never have read a thriller like this one, and you’ll never have met a heroine like Hannah. The cool fresh voice of this reminded me of My Lovely Wife, the audacious set up has echoes of The Kind Worth Killing, and the twist is genuinely jaw-dropping. I’ve had a long wait for an irresistibly good thriller, and I’m so delighted to be publishing this one.”

Banker said: “I’m an avid fan of psychological thrillers. I always wanted to write one that would deliver all the twists, suspense, thrills and drama of my favourite authors. I’m over the moon that Joel Richardson and Michael Joseph are publishing A Kiss After Dying. I wish Hannah good hunting as she goes out into the world!”

A Kiss After Dying is scheduled to be published in spring 2022.

The latest author to join the John Jarrold Literary Agency is Peter Swirski. His new book – soon to be submitted to major publishers in the UK and US – is a witty, intelligent SF thriller, Eureka. It’s the first in a series featuring Penser Hasso.

We are in the near future, on the moon. A permanent helium mining colony is on red alert. Even before a couple of miners get crushed in a suspicious landslide, one by one machines have begun to suffer from insanity attacks. This is, of course, absurd. Machines can’t go crazy. You must have a mind before you can lose it. Eureka puts a lie to this premise.

Penser, an expert in behavioural logic, is flown in to get to the bottom of the mystery. As the crisis deepens, he meets an old friend, makes new enemies, investigates Luna Mall and the helium mines, crosses paths and wits with a brilliant mysterious woman, investigates a runaway train crash that costs more lives and stokes more fear of sabotage in the outpost, and becomes a pawn in the local power plays – all while working towards a totally unexpected solution.

Early quotes:

“Fresh, smart, witty, original—sci-fi meets Chandler.” Alistair Beaton, author of Feelgood and Planet for the President

“A joy to read… William Gibson, Michael Crichton, and Groucho Marx combined.” Nicholas Ruddick, Canada’s leading scholar of science fiction

“EUREKA is a voice-driven and character-driven, darkly funny, scientifically grounded mystery set in a very cool place: the Moon. Peter Swirski’s writing is intelligent, funny, and crisp. Reads like a thriller, hits like a runaway train, leaves you aching for a sequel.” Nelson DeMille, perennial New York Times’ fiction best-seller

“Fast, stylish, and rudely funny—a classic space adventure!” Greg Bear, best-selling and award-winning SF novelist

And here is Stanislaw Lem, SF Grandmaster, on Peter Swirski: “Brilliant… deserves wide recognition… warrants complete faith in his work.”

Peter Swirski is a Canadian scholar and literary critic, featured in Canadian Who’s Who. A specialist in American literature and American Studies, he is the author of many books, including the prize-winning Ars Americana, Ars Politica (2010) and the staple of American popular culture studies From Lowbrow to Nobrow (2005). His other studies include American Utopia and Social Engineering (2011), American Political Fictions (2015), American Utopia: Literature, Society, and the Human Use of Human Beings (2020, Routledge textbook), and the digital-futurological bestseller From Literature to Biterature (2013). Among many others, it’s been reviewed by Times Literary Supplement (TLS):

“zigzags across the fields of artificial intelligence, computing history, cognitive science, narrative theory, the evolution of men and machines, and post-Turing attempts to figure out how to identify computer intelligence if (Swirski would say when) it arises… a modern adventure story for the mind”

and by The Montreal Review: “brilliant, cogent, erudite, and articulate… fascinating, unsettling, and profound… I can hardly think of anyone else who could so effortlessly and colorfully integrate philosophy of mind, robotics, literary studies, cultural trends, futurology, evolution and many other areas of intellectual analysis: names like Steven Pinker, Mat Ridley, or Douglas Hofstadter spring to mind.”

His work has been praised by the likes of Jaakko Hintikka,  David Attenborough, Stanislaw Lem, E. O. Wilson, Douglas Hoftstader, Christopher Hitchens, Steven Brams and others. He is also the leading scholar on the late writer and philosopher Stanisław Lem.

Eureka is his first novel.

George Sandison of Titan Books has acquired World English Rights in a debut novel from Australian SF writer T R Napper. The agent was John Jarrold

Thirty-Six Streets is a cyberpunk thriller with lashings of military SF: Ghost in the Shell meets Apocalypse Now, set around 150 years in the future.

Lin ‘The Silent One’ Vu is a gangster and sometime private investigator. Born in Vietnam, raised in Australia, everywhere an outsider. She lives in Chinese-occupied Hanoi, in the steaming, paranoid alleyways of the Old Quarter – known as the Thirty-Six Streets.

Through grit and courage Lin has carved a place for herself in the Vietnamese underworld. But when an Englishman comes to Hanoi in search for answers over the murder of his dear friend, Lin’s life is turned upside down. She is drawn into the grand conspiracies of the neon gods: of regimes and mega-corporations, as they unleash dangerous new technologies in a quest for absolute power. Lin must confront the immutable moral calculus of an unjust war. She must choose: family, country, or gang. Blood, truth, or redemption. No choices are easy on the Thirty-Six Streets.

T R Napper was an aid worker for more than a decade, living throughout East and Southeast Asia. He designed and managed programs that enabled ethnic minority children in remote areas to receive an education, in communities where they never would have set foot in a school otherwise. During this period, he received a commendation from the Government of Laos for his work with the poor.

More recently he has been a stay-at-home dad and writer. He has returned to Australia after three years in Hanoi, where all he did was read battered science fiction paperbacks, explore the city with his son, and write, write, write in all the spaces in between.

T R Napper began writing fiction in 2013. Since then he’s sold short stories to the prestigious Asimov’s magazine, several to the excellent Interzone, and numerous others. His short fiction has been translated into Hebrew, French, German, and Vietnamese.

In 2017 he won the Aurealis Award for Best Short Story for “Flame Trees”, (Asimov’s Science Fiction, April/May 2016); and another of his stories “A Strange Loop” (Interzone, January/February 2016) was included in Neil Clarke’s Best Science Fiction of the Year. He was awarded a creative writing doctorate in 2019 for his thesis The Dark Century: 1946 – 2046. Noir, Cyberpunk, and Asian Modernity.

Among several current jobs, he works as a dungeon master for the local community centre, running a D&D campaign for young people with autism.

Bestselling novelist Richard Morgan has been fulsome in his praise of Napper’s debut short fiction collection, Neon Leviathan (2020):

“Haunting and iridescent – combines the paranoid weirdness of the best Philip K Dick, the chilly but cool-as-fuck future gleam of cyberpunk, and an achingly beautiful literary inflection reminiscent of mainstream heavyweights like Murakami or Ishiguro. T. R. Napper’s futures feel at once gritty and vertiginous and close-focus human in the way only the best SF can manage. Whatever roadmap he’s working from, I can’t wait to see where he’s taking us next.”

Are you looking for the next big epic fantasy series? Orbit is thrilled to announce the acquisition of a brand-new trilogy from author R. S. Ford. With a unique magic system inspired by inventors and artificers, and a compelling cast of characters, this new series follows one family as they struggle to stop a dark revolution from tearing their country – and their family – apart.

The nation of Torwyn is ruled by the Guilds – a powerful group of families who control the country’s varying magical and mechanical industries. Over centuries the influence of the Guilds has grown, and now the people of Torwyn revere these idols of industry more than their history. But the once powerful Draconate Ministry has a new leader, and he is determined to restore the power of his faith. When a foreign emissary travels to Torwyn to broker peace, Lady Rosomon, matriarch of the Hawkspur Guild, is summoned to the capital with her children. Before she knows it, her heirs – an artificer, a mage-turned-diplomat, and a military captain – are sent to the far reaches of the nation, each with their own personal quest to defend Torwyn from those who would see it burn.

This trilogy is truly epic in scale, engineering a brilliant tale of impending revolution, prophesied draconic gods, magical artifice creations, loyalty, family, and more—a real doorstopper. You don’t want to miss out on this one, publishing in early 2022. Follow the author on Twitter to learn more about the lore.

Orbit US editor Bradley Englert acquired the trilogy for World rights from John Jarrold.

Author Emily Inkpen is the latest client of the John Jarrold Literary Agency.

Her science fiction debut novel The Blood Road follows three narrative voices:

For Varian, Isra and Ren, life has never been about what they want. As the adopted children of Nathaniel Dex, weapons manufacturer and President of Dex Island, they were raised as lab-rats, moulded into soldiers, forced to fight, kill and command. Until Isra’s tragic death in combat, aged just eighteen, plunged Dex Island into national mourning.

Eight years later, war is brewing. A country is ready to fall and the leaders of three great nations stand poised to claim the territory as their own. But while Nathaniel provides the weapons, using Ren as a political pawn and Varian’s troops as the spark that will start the war, none of them can predict the reappearance of Isra, and the complications that will bring.

Her influences are as varied as Ursula K Le Guin, The Duchess by Amanda Foreman and the computer game Final Fantasy VII.

Emily said:

“I have been a writer all my life. My passion for fantasy and sci-fi started when my dad read me The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, a little every night, at the age of six. It took just over a year! I was also raised on the original radio production of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and I still know it almost word for word.

“I founded the Glasgow University Creative Writing Group while I was studying for my degree in English Literature. There I met a core group of people who are all now writers and scattered throughout the industry.

“I received first class honours with the courses Fantasy Literature of the 20th Century (Dr Robert Maslen),  Theory and Criticism (Prof Willy Maley), Postcolonial Literature (Prof Willy Maley) and Modern Literature (Dr Helen Stoddart).

“I have always created worlds. For me, freeing myself from the fetters of the world we know allows me to explore all of the possibilities of worlds we are yet to discover.

“Occasionally I write a short story, but they always end up being the Prologue to something much bigger.

“For me, creativity is collaborative. I like to share and discuss.”

She was a medical and healthcare writer for five years. In March 2020 she moved across to the gaming industry and now writes for a game studio.

John Jarrold said: “Occasionally you see a world or universe that feels fully formed from the first page.  That is the case here – as it is with Emily’s characters. This series-opening novel is an outstanding debut that had me cheering for its protagonists, sometimes despite themselves. I want to know What Happens Next!”