John Jarrold

I’m really delighted to share this:  The winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction is Morta by James Bennett (in The Book of Queer Saints, Medusa Publishing Haus).

I could not be happier for James, a wonderful writer – and this is an outstanding story!

Epic Publishing in the US has acquired English Language rights to RABBIT IN THE MOON, a previously unpublished 2018 science fiction novel by Fiona Moore. The agent was John Jarrold.

Ken Usagi, a young journalist from Nunavut, finds himself travelling south through a war-torn former United States after a terrifying encounter with a biotechnical machine that he remembers from his childhood, which might hold the key to ending the war. Meanwhile Totchli, a young biotechnician from a Mesoamerican society under threat from catastrophic climate change, is ordered to travel north to find out what happened to a colonial expedition on which everyone’s hopes for survival were pinned– but whose members have gone silent after an apparent descent into madness.  As the two journeys approach each other, realities merge and cracks appear in the logic of both worlds. When Usagi and Totchli meet, will they shape a new universe, or destroy civilization for all time?

Dr Fiona Moore is a Canadian academic, writer and critic based in London. A graduate of the University of Toronto and the University of Oxford, she is Chair of Business Anthropology at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her work has appeared in Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, Cossmass Infinities, and five consecutive editions of The Best of British SF. She has  been a BSFA Award finalist three times and has published one novel, Driving Ambition (with Bundoran Press), three stage plays, four audio plays, a number of guidebooks to cult television series, and the nonfiction crossover Management Lessons from Game of Thrones – which has been shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award  She is also a regular contributor to Galactic Journey, a multi-Hugo-nominated blog dedicated to the science fiction of the 1950s and 1960s.

Her new novel, Captain Artemis and the Martian Undead, will soon be submitted to major publishers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Steve J Shaw, the publisher of Black Shuck Books, has acquired rights to a brilliant folk-horror novella, CHARLIE SAYS, by Neil Williamson . The agent was John Jarrold.

CHARLIE SAYS is a sizzling urban folk horror novella that resurrects the universal dread of 1970s British public information films for post-Brexit, blood and soil Britain. Where the jokes you’re allowed to tell–and what you get to be afraid of–very much depend on who’s listening.

Since his first publication in Territories magazine in 1994, Neil’s stories have appeared regularly in magazines and anthologies.

His books include, The Moon King, Queen of Clouds, The Memoirist, Secret Language and The Ephemera.

Neil has been a finalist for British Science Fiction Association, British Fantasy and World Fantasy Awards.

Black Shuck Books launched in 2015, and publish novels, novellas and anthologies of horror fiction.

Dr Fiona Moore has joined the John Jarrold Literary Agency. She is a Canadian academic, writer and critic based in London. A graduate of the University of Toronto and the University of Oxford, she is Chair of Business Anthropology at Royal Holloway, University of London

She characterises her new novel, Captain Artemis and the Martian Undead, as “Gerry Anderson but with lesbians. It’s a queer #ownvoices novel that blends the cheeky lesbian protagonist of A Master of Djinn with the alternate twentieth-century space exploration of the Lady Astronaut series and For All Mankind.”

It’s 1965 and Captain Evangeline Artemisia ‘Artie’ Quelch is the lead pilot on the British Commonwealth Space Programme’s shuttle run between Earth and its thriving Mars colony, with adventure beckoning in the archaeological dig site nearby and romance with the lovely Doctor Evelyn Verity in full swing. And then people begin dying. As unexplained deaths and equipment failures mount up, the colony’s security officer Margaret Salmond accuses the rival European colony, while others blame the ancient Martian technology unearthed at the dig. Artie’s attempts at investigating are thwarted when her problematic journalist ex-girlfriend turns up to ask awkward questions. When the dead begin mysteriously coming back to life, it’s up to Artie to prevent war between the Commonwealth and Europe and to save the lives of everyone on Mars from the terrors the colonists have accidentally unleashed—but it all depends on her being able to atone for her past and win the heart of Evelyn…

Fiona’s earlier work (including two stories set in the same universe as this novel) has appeared in Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, Cossmass Infinities, and five consecutive editions of The Best of British SF. She has  been a BSFA Award finalist three times and has published one novel, Driving Ambition (with Bundoran Press), three stage plays, four audio plays, a number of guidebooks to cult television series, and the nonfiction crossover Management Lessons from Game of Thrones. She is also a regular contributor to Galactic Journey, a multi-Hugo-nominated blog dedicated to the science fiction of the 1950s and 1960s.

“Two pages and I was hooked,” said John Jarrold. “Fiona has created a wonderful, believable  alternate history and outstanding characters – I love Artie! This is a universe that needs full exploration!”

Eksmo have acquired Russian rights in two novels and a novella by award-winning Australian SF writer T. R. Napper. The agent was Laura Karayotov of the SAS Lester Literary Agency & Associates representing the John Jarrold Literary Agency.

36 Streets is a cyberpunk thriller with lashings of military SF: Ghost in the Shell meets Apocalypse Now, set around 100 years in the future, which was published by Titan Books in the UK and US in 2022, and  won the Aurealis Award for Best SF Novel of the Year in June 2023.

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 36 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 36 Streets.

In his new novel, The Escher Man, one man peels back the layers of implanted memories to save his family in this taut, explosive and thrilling high-concept SF novel. Perfect for fans of William Gibson’s The Peripheral, the classic film Total Recall, Ursula Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Endel ‘Endgame’ Ebbinghaus is a violent man, a street-level enforcer for a drug cartel. Or is he? In The Escher Man, nothing is as it seems. Friends, enemies, the past and the present, all become blurred in a world where memory manipulation has become the weapon of choice for powerful corporations.

From the gaudy, glittering demimonde of Macau, to the war-torn, steaming streets of northern Vietnam, Endel must fight to save his family, his life, and the fading memory of the man he once was.

Set five years after the events of T. R. Napper’s debut, 36 Streets, this stand-alone novel offers new readers a thrilling ride, while giving returning fans some familiar faces and an expanded universe. A reader can absolutely come to this without having read 36 Streets, but someone who has read it and wants more will also get their wish.

T R Napper’s new (untitled) novella is a thrilling, propulsive story of escape as two small-time crooks go on the run to save an AI in its infancy. Johnny Mnemonic meets Mad Max in this fast-paced, gritty, and deeply human story that spans the breadth of the Australian continent, and explores the depths of its dark heart.

Praise for 36 Streets:

“Raw and raging and passionate. This is cyberpunk literature with a capital fucken L. Get it while it’s hot.” –  Richard Morgan, author of Altered Carbon

“Quintessential cyberpunk, hard-nosed, sharp edged and gleaming.”—Adrian Tchaikovsky, award-winning author of Children of Time

“[36 Streets] has things both novel and serious to say about the psychological effects of intrusive media. This is a kick-the-door-down account of how past traumas — personal and national — may one day be weaponised for social control.”—The Sunday Times

“Brutal, brooding, brilliant . . . an angry vision of violence wrapped around a complex meditation of memory, trauma and hegemony. This is cyberpunk with soul.” Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, author of The Salvage Crew

“Not since Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl have I been so utterly enthralled by a science fiction novel. 36 Streets is a cyberpunk tour de force – richly textured, nuanced, and shot-through with emotional depth. I could practically feel the sweaty, grimy, bloody, tropical heat oozing from the pages. One of the standouts of the year.”—Richard Swan, author of The Justice of Kings

“High-octane, immersive SF at its best. 36 Streets is sure become a classic in the field.” Kaaron Warren, Shirley Jackson Award-Winner

“Napper has made a remarkable character in the form of his protagonist Lin Thi Vu, subverting to some degree the conventions of the world of male power and violence. It’s a great achievement. The set pieces, the interludes, of performed mastery with weapons and skill, are well poised and set the scene with ritualised violence.” Stephen Teo, author of Chinese Martial Arts Cinema: The Wuxia Tradition

“An engrossing, intriguing action-packed duty tour of a tech-thick, violence-infused, neon-scorched near future gangland Vietnam, where unwinnable games run hot and wild. Highly recommended.” Cat Sparks, author of Lotus Blue

“Beautiful, shimmering, ghostly science fiction.” Anna Smith-Spark, author of Empires of Dust

T. R. Napper is a multi-award-winning science fiction author. His short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Interzone, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and numerous others, and been translated into Hebrew, German, French, and Vietnamese.

Before turning to writing, T. R. Napper was a diplomat and aid worker, delivering humanitarian programs in Southeast Asia for a decade. During this period, he received a commendation from the Government of Laos for his work with the poor. He also was a resident of the Old Quarter in Ha Noi for several years, the setting for his debut novel, 36 Streets.

These days he has returned to his home country of Australia, where he works as a Dungeon Master, running campaigns for young people with autism for a local charity.

In 2020 he won the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novella. “The Weight of the Air, the Weight of the World,” and the  ACT Notable Awards Fiction Category for “Neon Leviathan.” 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.

Napper was awarded a creative writing doctorate in 2019 for his thesis The Dark Century: 1946 – 2046. Noir, Cyberpunk, and Asian Modernity. 

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.”