Mark Chadbourn’s AGE OF MISRULE trilogy is the first of three connected trilogies and it was the first set of his books to make their way to the US. As I’ve indicated in previous columns, the imprint Pyr made a nice splash in its early years through a combination of brilliant new voices (David Louis Edelman’s Jump 225 trilogy) and bringing books to US readers previously only available in other countries. I recalled reading about Chadbourn’s Celtic-flavored apocalyptic series and was curious about the books so I was very pleased when Lou Anders signed Chadbourn and published these books. What’s more, he had the three books wrapped in stunningly gorgeous artwork from John Picacio.
Enough preamble don’t you think? On to the books themselves …
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When Brent Weeks’s first novel, The Way of Shadows, was unleashed the publisher and author of course had high hopes for his career as an author and the first book in The Night Angel Trilogy. In a very smart move (modeling the approach Del Rey books used to amazing success on Naomi Novik’s Temeraire novels), the publisher opted to release the three books in three months, creating immediate shelf presence and eventually landing Brent Weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. While Orbit had a presence in the US for a since 2007 these books publishing in late 2008 and early 2009 helped to further establish the imprint as one of the premiere English language science fiction and fantasy imprints.
On to the story within the pages of the books…
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Time for the second installment of The Completist, wherein I take a look at those SFF series which have concluded publication. In this installment, I take a look at a series which is over twenty years old and has remained in print an on the shelves since. Let’s have a look at C.S. Friedman’s dark fantastic saga, The Coldfire Trilogy.
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SFF readers can be cautious when it comes to reading series novels. While a fair amount of us like to read the series books as they publish, a corresponding percentage of readers wish to wait until a series is published in full before diving head into what they hope to be an immersive experience. That and the wait between volumes can lead to reader frustration and/or forgetting some of the events of the previous novel.
I’ve read a lot of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror over the years and my aim with this feature is to examine those SFFH series which have concluded. In short, all books of the series are available to be read in some format, electronic or print, but ideally both.
In 2005, Prometheus launched Pyr, their imprint dedicated to Science Fiction and Fantasy. Editorial Director Lou Anders brought genre savvy, industry experience and passion to the imprint. The imprint was built through a combination of fresh original voices and import titles – titles initially published overseas from the US and making their first US appearance with the Pyr fiery label on the spine. One of the early new voices Lou Anders published was David Louis Edelman, a computer programmer and marketing guy who worked for several dot-coms with a great passion for the genre. In 2006, Infoquake, the first volume of The Jump 225 Trilogy published. In it, Edelman spins technology advancement through the lens of a marketing executive, providing a new and fresh view on a SF-nal element familiar to many – virtual reality and cybernetic enhancements. In Edelman’s realistic and plausible future, this technology goes by the name of bio/logics. According to one of the many appendices in the book, bio/logics is “The science of using programming code to extend the capabilities of the human body and mind.”
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