Et in arcaedia, ego.

Today is the official release day for Bloodshot by Cherie Priest

A 100-year-old vampire thief runs afoul of secret biological experimenters­--first of an urban fantasy series from the versatile author of Boneshaker (2009).

Sassy vampire Raylene Pendle makes a good living by stealing things to order; luckily, the numerous law-enforcement agencies in pursuit think she's a man. Very much a loner, she lives in Seattle in a vast abandoned warehouse stuffed with valuable objects acquired as insurance—premises she shares with a pair of street-urchin intruders who, over the months, have gradually morphed into lodgers. When charming blind vampire Ian Stott asks for her help, money no object, Raylene pays close attention. Ian needs her to retrieve top secret government files—documents detailing the horrid black-op Army experiments, performed on vampires and other unorthodox persons, that left Ian blind. After an interloper invades her warehouse—Raylene kills him without compunction—she doesn't immediately make the connection. Then, in Atlanta, she gets a lead on another victim of the experiments via the victim's brother Adrian, a huge, exNavy SEAL drag queen. Unfortunately, there are immediate complications: ruthless Men in Black masquerading as CIA; and evidence that Project Bloodshot, supposedly shut down years ago, is once more roaring ahead thanks to a mysterious, mega-rich private financier. Brutally unsentimental narrator Raylene—she suffers from early-morning panic attacks and can't help wondering where Adrian tucks his male equipment while he's queening—makes a quirky and charming if bloodthirsty host.

A refreshing and addictive lure for readers uninterested in fangs, bats, capes and hissing.

—Kirkus, Starred Review

Today is the official release day for debut novel, God's War by Kameron Hurley

Readers will be fascinated by the setting of this slow-starting but compelling far-future debut. On a planet settled by Muslims and ravaged by constant war and pollution, Nyx, a former government-sponsored assassin or "bel dame," gets by as a bounty hunter. Her assistant is the foreign magician Rhys, who can control the ubiquitous insects that drive the planet's technology. When the government asks them to hunt down an off-worlder who possesses technology that could end the war, they find themselves facing off against foreign agents and their fellow bel dames. Hurley's world-building is phenomenal, with casual references to insectile technology and the world's history that provide atmosphere without info dumps. Far too many pages are spent introducing the characters, but the story is highly engaging once it starts, and Hurley smoothly handles tricky themes such as race, class, religion, and gender without sacrificing action. --Publishers Weekly

****

The book so nice, I sold it twice. This one didn't have an easy road. I'm glad Kameron hung in there, and that she kept believing in me while I was believing in her. Kameron goes into more detail here.

Also, this week, comment on any of the posts at the Night Bazaar about favorite female characters, and be entered to win a free copy. Details here.

Despite the fact that I did not end up posting much during the holiday season, I did keep responding to queries. Details....

# of queries responded to week ending 12/10/2010: 79
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 0
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: n/a

# of queries responded to week ending 12/17/2010: 156
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 1
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: urban fantasy

# of queries responded to week ending 12/24/2010: 79
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 2
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: YA(1), high fantasy (1)


End of the year stats:

# of queries responded to in 2010: 7,835
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 41
(some of which are still on my desk awaiting review)
note: this # does not include requests made at conferences

# of clients signed: 1 (down from 5 last year): debut novelist, Saladin Ahmed, author of _Throne of the Crescent Moon_, the first of a fantasy trilogy, which we sold to DAW Books.


And now, welcome to the New Year....

# of queries responded this week: 188
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 0
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: n/a

And I have now responded to all queries received in 2010. If you sent a query in 2010 and did not receive a response, either it did not reach me, or my response did not reach you.

Today is the official release date for Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's The Agent Gambit, part of Baen's reprinting of the earlier Liaden novels. This omnibus includes Agent of Change and Carpe Diem.

Agent of Change: Once a brilliant First-in-Scout, Val Con yos’Phelium was “recruited” by the shadowy Liaden Department of Interior and brainwashed into an Agent of Change—a ruthless covert operative who kills without remorse. Val Con has been playing a deep game, far from the orderly life of clan and kin. Fleeing his latest mission, he saves the life of ex-mercenary Miri Robertson, a Terran on the run from interplanetary assassins. Thrown together by circumstances, Val Con and Miri struggle to elude their enemies and stay alive without killing each other-or surrendering to the unexpected passion that flares between them. Which name – or face – will the agent choose when the game gets tough and an escape for only one of them seems possible?

Carpe Diem: On the run from interplanetary assassins and a ruthless interstellar crime cartel, covert operative Val Con yos'Phelium and former mercenary sergeant Miri Robertson formed an alliance of necessity and wound up stranded on a planet with no rescue in sight. Their on-world problems were looking manageable after they assumed new identities as musicians, that is until a local war forced them to reveal their alien combat skills – and doubt their own growing partnership of trust and love. By then the relentless hound of an agent on Val Con's trail was closing in with the very weapon Val Con and Miri most feared, and the game got very rough indeed.

A great way to introduce new readers to the series....

* Congrats to Mike Shevdon for Road to Bedlam garnering the award from SFBook.com for Best SF/F Book of 2010!

* Signal boost: read about Ekaterina Sedia's new book, The House of Discarded Dreams. See the gorgeous cover! (I gave two copies of this as holiday gifts this year myself.)

* via Martha Wells - new blog The Night Bazaar, featuring authors debuting with Night Shade Books in 2011. Martha's book is The Cloud Roads. Also includes Kameron Hurley, author of God's War.

* C.E. Murphy offers her 2011 Irish Photography calendar. (I got the 2010 one as a gift last year, and loved it!)


Clients are starting to post for their Nebula and Hugo eligibility:

* Elizabeth Bear with bonus what's coming to bookstores near you this year
* Mary Robinette Kowal
* Jay Lake
* Sharon Lee and Steve Miller


And one last bit of holiday spirit via Teresa Wilde:

# of queries responded to last week: 75
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 1
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: SF

# of queries responded to this week: 163
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 1
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: SF


oldest query in the queue: November 30


A list inspired by this week's queries:

* I still don't represent memoirs.

* A debut author of fiction should have completed (and revised) the manuscript before they begin querying.

* Proof-reading is a good idea. So is spelling query correctly.

* Only submit your query to one agent at DMLA. Not multiple agents. (It's in our guidelines.)

* No attachments are accepted on queries.

* The query and sample pages need to be in English.

* Those 37,000 words from NaNoWriMo are not a finished novel.

Today is the official release day for The Bone Palace (The Necromancer Chronicles) by Amanda Downum

In a spectacular freestanding sequel to 2009's The Drowning City, Downum jumps a few years forward to find forensic necromancer Isyllt Iskaldur investigating the death of Forsythia, a young prostitute with stolen royal jewelry sewn into her clothes, in the haunted city of Erisin. As Isyllt follows the trail of death and theft to the sewers and their vampiric inhabitants, Savedra Severos, the crown prince's beautiful transgender mistress, struggles to defeat assassins and unravel plots involving her own uncle and a demonic sorceress mysteriously allied with Isyllt's mentor and former lover, the spymaster Kiril. Finely drawn characters love and betray with enthralling passion and pain, and the taverns and gardens of plague-ridden Erisin and the titular ruined palace at its center make a dark and richly detailed background for this complex and bloody tale of sorcery, madness, and intrigue. --Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

Also available: The Drowning City (The Necromancer Chronicles)

# of queries responded to this week: 156
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 1
genres of partials/manuscripts requested: YA






via client Kameron Hurley
author of the forthcoming God's War (January 18, 2011)
What 15 Years of Rejection Looks Like
including my own 15 seconds of fame

The Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund eReader Drawing
http://www.carlbrandon.org/drawing.html

Drawing ends November 22


via Tempest's post about the drawing:
"Entrants can win one of two Barnes & Noble Nooks, One of two Kobo Readers, and an Alex eReader from Spring Design. And to sweeten the pot even more, all of the eReaders will come pre-loaded with short stories, poems, and books by writers of color."

N. K. Jemisin, Nisi Shawl, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Terence Taylor, Ted Chiang, Shweta Narayan, Chesya Burke, Moondancer Drake, Saladin Ahmed, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz and more. http://blog.carlbrandon.org/2010/11/butler-scholarship-ereader-drawing.html for details.

Click here to buy tickets. Only $1 each!