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January 15, 2011
Greetings:
Welcome to our newsletter! We're ringing in 2011 with a new name-- Pyr-a-Zine. Best of 2010 lists are still trickling in, and I'm proud to say we've made a few more.
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 | Preview Cowboy Angels at io9
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Read the first three chapters of Paul McAuley's Cowboy Angels at io9! In 1963, the first Turing Gate is built; in 1966, the first man steps into an alternate universe, and an empire is born.
For fifteen years, the version of America that calls itself the Real has used its Turing gate technology to infiltrate a wide variety of alternate Americas, rebuilding those wrecked by nuclear war, fomenting revolutions and waging war to free others from communist or fascist rule, and establishing a Pan-American Alliance. Then a nation exhausted by endless strife elects Jimmy Carter on a reconstruction and reconciliation ticket, the CIA's covert operations wind down, and the Real begins to wage peace rather than war. But some people believe that it is the Real's manifest destiny to impose its idea of truth, justice, and the American way in every known alternate history, and they're prepared to do anything to reverse Carter's peacenik doctrine. When Adam Stone, a former CIA field officer, one of the Cowboy Angels who worked covertly in other histories, volunteers for reactivation after an old friend begins a killing spree across alternate histories, his mission uncovers a startling secret about the operation of the Turing gates and leads him into the heart of an audacious conspiracy to change the history of every America in the multiverse-including our own. Cowboy Angels is a vivid, helter-skelter thriller in which one version of America discovers the true cost of empire building, and one man discovers that an individual really can make a difference.
"... one of the most exciting SF adventures of the year." -SFF World
Paul McCauley blogs about Cowboy Angels, the music behind it, and how the book is like a road trip movie. It's a fascinating look at the influences that led to the book. Check it out!
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| Our New Steampunk Overlord and More Best of 2010
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The steampunk page on Facebook has just announced""The Best of 2010 Steampunk Facebook Awards."  They write, "The largest steampunk fan page on Facebook now has a set of yearly awards to acknowledge the best of the best, those people in the arts and other creative fields whose work has shone through above the rest or who hold the most worldwide popularity among the steampunk community for their work this year. As this is the first year of these awards, we will be taking into account the work that individuals have done over the course of the past decade when determining who to select."
 Pyr Editorial Director Lou Anders was named Best Editor. Applause and kudos to Lou, as well as the Pyr authors whose steampunk books have garnered such positive and well-deserved attention: George Mann's The Ghosts of Manhattan, Mark Hodder's The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack , Clay and Susan Griffith's The Greyfriar, Tim Aker'sThe Horns of Ruin, and Mike Resnick's The Buntline Special .
It's not only steampunk that has gotten accolades; Pyr continues to make the 2010 Best Of lists. Ian McDonald's The Dervish House makes io9's list of their 15 best speculative fiction books of 2010. Barnes and Noble's Explorations blog, run by Paul Goat Allen, has put out several Best of 2010 lists, broken up by subgenre. First up, they named Clay and Susan Griffith's The Greyfriar (Vampire Empire Book 1) as the #2 book in The Best Vampire Releases of 2010 and Jasper Kent's Twelve as #10.
Explorations' next list, The Best Steampunk Releases of 2010, includes Tim Akers' The Horns of Ruin at #7, Mark Hodder's The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack at #10, and Mike Resnick's The Buntline Special at #13 (in a list of 13). 
Explorations' The Best Fantasy Releases of 2010 includes Adrian Tchaikovsky's Empire in Black and Gold at #10. David Louis Edelman' Geosynchron makes #9 on Exploration's The Best Science Fiction Releases of 2010 . Additionally, The Library Journal has given James Barclay's Demonstorm a starred review! For the updated list of all the titles that have been mentioned in Best Of lists, check this post. Thank you to all the reviewers, and congratulations to our authors.
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| Riordan on Enge
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 | | Rick Riordan |
"This is a straightforward fantasy novel for a grownup audience. It's set in a well-imagined fictional world where young Lathmar, the nominal king of the Ontil Empire, is facing a coup d'etat from his own Lord Protector, who is in league with some truly creepy dark forces. To the rescue comes Morlock Ambrosius, Lathmar's great uncle, who is a centuries-old knight and magician from the Wardlands, accompanied by his faithful apprentice Wyrth the dwarf. Morlock is a wonderful character - powerful and noble, tragic and comic -- with more than a small nod to Don Quixote. The plot weaves from gruesome episode to gruesome episode, but balances the somber and sometimes downright horrifying action with some fine black humor. The novel is worth reading just to meet Velox, the flying, flaming
 | | James Enge |
, screaming horse. 'Nuff said."#1 New York Times bestselling author Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) on James Enge's Blood of Ambrose
You can check out the first chapters of Blood of Ambrose, as well as several Morlock short stories and a novella, Traveller's Rest, at our Sample Chapters page.
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That's it for this issue. Don't forget our coupon below! As always, please check out our entire catalog and drop by our blog.
Happy Reading,
Rene Sears
Editorial Assistant, Pyr®
an imprint of Prometheus Books
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