Jennifer Jackson – Literary Agent

In his first story collection, sf newcomer Scholes displays a rare gift for inventive storytelling that already invites comparisons with the genre’s leading practitioners. His crisply minimalist prose paradoxically gives rise to an abundance of cleverly original ideas and is often permeated by black humor. At a nursing home for retired superheroes, the caped residents harass the nursing staff and reminisce about the old days. The intelligent chimpanzees trained to work on a moon-based mining colony make a sudden evolutionary leap and begin killing off their human hosts. Meriwether Lewis crosses paths with D. B. Cooper after the lost hijacker from the 1970s becomes stranded 200 years in the past. In the volume’s standout tale, “Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk,” Scholes’ homage to A. A. Milne recounts the fate of the lone survivor of a colonization effort on a hostile planet: an intelligently programmed toy bear. Scholes’ lucidly written afterword sheds light on the genesis for all those crazy ideas and provides a fitting warm-up for what will doubtless become an illustrious career. –Booklist

Buy Long Walks, Last Flights & Other Strange Journeys.

Scholes’s mesmerizing debut novel, the first installment of the five-volume Psalms of Isaak saga, launches him into the stratosphere of contemporary epic fantasy. Fueled by an impressively serpentine story line that explores deep philosophical issues of knowledge and power, the novel begins with a literal bang: Windwir, “the world’s greatest city” and home of 200,000 people as well as the famed Androfrancine Order and its enormous library, is completely destroyed by a mysterious weapon unleashed by an unknown foe. Left oddly untouched are the Androfrancines’ mechoservitors, one of whom, Isaak, may be the only one who knows what happened and why. Readers will be intrigued by the subtle, adept world building and ensemble cast of brilliantly complex characters, but it’s Scholes’s pure storytelling prowess that makes this tale of devastation and retribution so unforgettable. — Publishers Weekly, starred review

Pre-order Lamentation (The Psalms of Isaak).

Long before humans populated Earth, monsters and creatures now regarded as myths roamed the world. The Creator banished or destroyed these terrible creations before turning the world over to the human race, but a few still linger, seeking to regain their sovereignty over the planet. In coastal Florida, a young woman once imprisoned in a statue and a handful of other reluctant heroes stumble headlong into a battle to protect the planet from a return to madness. Priest (Not Flesh Nor Feathers; Wings to the Kingdom; Four and Twenty Blackbirds) again demonstrates her keen eye for detail and ambiance as she re-creates an enchanting part of America as the setting for a tale of horror of biblical proportions. Part fairy tale, part work of modern gothic horror, Priest’s latest belongs in most libraries.
–Library Journal

Purchase Fathom

As reported on Publishers Marketplace:
Amanda Downum’s THE DROWNED CITY, set against the backdrop of a lush subtropical port, a necromancer and spy fights a brewing revolution to prove herself to the Crown; betrayed by her allies, hunted by the people she meant to aid, and determined to save a man oath-bound to kill her, she must choose between her mission and the lives of thousands of people, to DongWon Song at Orbit, in a three-book deal.

Congratulations to Elizabeth Bear for Ink and Steel being one of Publishers Weekly’s picks in its list of best books for the year, one of only 7 science fiction and fantasy titles to be so distinguished.

Buy Ink and Steel: A Novel of the Promethean Age now. Together with its companion book: Hell and Earth: A Novel of the Promethean Age