Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
A friend of mine is British SF/Fantasy writer Liz Williams. She's still getting published in the UK by Macmillan, but was dropped from the roster by US publisher Bantam/Spectra. Liz had a similar problem. Her stuff is brilliant, but every book was different. She built a cult following, but Bantam/Spectra is the largest mass market PB house, and they need much more than cult sales. She's currently being published in the US by small press Night Shade Books, who are doing well with her "Detective Inspector Chen" novels, set in a near future where Singapore has spawned a franchise -- Chen is a police officer in Singapore3. It's fantasy because Chinese mythology is very real in Singapore3. Chen is the "snake agent" -- the department specialist in crimes involving the supernatural. His wife is a demon, and he finds himself partnered with Zhu Irzh, a Seneschal of the Ministry of Vice in Hell. Hell has laws too, and demons whose job is to enforce them. I'm reading the third one now, and it's a delight. The series is doing well enough that Night Shade is happy to issue them. (And I've met the Night Shade folks. They are delighted to be able to publish Liz.)
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I really liked her first book
Ghost Sisters. It is one of the few science fiction books that I have read that have used philosopy in a good way. You notice that she know he subject (she has a Phd in philosophy). I asked her about the philosophy at a BSFA meeting in London and the things I had noticed as especially interesting was according to her intentionally put there. A paper copy of
Snake Agent is currently half a meter from my computer and will be read aftet i have read Ian McDonals
Brasyl.