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It's been all engines full-ahead at the John Jarrold Literary Agency recently, since Jarrold has got right back down to business after an enforced, technology-related hiatus. As a result, Jarrold has a batch of new authors on his books and two new book deals to tell us about.

First up, those two book deals, both of which involve sales to Sean Wallace of Prime Books. Deal number one involves US rights to Chris Beckett's second novel, Marcher, including distribution in the UK and Commonwealth. Prime also published Beckett's first novel, The Holy Machine, which has received wonderful reviews on both sides of the Atlantic.

The new novel will be published early in 2008. "This is a very good deal," said Jarrold. "Sean has published a number of authors who have later moved to mainstream publication extremely successfully, including Jeff VanderMeer and K.J. Bishop. Chris Beckett is one of the UK's most thoughtful and intelligent SF writers, and I see great things for him in the future."

The second deal is for the US rights in The Spider's Bride, the debut novel of UK writer Debbie Gallagher, and this book will also be distributed in the UK and Commonwealth.

Debbie Gallagher has previously written for 2000AD's 'Slaine' and DC Comics' Batman Book of Shadows, as well as working in TV production and Role-Playing Games. The novel will be published in late 2007 or early 2008. Jarrold describes it as "a sophisticated work set in a world of faerie inhabited by strange and frightening beings... and a human woman, who has been chosen by the Spider Prince as his bride. Reminiscent of the darker work of Arthur Rackham, it also features the insane Victorian artist, Richard Dadd, as a character."

And four more authors have joined the JJLA in the last few weeks. The first is American author Robert von Stein Redick, who works as the editor for the Spanish and French websites of Oxfam America. His first novel, Conquistadors, was a finalist for the 2002 AWP/Thomas Dunne Novel Award (under the title Wilderness). An excerpt was published in the 40th anniversary (2005) edition of Puerto del Sol.

Now Redick has written the first in a three-book fantasy series, The Red Wold Conspiracy. Jarrold says the book "is set aboard a huge, 600-year-old ship and takes in sorcery, murder and politicking" with "a cast of believable characters ranging from a teenage ships' boy and the ship's captain, who is famed for his sadism, to a girl being offered up as a bride to a foreign prince by her emperor and her father, the new ambassador. But all is not as it seems. Empires may fall, mighty spells may be unleashed, and a dead leader may live again."

Next up is British sf author Ian Hocking, whose first novel - a science fiction technothriller entitled Déjà Vu that encompasses time travel, virtual reality and digital minds - was published in 2005 by the UKA Press. Author Ian Watson praised it as "gripping, fascinating, and powerful" and the book received good reviews from a range of genre and non-genre publications.

"Ian mentions Jon Courtenay Grimwood and Ken MacLeod in his acknowledgements," said Jarrold. "Having had the pleasure of publishing a number of books by them both, I can say that the many readers who love their work will thoroughly enjoy Ian's writing. Ideas jump off the page, and his characters remain in one's mind over a long period of time."

Author number three is UK author Martyn Taylor, who has had a number of short stories published in SF/Fantasy magazines and in computer games magazines. He's also written for television and radio as well as numerous book and film reviews for specialist SF magazines. As a novelist, he is particularly interested in the possibilities of what might be happening just beyond the edges of perceptions, and also in exploring the possibilities of conventional fantasy.

"His new novel, Happyland," Jarrold tells us, "is a fantastical work, set mostly in our world but taking in the realms of imagination. It features a family whose sins echo over three generations and mixes real-life horrors with the sort of dark fairy tales that would make the Brothers Grimm shudder..."

And most recently, Jarrold has welcomed Dutch fantasy writer W.J. Maryson to the agency. Maryson is the well-established author of eleven novels (including the Unmagician series) and a number of short stories, which have been published in nine different languages. He is presently working on the second novel in the Great Legend series, three short stories, and 'Maryson' (the band in which he features as a songwriter and keyboardist) are about to create their third album.

He won the Elf Fantasy Award for the best fantasy novel of 2004, voted for by the readers of Elf Fantasy Magazine, for The Lord of the Depths (the third Unmagician novel), pipping the likes of Robin Hobb and Raymond Feist to the post. John says: "It's great to see another European author added to the agency’s client list. W.J. Maryson is a major name throughout Europe, and I expect to see him published in the UK and US in the near future. Right now, his place in European fantasy writing grows and grows."

For more information on any of these authors - rights enquiries particularly welcome - please get in touch with John Jarrold via his website, www.JohnJarrold.co.uk.

Source: John Jarrold

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