I remember, a few years back now, there was an unusually large buzz around an – at that point – unpublished author named Adam Christopher. All I really knew about him at the time was that he had a kickass Twitter handle (GhostFinder) and an equally cool avatar (something similar to that one on your right). Part of the buzz, I think, was down to Adam’s publishers, Angry Robot, who did a great job of building up his hype around his debut title, Empire State. However, Adam was also a very cool guy. Much like Sam Sykes he was very involved in the SFF community and obviously had a genuine love of his place within it.
When Adam’s book was finally released it was, as advertised, a really enjoyable book with a unique concept (for a book at that time, at least). Before the real take off of the Marvel movies, Superheroes just weren’t about all that much. Those that were featured in graphic novels or the odd movie, but very, very rarely books. Empire State, I think, kind of announced the arrival of the modern superhero/fantasy novel. Since Adam’s books we’ve seen authors such as Brandon Sanderson and V.E. Schwab give the genre a try and help build it by doing very well with these attempts.
A long time has passed since Adam’s early 2012 debut and it seems we’ve been concluding every subsequent review of Adam’s work with ‘Adam’s best book so far’. Adam continues to develop as an author with each title and so we were pleased to hear today that Titan Books have acquired a new trilogy from the author called “The LA Trilogy”:
“Set in an alternative 1960s Los Angeles and starring a robot detective and his boss – after a deal was struck between Titan Editor Natalie Laverick and Stacia Decker at the Donald Maass Literary Agency. The trilogy is inspired by Raymond Chandler’s parody of science fiction in a letter to his agent, from whence Christopher’s protagonist was born.”
Titan, speaking of signing Adam’s trilogy, said: ‘[We’re] thrilled to be bringing Adam Christopher’s robot PI trilogy over to the UK, and I think Ray and Googol will be right at home at Titan, alongside our Hard Case Crime heavy hitters and fresh sci-fi voices.”
Adam has said that he is “chuffed to bits that Raymond Electromatic has found a second home at Titan. It’s going to be a lot of fun bringing his twisted, alt-universe version of Hollywood to life.”
Adam’s Spider Wars series, that began with The Burning Dark, has picked up a lot of attention this year. There is a very good chance it shall be appearing as a nomination on awards’ lists next year and, should that be the case, look to match the success of Empire State, which was SciFiNow’s book of the year and a Financial Times book of the year in 2012.
Of course, still working on the Spider Wars series means that readers will have a while to wait for this next series. The publishers have said they don’t expect it to be much past September 2015 though. We’re excited!
Jennie Ivins