We’ve just received word from Tor Books editor David Hartwell that beloved author Charles Stross has just committed to a new trilogy of novels set in the Merchant Princes universe. Tor published the first six books in the series to great acclaim beginning in 2004 and looks forward to publishing the new books starting in 2015. Stross has been nominated for more than ten Hugo Awards and won twice to date.
“Charles Stross is one candidate for the best SF writer of the decade, and to relaunch The Merchant Princes with three new books has been one of my great editorial hopes,” said Hartwell. “I couldn’t be happier than if a sequel to Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land was discovered!”
In anticipation, Pan Macmillan/Tor UK will also reissue the first Merchant Princes books in three two-book omnibuses from April, with three in three months.
Gah! You misspelled his name in the headline!
Very good news from a very good author. Good job all.
I’m going to strongly dissent here: I think that this is the worst of his series with the six novels in the seies daily being contained in three well written novels. The last novel in particular was grossly overfilled with story and needed a good editing.
Nicholas Winter@3:Charlie has said that the 6 books were indeed originally intended to be a three volume trilogy. He did quite a bit of work last year in repackaging these and they will be coming out from Tor UK as such. From his site:
So they’re actually going to longer rather than shorter? Or will the three newly revised novels be tighter? I’ll admit that my problem with them is something Stross did early in his career — massive info dumps that brought the actual story to a complete halt. If he’s fixed that problem, I’ll definitely go bak and re-read them.
Nicholas@5:Here’s what Charlie had to say on his blog:
I loved this world, this series, definitely wanted to know what was next for our protagonist. The whole ‘modern yankee woman in King Arthur’s court’ thing, and the compelling obstacles she overcame in this series were fascinating to me.
Can’t wait to see what’s next, although I think his schedule is pretty full, these are probably 2-3 years out at least.
The article seems a bit ambiguous to me. Is Stross putting out three brand new novels of the Merchant Princes which takes up where “The Trade of Queens” leaves off, or just about the condensing of the first 6 novels. If the first, then I am actively looking forward to reading them, as the series begged for further development. If the latter, I already have the series and am finishing up the last book for the ninth or tenth time.
To comment #8, he is doing two things, putting the original 6 books that you have into a cleaned up form as he originally intended them, as three big books (no need to repurchase, though if you don’t have them, get the new ones, it is an improvement).
Secondly, he is writing a new trillogy as a sequel to the first books. That will be out in 2015.
I’ll wait until all 6 are out, and buy and read the lot of them (again, for the first set).