Morgan signs new book deal

Thu, Nov 24, 2005

SciFi Wire reports that one of my favourite writers, Richard Morgan, has signed a five-book deal with Del Rey in the US. Richard powered his way into the UK scene with his violent noir-esque debut, Altered Carbon (if you are looking for a modern SF novel you should have read, that is one of them), which went on to win a coveted Philip K Dick award.

Three books of the deal will be taken up by Richard’s entry into the land of fantasy, which he wants to shake up the same way his Takeshi Kovacs novels shook up SF:

“There’s no major agenda behind these books,” Morgan said in an interview. “I just fancied having a crack at old-school sword and sorcery, using some of the technique and tone I’ve been deploying in my Kovacs novels. … I’d been talking a good fight about fantasy noir for a while now, about the idea of ripping apart the Tolkienesque decor to focus on the ugly cracks and stains behind, and it just finally seemed time to put my pen where my mouth is.”

Sounds good to me – Richard is currently working on the new mini-series of Black Widow for Marvel (a follow up to his excellent comics debut with the Widow last year) and his new SF novel, Black Man:

“This is a vacation from my Takeshi Kovacs series and an attempt to do something a little different while still working with the tools and templates of future noir,” Morgan said. “The book posits a future about a century from now in which poorly supervised genetic experimentation has left the human race with a series of major legal and ethical headaches, and a massive colony effort on Mars has turned into a political race between reconstituted power blocs. The U.S. has fractured apart along lines which will seem eerily familiar to students of the current political [quagmire], and China has risen to economic and political parity with the West.”

Thanks to Cheryl Morgan at Emerald City for the tip (these Morgans stick together!)