Today, on Samhain, when the walls between realms are thin, I’m thrilled to share with our readers the four amazing works that are slated to appear in 2023. All are exemplars of the layered, echo-laden storytelling that’s my weakness and métier as both editor and author.
Our 2021 lineup tilted to science fiction, the 2022 one to fantasy. 2023 will symmetric: two works of science fiction, two of fantasy. And one of each comes from the incandescent imaginations of Melissa Scott and Jo Graham, who need little introduction. Both science fictions are sweeping space operas; one of the fantasies is mythic history, the other a rich alt-world culture with magic. I will discuss each more extensively at their respective cover unveilings, but I’m so excited about all of them that I’m introducing them here in one fell swoop.
— Jo Graham’s A Blackened Mirror inaugurates the Memoirs of the Borgia Sibyl series. A riveting historical fantasy, it is narrated by Giulia Farnese—known to historians as a formidably learned and intelligent advisor to two Renaissance popes. But in Graham’s vision Giulia is also a seer, despite the dangers of such a talent in her era. Seamlessly fusing magic, legend and history and transposing the myth of Persephone and Hades onto the opulent Rome of the Borgias, A Blackened Mirror is kin to Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel works and Guy Gavriel Kay’s imaginative transmutations. Projected launch: March 6, 2023.
— Melissa Scott’s standalone fantasy The Master of Samar takes place in a fully inhabited alt-Venice enmeshed in a web of apotropaic magic. It unfurls the tribulations of a maverick magicker who, as the last of his near-extinct lineage, reluctantly claims his title and inheritance—which includes a family curse that might not only destroy his loved ones and allies but also undo his mighty city-state and its mercantile network. As is customary with Scott, the secondary renaissance-tinged universe is a shimmering multi-hued tapestry and all the characters are vividly delineated. Projected launch: June 5, 2023.
— Jo Graham’s Fortune’s Favor is a mythic space opera that unfolds in her richly imagined Nine Worlds universe, third in The Calpurnian Wars series after Sounding Dark and Warlady. Fortune’s Favor unfolds on Menaechmi with its two suns and its powerful coastal city-states, where a contract-bound courtesan and the ruler whom she loves beyond duty must resolve threats to their world using the velvet-glove-iron-fist approach. And just as Sounding Dark has Bronze Age harmonies and Warlady shows a fusion of Spartan and Macedonian culture, Fortune’s Favor is tinted strongly Hellenistic. Projected launch: September 4, 2023.
— Melissa Scott’s Fallen is the second title in the Firstborn, Lastborn space opera deep-time saga that started with Finders. Whereas Finders takes place in the third civilization clawed back from the chaos of the sentient AI rebellion, Fallen shows two estranged lovers during the second civilization trying to understand and reclaim the Ancestral artifacts that could either save or destroy their entire race. As with Finders, Fallen is a seamless fusion of adventure, myth, and science so advanced as to have become magic—a bold, original re-imagining of the tales of Prometheus, Pandora, and the Titans. Projected launch: December 18, 2023.
Keep frequencies open, torpedo bays charged, spells au courant, diplomacy skills honed, and join us in these journeys down echo-laden paths. And 2024 is also shaping up to be a nova!
