A Pile of Pyr

I've had the pleasure of hanging out with Lou Anders of Pyr, an imprint of Prometheus Books, at several conventions. Cool guy. Fun to be around. Bald. Passionate about sff and about promoting his authors. He was kind enough to put me on the mailing list to receive copies of his newly published titles.

This means that for a few years now a steady stream of titles has arrived via UPS. I'm glad of it, too. Pyr's books have substantially padded out my bookshelves, and I've become familiar with a lot of writers that I had not known of before. The cool thing about this is that Pyr's authors are very much publishing, prolific, engaging folks, sometimes from overseas. Once I knew of them I began to see their work all over the place. It's just that sometimes you need that personal touch to get the name recognition locked in place. If that's what Lou was looking to accomplish with me he's succeeded. James Barclay, Mark Chadbourn, James Enge, Tom Lloyd , Justina Robson, Joel Sheperd, Adrian Tchaikovsky and many more: I will not forget you! Not to mention Joe Abercrombie, Kay Kenyon and Ian MacDonald, who were known entities but a very welcome additions to my library.

Have I read all these books? Well, no. But I've read some, and I will read others. And in general I feel a connection to them all just for having them as part of my literary family. And - dear readers and writers of sff - you would do well to know the imprint! They're a vibrant part of the sff community. If you haven't already, check them out.