A plea for rescue, scrawled upon a scrap of cloth, sealed inside a corked bottle, bobbing on the currents of a wine-dark sea. An illuminated manuscript, once the master works of antiquity's greatest mathematician, now a palimpsest Gospel riding out the Dark Ages in a Celtic monastery. A cuneiform love letter pressed upon a clay tablet, baked, cherished, and rediscovered millennia hence in the ruins of a lost city.
home
The written word seeks its audience.
It's 1939. The Nazis have supermen, the British have demons, and one perfectly ordinary man is caught in the middle.
Coming soon from Tor books, edited by Hugo award-winner Patrick Nielsen Hayden:

Raybould Marsh is a British secret agent in the early days of the Second World War, haunted by something strange he saw on a mission during the Spanish Civil War: a German woman with wires going into her head who looked at him as if she knew him.

When the Nazis start running missions with people who have unnatural abilities—a woman who can turn invisible, a man who can walk through walls, and the woman Marsh saw in Spain who can use her knowledge of the future to twist the present—Marsh is the man who has to face them. He rallies the secret warlocks of Britain to hold the impending invasion at bay. But magic always exacts a price. Eventually, the sacrifice necessary to defeat the enemy will be as terrible as outright loss would be.



Read an excerpt from Bitter Seeds.

Critical Acclaim for Bitter Seeds:
"A striking first novel."
"...Tregillis begins a saga in his first novel, one that may rival Naomi Novik's Tales of Temeraire as a sustained historical fantasy."
—Booklist
"This fantasy debut... brings together the supernatural lore of World War II and wartime intrigue in this fantasy thriller that blends alternate history with period horror... [Bitter Seeds] should appeal to fans of World War II fiction, superheroes, and alternate history."
—Library Journal
"Ian Tregillis has arrived and what a bright and promising voice he has brought to bear. Bitter Seeds is an extraordinarily original work of fiction..."
—Mad Hatter Book Review
"...Bitter Seeds will stand as one of the better novels of 2010 and an excellent debut to what will hopefully be a long career for Ian Tregillis."
—Joe Sherry, Adventures in Reading
"This is one of my favorite reads of the year... An impressive release for 2010 that everyone should read."


Reviews:



On September 15, 1946, an alien retrovirus was released in the skies over Manhattan. The Wild Card killed 90% of those infected, twisted 90% of the survivors into hideous Jokers, and imbued the final 10% -- the Aces -- with strange and profound abilities.

In 2008, mutants and superpowers are as commonplace as reality television.


Now available, Suicide Kings, featuring work by Daniel Abraham, S. L. Farrell, Victor Milan, Melinda Snodgrass, Caroline Spector, and Ian Tregillis.




Now available: Busted Flush, featuring Ian's story "Political Science 101/201/301/401", co-written with Bud Simons.




Now available: Inside Straight, featuring Ian's story, "The Tin Man's Lament"


Read "What Doctor Gottlieb Saw", a standalone story set in the Milkweed universe of Bitter Seeds, at Tor.com.
Read Ian's story "Come Dancefight, My Beloved Enemy" at Trabuco Road.
Ian's first Wild Cards story, "The Tin Man's Lament", is now available in Inside Straight.
Ian's next Wild Cards story, "Political Science 101/201/301/401", co-written with Bud Simons, is now available in Busted Flush.
Ian's adventures in writing for Wild Cards continue in Suicide Kings, the finale of the Committee Triad.
Guest of Honor remarks delivered at the 34th Annual Jack Williamson Lectureship, Eastern New Mexico University, April 9, 2010.