Stephen Hunt's Fantasy Novels Come to the U.S.

I was only just last month reminded of how the British sometimes keep their most interesting fantasy for themselves, when I was reviewing the unreleased-in-America production of Hogfather. But this is not always the case. That essential science fiction and fantasy publisher, Tor Books, has picked up stateside publishing rights to Stephen Hunt's well-reviewed The Court of the Air and its forthcoming follow-up, The Kingdom Beyond the Sea.

Published this spring in the U.K. as an inaugural offering of new HarperCollins fantasy imprint Voyager, The Court of the Air follows two orphans who hold in their blood the key to the problems facing the steam-powered cities of Middlesteel, the Undercity and Shadowclock – a decidedly Dickensian world of dark conspiracies rife with futuristic mechanisms and bizarre extrapolations of Old World industry. "The early Victorians did actually have a working atmospheric-like system for mass transport running as a small-scale model, but the economics of financing it killed the system's roll-out," Hunt noted in an interview. "Could have happened, though. That being said, I have always suffered from an overactive imagination."

The U.S. release date is set for June 10, 2008. Sample chapters are available from the author's website. Hunt's previous fantasy novel For the Crown and the Dragon won the WH Smith New Talent Award in 1994. Hunt is the operator of the well-known sci-fi portal SF CrowsNest.