Influences & Inspirations: Eric Brown

Earlier this year, Solaris published The Kings of Eternity - a book that took author Eric Brown ten years to complete. Vast in scope but emotionally powerful, The Kings of Eternity has been one of our stand-out titles this year and something we really do recommend you pick up.

With the book being such a significant personal undertaking for Eric, it's interesting to read about his influences and inspirations in this great post from Civilian Reader, in which he discusses his earliest experiences of reading...

"I came upon the works of H.G. Wells and Robert Silverberg at the same time, and if I’d found Christie revelatory, then you can imagine what these writers did to my head. I read all Wells’s scientific romances (and was bitterly disappointed when I finished them and tried to read his social novels) and began collecting Silverberg. Over the years, the latter was a great influence."

Enjoy.

Blue Portal's Still Up There!

So this is quite cool.

As you may remember, waaay back in December last year, we offered a free giveaway of the opening chapter of Eric Brown's magum opus The Kings of Eternity, under the title The Blue Portal.

So it's June now, and it seems Eric's still a massive draw. Check it out, he's #73 on the US iTunes chart for free ebooks:


That's not bad, seven months on.

New ebooks!

We've got three brand new ebooks released on Amazon Kindle this week!

There's Banners in the Wind, the final instalment in Juliet E. McKenna's fantasy trilogy The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution, which she scheduled for release as an ebook for the very first time in March-April-May of this year.

There are also two novels which have only very very recently been released in print: Ian Whate's sci-fi adventure The Noise Revealed (the sequel to last year's The Noise Within), and Eric Brown's much-praised masterpiece The Kings of Eternity.

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Eric Brown signing at Forbidden Planet!

Do you want to get your hands on a copy of The Kings of Eternity, not only signed by the author but a whole two weeks before the release date?

Then head down to the Forbidden Planet London Megastore next week, from 6-7pm on Thursday 31st, where Eric will be signing his newest novel, a science fiction story ten years in the making, filled with the spirit of fin de siècle scientific romances such as those by H. G. Wells and Jules Verne.

A Very Solaris Christmas! Free ebook from Eric Brown...

To wish you a very happy Christmas (and/or shiny happy gift-giving winter festival of your choice) Solaris Books are giving away a free short ebook from Eric Brown!

DOWNLOAD 'The Blue Portal' HERE [.epub fomat]

If you don't have an e-reader, you could download some .epub reading software like this free and easy-to-use Firefox add-on, or you could read 'The Blue Portal' in PDF format.

Also available for free download on Apple's iBookstore.

'The Blue Portal' is an extract from the beginning of Eric Brown's upcoming novel The Kings of Eternity.

1999, on the threshold of a new millennium, the novelist Daniel Langham lives a reclusive life on an idyllic Greek island, hiding away from humanity and the events of the past. All that changes, however, when he meets artist Caroline Platt and finds himself falling in love. But what is his secret, and what are the horrors that haunt him?

1935. Writers Jonathon Langham and Edward Vaughan are summoned from London by their editor friend Jasper Carnegie to help investigate strange goings on in Hopton Wood. What they discover there - no less than a strange creature from another world - will change their lives forever. What they become, and their link to the novelist of the future, is the subject of Eric Brown’s most ambitious novel to date. Almost ten years in the writing, The Kings of Eternity is a novel of vast scope and depth, full of the staple tropes of the genre and yet imbued with humanity and characters you’ll come to love.

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