Solaris is delighted to announce that sales of the critically-acclaimed, New York Times bestselling Pantheon series by James Lovegrove have now topped 100,000.

In a remarkable coup for a military-SF series, the killer blend of high-octane action and worlds dominated by ancient religions, including New York Times bestseller Age of Odin, has been a massive hit. The series is now set to continue with three new titles.

The series focuses on the central question of ‘what if the Gods of Mythology were not only real but played a direct role in mankind’s lives?’ Created as alternative histories that can be read as stand-alone novels or enjoyed as a collective, Lovegrove revitalises deities of old with hard-nosed military science fiction and fascinating re-imaginings of our world.

This April will see the publication of the next in the series, Age of Aztec, which envisages a world where the Aztecs defeated the Conquistadors and then spread their empire across the Earth. As the apocalypse looms, this regime of ruthless oppression and regular human sacrifice is now openly defied by a masked vigilante known as the Conquistador.

This year also sees the publication of the first ebook-only novella in the series, Age of Anansi, with the Age of Voodoo due for print publication in 2013.

The Age of Odin featured on the New York Times bestseller immediately upon release last year. The series also includes Age of Ra and Age of Zeus.

“For me, the appeal of the Pantheon series is that each novel is different,” says Lovegrove. “The pre-existing mythology creates the story and shapes the tone and direction of the book. Every time I start a new one, it’s as though I’ve been given a brand new playground to play in. Yet the core themes remain the same: the relationship between mortals and the beings they worship; humans facing or wielding superhuman power; free will versus divine edict. A never-drying well of ideas to explore there.

“I can’t express how happy I am to be working with Solaris on these books. It’s an imprint making surprisingly effective commando raids on the publishing market. The editorial and promotional departments are efficient, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, inventive, supportive and indefatigable. The Pantheon series’s success depends as much on their efforts as my writing. And I can’t not mention Marek Okon’s striking eye-candy covers, too, which round off the package perfectly.”

“When Rebellion acquired Solaris in 2009 and I saw that James Lovegrove was on the list, I was thrilled to be working with a writer whose work I’d been reading and enjoying for a number of years,” said editor-in-chief Jonathan Oliver. “To help continue James’s success in the field of genre fiction is something I’m very proud of.”

Praise for the Pantheon Series and James Lovegrove:

“Yet more proof that Lovegrove is one of the UK SF scene’s most interesting, challenging and adventurous authors.” – SFX

“The kind of complex, action-oriented SF Dan Brown would write if Dan Brown could write” – The Guardian

About the Series
A thematic trilogy of related, but stand-alone novels, the Pantheon series addresses the theme of “men versus the gods” in different worlds, with three different pantheons. All high-action military SF books, the series has presented an armed uprising against distant but powerful Egyptian divinities, a high-powered slugfest between battle-suited humans and super-heroic Greek gods, and a gritty, intimate firefight between an infantry company and an army of ancient Norse giants.

About the Author
James Lovegrove published his first novel at the age of 24 and has since had more than 20 books out, including The Hope, Escardy Gap (co-written with Peter Crowther), Days, The Foreigners, How The Other Half Lives, Untied Kingdom, Imagined Slights, Worldstorm, Gig and Provender Gleed. His short fiction has appeared in magazines as diverse as Interzone and Nature and in numerous anthologies. He has written extensively for reluctant readers, with titles such as Wings, The House of Lazarus, Ant God, Cold Keep, Kill Swap and Dead Brigade. He has also produced a sequence of teen fantasy novels, the Clouded World series, under the pseudonym Jay Amory. He is a regular reviewer of fiction for the Financial Times and lives in Eastbourne on the south coast of England with his wife Lou, sons Monty and Theo, and cat Ozzy.

Tags | sci-fi