Hadfield penning Cold War lunar thriller

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This article was published 20/02/2021 (1698 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Chris Hadfield can add another line to a resumé that already includes test pilot, astronaut, popular-science author and zero-gravity guitar player when he publishes a Cold War outer space thriller this fall.

Hadfield’s first novel, The Apollo Murders, takes place during a fictional Apollo 18 lunar mission, with American and Soviet astronauts racing for a “secret bounty hidden away on the moon’s surface” and at least one astronaut who’s not who he appears to be.

The novel comes out in October from Random House Canada.

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The Writers’ Union of Canada has joined the Association of Canadian Publishers in calling for the federal government to review the planned purchase of Simon & Schuster by the parent company of Penguin Random House.

“We’re extremely concerned about the implications for authors of such increased market concentration,” says union chairwoman Anita Daher. “We believe this sale will reduce the competitive opportunities for Canadian authors seeking to publish in our own country.”

In addition to reducing opportunities for authors, consolidation poses a threat to independent publishers by making it more difficult for them to get their books in stores, John Degen, the union’s executive director says.

Shortly after the US$2 billion sale was announced in November, the Canadian publishers’ group urged the federal government to review the sale. More recently, the U.S. Authors’ Guild and several other American groups called for the sale to be blocked.

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The Giller Prize has launched a series of monthly online discussions featuring Giller winners and nominated authors, as well as other figures from the literary world.

The first of the Monthly Master Panels celebrated Black History Month and featured authors Cecil Focter, Chelene Knight, Zalika Reid-Benta, Rinaldo Walcott and Ian Williams.

Future themes will be International Women’s Day (March), How to Get Published (April), Asian Heritage Month (May), Indigenous History Month (June), Let’s Celebrate Canada (July) and What it Means to be a Juror (August.)

For details on registering for a future panel, see wfp.to/gillerpanel.

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A small Canadian publisher pulled the plug last month on 12 books planned for publication this year, and the press itself may not survive.

Insomniac Press, founded in 1992, was in the process of being sold to a new publisher, who planned to turn the press into a not-for-profit with a mandate of publishing anti-oppression books, according to the Globe and Mail. However, a series of financial and accounting problems — including past authors not receiving royalty statements — caused the incoming publisher to cancel contracts for the upcoming books.

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Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, explores his famous family’s response to tragedy in a memoir to be published this April.

Beautiful Things discusses the deaths of his mother, Neilia, and sister, Naomi, in a car accident in 1972 and of his brother, Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015, as well as the author’s experience with drug addiction. The title refers to how the brothers responded to Beau’s cancer diagnosis by focusing on the beauty of life.

The book has attracted one of the most memorable pre-publication blurbs in recent history. Stephen King praises it for showing that anyone “can take a ride on the pink horse down nightmare alley.”

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Four Canadian novels are among 49 books to make the list for the 100,00-euro 2021 Dublin Literary Award.

The international prize, for books published in English or translated into English, sees potential winners nominated by libraries around the world. Libraries in 30 countries put forward books, including 18 works translated into English.

Canadian books to make the cut were The Innocents, by Michael Crummey, which was a finalist for all three of Canada’s big fiction prizes in 2019; 2020 Giller finalist The Glass Hotel, by Emily St. John Mandel; The Subtweet, by Vivek Shraya; and 2019 Giller winner Reproduction, by Ian Williams. The winner will be announced in May.

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