Angry Robot Books scoops new fantasy series by Noon and Beard

Angry Robot Books has scooped a two-book fantasy series, written by novelist, short story writer and playwright Jeff Noon alongside speculative fiction author and art writer Steve Beard.

Commissioning editor Simon Spanton bought world English language, audio and digital rights from Michelle Kass of Michelle Kass Associates.

The first book in the series, Gogmagog, will be published in February 2024, with the second one, Ludluda, following in November of that year.

The synopsis says: "With prose both sharp and beautiful, the first book – Gogmagog – takes us on an unforgettable and darkly funny adventure in a world unlike any other, offering a strange new perspective on Britain’s secret mythologies featuring an evocative and fascinating otherworldly version of London, and the River Thames."

In October 2023, Angry Robot will publish a 30th anniversary edition of Noon’s novel Vurt (Tor), which earned the author the Arthur C Clarke Award in 1994.

Noon said: "The novels Gogmagog and Ludluda rose out of the city of Ludwich, a fantasy city my friend Steve and I created over a period of five years, meeting in cafes, at the park… We built the city on paper, and in our heads, for years before the idea of writing a pair of connected novels came to us.

"Now the city lives through these books, which together tell one giant story, a journey upriver through a semi-mythological landscape that in many ways haunts our own world."

Beard added: “If Jeff were Berlin-era David Bowie, then I’d probably be Brian Eno (or more likely Iggy Pop, who used to steal food from Bowie’s fridge).”

Kass commented: “Gogmagog is an occasionally bawdy rollercoaster of imagination and tenderness from Jeff and Steve’s extraordinary story brains and Jeff’s inimitable pen. The Angry Robot covers are beautiful. I can’t wait to hold both books.”

Spanton said: "The scale of Gogmagog’s ambition, the tightness of its narrative; the dreamlike journey through a land at once somehow familiar, somehow surreal, immediately slid me into the rich and unsettling world that Jeff and Steve have conjured up.

"The promise of deeper adventures to come in Ludluda is even more exciting. These books manage to echo both Mervyn Peake and Angela Carter; books that feel important to the genre, but also books to fall in love with.”