Rebellion Takes on Solaris

Missed this owing to holidays, but just to note here 2000AD publishers Rebellion's acquisition of the Solaris book publishing imprint from Games Workshop, completed earlier this month for an undisclosed sum.

Solaris offers a mixture of new and traditional science fiction, fantasy and horror books and has many bestselling titles from both upcoming and established names such as Brian Lumley, Keith Brooke, Gail Z. Martin, Eric Brown and Simon R. Green, amongst others.

The publisher recently concluded a three-book deal for Australian fantasy writer Rowena Cory Daniells, via agent John Jarrold. The series is entitled King Rolen’s Kin and the first book, provisionally called Byren's Bane, is due for publication in early 2010.

Solaris will sit alongside, and be run in parallel with, Rebellion's own Abaddon Books. Games Workshop will now focus its attention on its Black Library imprint.

"We've been aware of the Solaris imprint for some years now and have admired its success with fantastic stories and great writers," commented Jason Kingsley, CEO of Rebellion. "Acquiring Solaris will allow us to continue to push our publishing trajectory upwards and expand the quantity, whilst maintaining the quality, of all our titles."

Rebellion has also entered into a sales and distribution agreement with Simon and Schuster which means the CBS-owned book publisher and distributor will continue to handle sales, distribution and fulfilment of all Solaris titles for all new and backlist titles to trade and specialty accounts.