Stuff in the ‘Underground Airlines’ Category

21 January, 2019

GOLDEN STATE, Ben H. Winters

From award-winning, New York Times bestselling novelist Ben H. Winters comes a mind-bending novel set in a world governed by absolute truth, where lies are as dangerous as murder. (Mulholland/Little Brown, January 2019; Random House UK)

In a strange alternate society that values law and truth above all else, Laszlo Ratesic is a nineteen-year veteran of the Speculative Service. He lives in the Golden State, a nation standing where California once did, a place where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the

spread of lies made public life and governance impossible.

In the Golden State, knowingly contradicting the truth is the greatest crime–and stopping those crimes is Laz’s job. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths, to “speculate” on what might have happened.

But the Golden State is less a paradise than its name might suggest. To monitor, verify, and enforce the truth requires a veritable panopticon of surveillance and recording. And when those in control of the facts twist them for nefarious means, the Speculators are the only ones with the power to fight back.

Reviews:

“A perfectly poised ontological-thriller-comedy-dystopian-allegorical-page-turner, yet with tenderly real characters in its chewy center, this turned out to be just the thing I was looking for.”―Jonathan Lethem

“Not many writers would take on Orwell, Ray Bradbury, the nature of truth, and the current administration all at a blow. Big shoes to fill–and they fit Ben H. Winters just fine. Golden State grabs notions of disinformation and literalism and brilliantly turns them on their head to see what falls from their pockets.”―James Sallis, author of Drive

“Golden State is a prescient, devastating commentary on humanity’s disintegrating attachment to reality and truth, expertly told through the prism of a police-procedural, dystopian nightmare. Winters has written a 1984 for the 21st century. Not just a thrilling book, but an important one.”―Blake Crouch, author of Dark Matter

“A skillful and swift-moving concoction . . . For those who like their dystopias with a dash of humor. No lie.”―Kirkus Reviews

“Thought-provoking, genre-bending . . . Winters seems to have a real affection for unusually compelling premises. . . . He certainly knows how to bring those premises to life in a way that keeps readers flipping pages. . . . What’s especially intriguing about the book is the way Winters dispenses information, dropping a hint here, a key sentence there, and letting us figure out what happened in the past that led to a society in which the punishment for telling a lie could be exile. . . . . Another fine novel from a writer whose imagination knows no bounds.”―Booklist

Winters has a knack for creating appealing detective fictions that skew reality in thought-provoking ways, producing a hybrid of the familiar and the uncanny. His Last Policeman Trilogy (2012-2014) took place in New Hampshire in the months preceding Earth’s collision with an asteroid. “Underground Airlines,” published in 2016, posited a United States in which the Civil War never took place and where slavery is still legal in four states. At their best, these novels approach the mind-expanding counterfactuals and dystopias created by Philip K. Dick, George Orwell and Michael Chabon. As you read them, you feel your perception of the world slipping and warping.” —Washington Post

About the Author

Ben H. Winters is the New York Times bestselling author of Underground Airlines and the Last Policeman trilogy. The second novel in the trilogy, Countdown City, was an NPR Best Book of 2013 and the winner of the Philip K. Dick award. The Last Policeman was the recipient of the 2012 Edgar Award, and was also named one of the Best Books of 2012 by Amazon.com and Slate. Ben lives with his family in Los Angeles, CA.

Categories: Buzz, New Books
Tags: alternate history, Ben H. Winters, dystopian fiction, Golden State, Mulholland Books, The Last Policeman, Underground Airlines

8 July, 2016

THE PRISONER, Ben H. Winters

From the author of UNDERGROUND AIRLINES and THE LAST POLICEMAN, a genre-bending thriller. (Mulholland Books/Little Brown, division of Hachette, World Rights, 2018) Also included in the deal is a second, untitled novel.

Categories: Agency News, Buzz, Recent Sales
Tags: Ben H. Winters, legal thriller, Mulholland Books, The Last Policeman, The Prisoner, Underground Airlines

14 September, 2014

UNDERGROUND AIRLINES, Ben H. Winters

Bought in a preempt, from the author of The Last Policeman trilogy (winner of both an Edgar and the Philip K. Dick Award) Ben Winters’s UNDERGROUND AIRLINES–an epic contemporary detective story about an undercover agent in search of a runaway slave, in an America where the Civil War never happened and slavery still exists in four Southern states. (Mullholland Books/Little Brown/Hachette, North American rights, 2016) Foreign Rights: jenny@meyerlit.com

Categories: Recent Sales
Tags: alternate history, Ben H. Winters, detective fiction, Little Brown, Mulholland Books, The Last Policeman, Underground Airlines

2 June, 2010

Winters

Ben H. Winters is the author of Underground Airlines (hardcover release Mullholland Books/Little Brown, July, 2016/paperback, July 2017) and The Last Policeman trilogy — The Last Policeman (Quirk/2012), Countdown City (Quirk/2013), and World of Trouble (Quirk/2014) — for which he received the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America, the Philip K. Dick Award for Distinguished Science Fiction, a Macavity Award nomination and an Anthony Award Nomination, along with placement in numerous “Best Of” lists, including on Amazon, Slate, and NPR. The trilogy has been published in 14 languages so far. Ben’s other books include Bedbugs, Android Karenina, the New York Times bestseller Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, and the middle-grade novels The Mystery of the Everything and The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman, a Bank Street Best Book of 2011 and an Edgar Award nominee. Ben is also the author of many plays and musicals for children and adults, as well as Literally Disturbed, a series of poetrybooks for kids (Penguin). He he has written for national and local publications including the Chicago Tribune, Slate, and the Huffington Post. He grew up in Maryland, attended Washington University in St. Louis, and currently lives with his family in Los Angeles.

His website is www.BenHWinters.com When Winters is not writing novels or poetry for kids, he is writing plays and teaching the craft of writing. For more about Ben Winters: http://benhwinters.com/ or follow him on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BenHWintersisawriter.

Categories: Authors, Buzz
Tags: Android Karenina, Ben H. Winters, Countdown City, Edgar Awards, Hank Palace, Philip K. Dick Award, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, The Last Policeman, The Mystery of Everything, The Secret Life of Ms. Finkelman, Underground Airlines, Worst Case Scenario Books