After searching for a buyer for several months, British company Games Workshop has sold its Solaris Books imprint to British computer game developer and publisher Rebellion. Rebellion says it is “Europe’s leading independent games developer and owner of the iconic comic 2000 AD and sci-fi and fantasy imprint Abaddon Books.” Solaris will be run “in parallel with” Abaddon.
Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley said “We’ve been aware of the Solaris imprint for some years now and have admired its success with fantastic stories and great writers. 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.”
George Mann, who is Games Workshop’s Head of Publishing, said “We’re delighted that Solaris has found a new home with Rebellion. After a period of fantastic growth with our Games Workshop related titles, we decided the time was right for us to focus all of our attention on our Black Library imprint. We’re sure Rebellion will now take Solaris forward to even greater heights.”
Concommitant with the purchase, Rebellion has signed a deal with Simon & Schuster, under which the latter will continue to handle sales, distribution, and fulfillment of all Solaris titles (new and backlist) to trade and specialty accounts.
Solaris had been a subset of BL Publishing, but owner Games Workshop has decided to concentrate its publishing efforts exclusively on the tie-ins to its various game lines, including Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, Horus Heresy, and Time of Legends. Since launching in 2007 with The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction (edited by George Mann), Solaris has published a companion fantasy volume, and two further science fiction anthologies. They’ve also published books by Lou Anders, Eric Brown, Ellen Datlow, Nick Gevers, Simon R. Green, Brian Lumley, and others.