CyberStorm optioned for film

Congratulations to Matthew Mather, whose book, CyberStorm, has been optioned for film.  From the press release:

July 12th, 2013 - New York City - 20th Century Fox has acquired CyberStorm, a self-published book by Matthew Mather, with Chernin Entertainment taking on the role as producer. 

Described as a frighteningly realistic depiction of what would happen in the event of a global digital meltdown from an organized attack, the book follows a New York man and his family as they try and survive the crash isolated in Manhattan with millions of scared and confused people around him. 

The original e-book has caught on fast since it came out in March, and is now up there with the likes of the World War Z, Ender's Game and Game Of Thrones e-books in Amazon sales. It is the current #1 best-seller in the science fiction and tech-thriller categories on Amazon.

CyberStorm can be found here on Amazon:

...

Mather, a cybersecurity expert and author who started out his career working at the McGill Center for Intelligent Machines, is now exploring a traditional print publishing deal after inking rights pacts for Turkey, Spain and Germany. The Fox deal was made by Sean Daily at Hotchkiss and Associates with Paul Lucas at Janklow & Nesbit Associates.

ChiZine's Picking Up The Ghost optioned for film

A YA novel out from ChiZine Publications in 2011 has been optioned for film/TV rights.  This is the first time one of their books has been optioned as well as one of their first YA titles.  Due to the success of this and their other YA titles, they're starting a new line of YA books, ChiTeen, in 2014.

About the novel:

Living in St. Jude, a 110-year-old dying city on the edge of the Mississippi, is tough. But when a letter informs fourteen-year-old Cinque Williams of the passing of the father he never met, he is faced with an incomplete past and an uncertain future. A curse meant for his father condemns Cinque to a slow death even as it opens his eyes to the strange otherworld around him. With help from the ghost Willy T, an enigmatic White Woman named Iku, an African Loa, and a devious shape-shifter, Cinque gathers the tools to confront the ghost of his dead father. But he will learn that sometimes too much knowledge can be dangerous - and the people he trusts most are those poised to betray him!

Zoo City Optioned for Film

From the press release:

TOP SOUTH AFRICAN PRODUCER WINS COVETED FILM RIGHTS IN INTERNATIONAL 'BID FEST' TO MULTIPLE AWARD-WINNING AND BESTELLING NOVEL "ZOO CITY" by SOUTH AFRICAN AUTHOR LAUREN BEUKES

"Beukes' energetic noir phantasmagoria, the winner of this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award, crackles with original ideas." - (Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times Book Review)

Helena Spring, widely regarded as one of South Africa's most accomplished motion picture producers, has just been awarded the highly sought-after film rights to Zoo City, the Sci-Fi thriller penned by South African author Lauren Beukes - who garnered the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award for best Science Fiction novel. In the wake of whopping sales figures, multiple awards and critical acclaim Beukes' book generated fierce interest from numerous bidders in the entertainment industry, putting Spring alongside major US and UK producers eager to tell Beukes' unique tale.

Zoo City was published first in South Africa by Jacana Media and thereafter internationally by by Angry Robot.

The urban fantasy is set in a futuristic, gritty and hard-core Johannesburg where the eponymous ghetto has been colonised by society's outcasts - like criminals, drug-dealers and psychopaths, and their animal companions. Like the other residents of the Zoo City slum, Zinzi, the anti-heroine, is "animalled", but she is also a shrewd, street-smart girl with the gift (or burden) of finding lost things. Zinzi wears her power animal, a sloth, on her back. When she is hired to find a missing teenybopper star, she hopes that it will be her ticket out of Hell's waiting room.

"I'm delighted to have secured the film and television rights for Zoo City," commented Helena Spring. "It is a groundbreaking, magical novel begging for a life on the big screen. Lauren's storytelling is masterful - edgy and futuristic, unique yet universal. It is high in entertainment value yet emotionally charged, a dream project for any producer."

Beukes positively acknowledges the choice of the winning producer. "Every novelist dreams of a movie deal - but you actually want more than that. You want to find a producer of great vision and integrity and experience who fundamentally gets the book and understands how to transform it into an entirely different creature based on the same genetic material. I'm thrilled that it's being produced in South Africa - for an international audience."

See Angry Robot's website for more information.