Calling Major Tom goes German.

Ullstein have acquired German rights to the SF novel Calling Major Tom by David M Barnett pre-emptively, for major sum in Euros from Krystyna Kujawinska, Foreign Rights Director at Orion Publishing Group.

Sam Eades at Orion commissioned the novel and acquired world rights from agent John Jarrold in March 2016, and the book is scheduled for Spring 2017 publication in the UK.

Sam Eades said, “Calling Major Tom is a very British A Man Called Ove and I’ve fallen head over heels with each and every character. It is the heart-warming and ultimately life-affirming story of a man who has given up on the world, but discovers in the most unlikely way that it might not have given up on him. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you will cheer on all the curmudgeons in your life.”

David M Barnett added, “I woke up on the morning of my birthday to find out that not only had another year of my 40s seemed to have suddenly zoomed by, but to cap it all David Bowie had died. A few days later I saw the astronaut Tim Peake on the news, having become the first Briton to do a spacewalk, and all this made the mental rockets start firing. What if you were so grumpy, so fed up with life, that you literally wanted to get away from it all? And where better to go than space? The flip-side of that, of course, is that while astronauts are doing hugely exciting things up there, the rest of us are struggling along with our day to day lives and problems. Calling Major Tom was born out of wondering what would happen if those two worlds collided – the astronaut in splendid isolation far above the world and a normal family back on Earth. Of course, there’s no such thing as a ‘normal’ family – they’re all problematic and dysfunctional in their own ways. So it’s really about unlikely friendships, facing up to problems life throws at us, and finding a chance at redemption in the most unexpected places.”