Roc

About Roc

Roc is a science fiction and fantasy imprint launched in April 1990 by New American Library (NAL), part of Penguin, and is best known as the original publisher of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, which began with Storm Front in April 2000.

Penguin chairman Peter Mayer asked John Silbersack, then editor in chief of NAL's science fiction list, to create the imprint; Silbersack worked at NAL from 1986 to 1992. The name follows Penguin's habit of naming imprints after birds: the roc is the giant bird of the Arabian Nights. The first list included Isaac Asimov's Robot Visions and Arthur C. Clarke's Project Solar Sail.

Over almost three decades Roc published Asimov, Ursula K. Le Guin, Terry Pratchett, Guy Gavriel Kay and Andre Norton, and gave early breaks to Jim Butcher, Anne Bishop, Carol Berg and Rob Thurman. From 1991 it also issued the BattleTech and Shadowrun tie-in novels. Storm Front, the first Dresden Files novel, came out as a Roc paperback on 1 April 2000.

After Penguin merged with G. P. Putnam's Sons, Roc shared an editorial team with Ace Books. Locus's review of 2017 reported that Penguin had quietly retired Roc and folded it into Ace; only four books carried the Roc logo that year and none was scheduled for 2018. Penguin itself merged with Random House in 2013 to form Penguin Random House.