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Welcome once again to our weekly round-up of online Orbit author activity:

As always, if you see any online articles, reviews or interviews that feature an Orbit author, please feel free to drop us a line and let us know! We’ll happily name-check your website or blog with a heads-up credit in return (please remember to provide us with a link…)

The UK’s largest sci-fi magazine, SFX, has opened its annual reader’s poll - the SFX Awards - for online voting.

Along with all the film and tv-related categories, there’s also one for Best Novel and we’re delighted to note that three Orbit titles have been included in SFX’s drop-down selection of suggested titles:

• Matter [UK | US | Aus] by Iain M Banks
• The Escapement [UK | US | Aus] by K.J. Parker
• Halting State [UK | Aus] by Charles Stross

Visit the SFX website if you’d like to cast your votes for this year’s Awards.

The Little, Brown Book Group is looking for a new Commissioning Editor to join its Orbit UK editorial team.

For details of how to apply for this frankly rather fantastic vacancy, please see our parent company’s website: www.littlebrown.co.uk.

We’re excited to announce the acquisition of Stealing Fire by Jo Graham, a novel about the theft of the body of Alexander the Great and the founding of a new era for Egypt.

Ken MacLeod is surely one of the most intriguing, astute and perceptive of the current crop of British science fiction writers and so it’s no surprise to see his latest novel, The Night Sessions being covered by a number of review venues.

In print: Eric Brown, writing for The Guardian calls it “a stunning indictment of fundamentalism of all kinds”. A review in SciFi Now said: “MacLeod spins a yarn that moves at a fast pace, and which doesn’t disappoint; exciting and intriguing, it keeps a consistent level of interest throughout its passage.”

BBC Focus called it: “A twisting conspiracy tale shot through with MacLeod’s gloriously mordant sense for the absurd.” And Lisa Tuttle, writing for The Times gives the book a brief mention in one of her regular science fiction review columns.

And online: Daniel Coysh, writing for the Morning Star Online, takes a close look at the book from a left-wing political perspective, concluding: “Once more, MacLeod delivers the goods in style and cements his position not only as one of science fiction’s most intelligent and politically conscious authors but also as a great writer who transcends the genre.”

Bloggers Gav at NextRead.co.uk and Doug at A Convenient Truth were both equally enthusiastic. Gav was suitably impressed by Ken’s pace and plotting, whilst Doug enjoyed the sense of thematic relevance and grim foreboding that Ken conjures up: “Nobody can read this book without a sense of foreboding, as so much of it feels painfully possible.”

You can get a feel for the opening of the novel by reading an extract from The Night Sessions here on the Orbit website. And do let us know if you’ve written a review, or spotted a new one online, by leaving a comment below…

Arrrrrr me hearties! Cap’n Orbit here, markin’ International Talk Like a Pirate Day wi’ another fine haul o’ Orbit Author Links, plundered from the briny depths of T’Interwebs! Arrrrrr!

As always, if you see any online articles, reviews or interviews that feature an Orbit author, please feel free to drop us a line and let us know! We’ll happily name-check your website or blog with a heads-up credit in return (please remember to provide us with a link…)

Arrrrrr!

We recently released all three books (to-date) in Robert Buettner’s Jason Wander series in the UK (having first re-published them with new cover art in the US this April) and it’s lead to a definite resurgence of interest in the series.

Over at UK-based blog / webzine Concept SciFi, blogger Gary Reynolds has posted a detailed email interview with Robert, which covers a range of topics including the author’s inspiration for the series, his writing processes (”Compared to most writers, who are planners, I’m a duct tape improviser. I begin with an idea of where my story will end, and some idea of who will live it and how. But I don’t know exactly what has to happen next.”) and his current projects and plans for the future.

Meanwhile, over at Grasping For The Wind, John Ottinger has reviewed the first Jason Wander book, Orphanage [US / UK]. John explains that the book is a (freely-acknowledged by the author - see the ConceptSciFi.com interview, above) homage to Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and Haldeman’s The Forever War, but points out that Buettner also brings “post-9/11 sensibilities” to the classic ‘young man goes to war’ storyline. He also points out that whilst this isn’t a hard-sf novel, it’s a gripping and engaging one, summing it up by saying:

“Some suspension of disbelief will be required for those who like their science fiction to be based wholly in reality. But if you can let that go, you will end up with a deeply emotional and adventure filled novel of particularly high quality.”

We recently asked Robert to introduce the Jason Wander series in his own words, and this is what he told us.

The first three books in the series are currently available, as follows:

• - Orphanage [US / UK]
• - Orphan’s Destiny [US / UK]
• - Orphan’s Journey [US / UK]

Book four in the series, Orphan’s Alliance is scheduled for publication by Orbit US in late October 2008 and Orbit UK in January 2009. Book five in the series, Orphan’s Triumph is currently being finished.

The one and only Iain M. Banks will be taking part in a third Q&A session via his official website in a couple of weeks’ time, and so a new call for questions has gone out.

If you have a burning question you’d like to put to the man himself - it can be something specific to one of his books, or a more general query about his writing habits, interests or influences - then here’s how.

The deadline for this round is Friday, October 3rd, so you’ll need to get your thinking caps on quick. And don’t forget to check out Email Q&A I and Email Q&A II to see what’s already been asked and answered. Follow-up questions are welcome, as long as they’re interesting…

You say ‘to-MAY-to’ and I say ‘to-MAH-to’,
You say ’shu-NAR-a’ and I say ‘SHAN-uh-ra’,
’shu-NAR-a’ . . . ‘SHAN-uh-ra’,
’shu-NAR-a’ . . . ‘SHAN-uh-ra’,
Let’s call the whole thing Geekspeak. . .

Behold! The Gods of Geek have seen fit to bestow upon me a brand new, super-shiny iPhone, and - lo! - I have become addicted to podcasts.

Hmm. So what does the above mock-portentous gibberish have to do with the ill-conceived George and Ira Gershwin pastiche that opened this blog post? I’m glad you asked! This morning on the train in to work, I passed the time standing up, plotting horrible deaths for the train company executives who can’t organise enough seats for paying customers listening to Terry Brooks discussing his career on Rick Kleffel’s excellent Agony Column podcast.

This particular episode is a ‘cast of Geekspeak, Santa Cruz public radio station KUSP’s live weekly show. Terry talks about how he got started as a writer, his Shannara series (the latest volume, The Gypsy Morph, is available now), Star Wars, writing the Episode One tie-in and a whole lot more.

Check it out here.

Over at his ConceptSciFi blog and ezine, Gary Reynolds has been talking to novelist, screen- and radio-writer Philip Palmer, author of the gloriously head-mashing space opera Debatable Space [UK | US] about a whole range of subjects, including (of course) the book itself, as well as Philip’s approach to writing, his techniques and processes and his experiences with writing and publishing.

Philip had the following to say on the subject of his love of science fiction:

“Science fiction is a genre that deals with exciting ideas. It’s about speculation and dreaming and imagining; and once you add real vibrant characters to that mix, it’s unbeatable.”

And in an update on his current projects, he drops a few hints about his next Orbit novel:

“I’ve just started a second draft of Red Claw, my latest Orbit novel, which is a high concept action thriller - think Predator on an alien planet and you pretty much have it. I wanted to do something exciting and visceral and also brainy … I also wanted to write a science fiction book in which the ’science’ isn’t quantum physics or astrophysics, it’s biology. This is a book which brims with aliens of every sort, not just alien monsters - alien grasses, alien bugs, alien soil, alien plankton, alien everything.”

You can read the whole interview over at www.conceptscifi.com and find out everything you ever wanted to know (and a whole lot more) about Philip Palmer over at his blog/website www.philippalmer.net.

Welcome to our regular Friday lunchtime Orbit links round-up. Shake the rain from your coat, pull up a chair, put your feet up by the fire and enjoy a hot cuppa while we tell you what some our our authors have been up to online in the past week or so…

As always, if you see any online articles, reviews or interviews that feature an Orbit author, please feel free to drop us a line and let us know! We’ll happily name-check your website or blog with a heads-up credit in return (please remember to provide us with a link…)

K.J.says:

Most everything I write starts with a physical object, a thing I hold in my hand. Colours In The Steel began nearly forty years ago with a pitchfork. It was very old, handmade by some backwoods blacksmith, and I used it to help my father carry the hay from the orchard out back of the house. As I walked along with it on my shoulder, I saw my shadow and imagined it was a soldier; and once I’d called that soldier into existence, I felt under an obligation to him to provide him with a story. Thirty-odd years later, in a foul mood, I started writing it down. The rest, as they say, is bibliography.

The Engineer trilogy started with a Bridgeport universal milling machine, a seventy-year-old miracle of engineering with which a competent machinist could make anything from an earring-back to a battleship. Its owner, who was teaching me to use it, spoke a strange language, where the words seemed familiar but had new and radically different meanings.

To him, ‘tolerance’ wasn’t an abstract. You could stick a definite article in front of it, or make it plural. A tolerance to him was the degree to which you were allowed to deviate from an unattainable ideal, and it was quantified in ten-thousandths of an inch. One ten-thousandth this side of the line was OK; the other side, and the thing you’ve been working on for two days straight turns into scrap and goes in the trash. It’s not often you get three complete books handed to you on a plate like that. All I had to do was go away and shuffle the words around.

The Company started with the flying jacket my father brought back from the War. It spoke for itself. I just hope I was paying attention.

The Escapement, part three of K.J. Parker’s Engineer trilogy, has just been published by Orbit in the UK in paperback and is also available in large paperback from Orbit in the US. Together with the first two parts of the series - Devices and Desires [UK | US] and Evil for Evil [UK | US], it tells the story of Ziiani Vaatzes, Engineer, and a whole lot more…

K.J.’s new novel, The Company tells the story of a group of war veterans trying to come to terms with peacetime (although of course, as with any of K.J.’s books, you can never assume that there’s just the one level of meaning in play). The Company will be published early next month by Orbit in both the UK and US.

Jacqueline says:

Writing Kushiel’s Justice was like time-travelling. Not because it’s set in an alternate historical world, but because I got to relive the experience of being young and falling in love for the first time. Of course, I was a young man named Imriel de la Courcel this time around, which was a big difference. And the object of my affections was the Dauphine of Terre d’Ange, who ran the risk of being disinherited if our affair was discovered. Other than that, it was a lot like I remembered it: torrid, obsessive, maddening and glorious.

Well, except for the part where politics and dire magic wielded by shape-changing magicians come between the lovers, and Imriel is forced to set out on an impossible quest in a faraway land to avenge a horrible betrayal. There’s that difference, too. Still, I had a tremendous time revisiting the first flush of love in all its hectic, heartbreaking, hungry glory. I hope you enjoy the ride!

Kushiel’s Justice - the sequel to Kushiel’s Scion - is the second part of Jacqueline Carey’s Treason’s Heir series and tells the story of Imriel de Courcel, a young man who is third in line to the throne and a troubled scion of a dangerous bloodline.

You can find our more about the author at her official website, www.jacquelinecarey.com, which is regularly updated with the latest news and events information and also offers extracts from her latest books, including one from Kushiel’s Justice.

As the new guy here at Orbit US, I am very pleased to announce my first acquisition: Robert Bennett’s fantastic debut, Mr Shivers. It’s a genre-bending thriller set during Great Depression, following a man searching for his daughter’s killer in a lawless West ruled by railmen and filled with the desperate poor searching for a better life. Chock-full of hobos and murder and blood, this is a truly excellent first novel that reminds all of us here at Orbit of an early Stephen King as much as the finest sort of revenge western. (Fall/Winter 09/10)

I’m very excited about this project for a lot of reasons, not least maybe they’ll let me stop mopping the floors around here and bringing Devi her margaritas to “earn my keep.”

Its been a busy few months at Orbit US and I should mention some titles that were delivered recently. Hm…It’s very interesting how they all come in together. Now perhaps I can slack and get my cabana boy to bring me my margaritas. . .

First, MONSTER by A. Lee Martinez has delivered. An exciting story about Monster, who specializes in pest control, for — you guessed it — monsters!! (May 2009)

Avery Cates is back in THE ETERNAL PRISON, with more bullets, action, and more government factions than what is currently in the political horizon (August 2009)

THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS, by N.K. Jemisin is lushly imaginative world where a young woman becomes an heir and must contest for the throne of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, where gods, family and murder all go hand in hand. (Fall/Winter 2009)

SOULLESS by Gail Carriger introduces Alexia Tarabotti, a preternatural who gets involved with the politics of Victorian London when she “accidently” kills a vampire. (Fall/Winter 2009)

We also have in Karin Lowachee’s GAS LIGHT DOGS. Very different from her previous military science fiction novels, this is a Victorian era steampunk novel in the style of Philip Pullman taking us from the Arctic North to steeped rooftops of civilization and the savages to the east. (Fall/Winter 2009)

Walter Jon Williams (author of the forthcoming This is Not a Game) has a post on his blog about his role writing the “science fiction parts” of the dialogue for Spore - the long anticipated and much-hyped new game from Will Wright.

Walter writes:

“When you encounter some fifteen-eyed, twenty-tentacled Purple People Eater lecturing you from the command center of its UFO, you’re talking to me, baby!”

Check it out!

Lilith says:

Hunter’s Prayer was actually the first-written of the Jill Kismet series. It came about because I was just finished with the Dante Valentine books and I needed a character who wasn’t so ‘broken’. I actually thought nobody would ever want to publish it because of some of the themes - abuse, prostitution, human sacrifice, and the like - so I let myself go and just went to the darkest corners, the places where I usually hold back when I’m writing something with a specific goal in mind. It was a shock to find that my editor wanted it, and wanted it yesterday!

With both my editor and agent so certain I went ahead and sold the book - and I’ve been endlessly glad I did. There’s nothing like stretching out of your comfort level to really challenge a writer.

Hunter’s Prayer - the second of Lilith Saintcrow’s Jill Kismet novels - is out now in paperback in both the US and UK.

Lilith writes a regularly-updated blog on her website at www.lilithsaintcrow.com, which includes frequent items of advice for aspiring writers. You can also read the free Saint City serial novel, Selene at www.lilithsaintcrow.com/selene.

Orbit is excited to announce that we’ve bought three more Jaz Parks novels starting with Bite Marks in October 2009.

For those of you who can’t get enough– or just can’t wait that long –don’t forget that Bitten to Death is just out and we’ll have One More Bite in January 09.

And take the facebook quiz to find out what kind of urban fantasy star you really are!

We’ve just had an eagerly-awaited delivery in the form of The Destiny of the Dead, the final volume in Ian Irvine’s fabulous Song of the Tears trilogy, set within Ian’s wider Three Worlds sequence.

This really is a major occasion, as it marks the end of an eleven-book cycle and a huge amount of hard work by the author. At around 2.3 million words this is an epic feat indeed. And you never know, there might be room for a few more Three Worlds books one day, if we’re lucky. But for now, that’s it from Santhenar. Except to say that Ian has topped a million Three Worlds books in print worldwide: hurrah!

All three series can be read alone, but reading more books in the wider cycle adds a real sense of historical depth, and a picture of three worlds at war down the ages.

Here are just some of the great things that have been said about the series:

“A worldbuilding labour of love with some truly original touches”
Locus Magazine on A Shadow on the Glass

“Irvine has brought both a lively intelligence and a keen moral sense to the heroics and spell-play of the modern fantasy novel”
Roz Kaveney on The Way Between the Worlds

“A page-turner of the highest order … Irvine can now consider himself comfortably ranked next to the works of Robert Jordan and David Eddings. Formidable”
SFX Magazine on Geomancer

“Epic, non-stop action adventure”
Starburst on The Curse on the Chosen

“Hang on with both hands, because this story waits for no one”
SFX on The Curse on the Chosen

And please read on for book blurbs and more info …
(more…)

The Orbit US edition of Orcs is out next week, but the verdict is in on the cover model: UGLY. Which is, of course, exactly what we were going for when we hired the orc on the cover (we interviewed hundreds of orcs before settling on Walter, who had the perfect combination of pathos, anger and ugly.)

Walter’s visage has proven too ugly even for some of the genre’s most prominent critics. Jeff VanderMeer (who, let’s be honest, must have seen an awful lot of ugly covers in his years as an SFF critic) eventually decided he had to pretty up the orc.

Jeff writes:

“Just look at what a few randomly applied stars, flowers, smiley-faces, and the like can do to make a cover more humane! In fact, maybe Orbit should even run a “Beautify Your Orcs” contest. I bet readers would get a kick out of that.”

So inspired by Jeff’s suggestion, we’re asking you to beautify Walter. Here’s a link to a jpg image of the cover - Photoshop it, print it out and draw on it, scribble on it in MS Paint - then post the result to your blog or send us a copy of the image. To sweeten the deal we’ll send a copy of Orcs to the first five people to email their image to orbit@hbgusa.com .

Where did Walter come from, you ask? Our orc was sculpted by Nimba Creations, an FX firm that has created effects for films including King Kong, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Nightmare on Elm St.

Every wrinkle, scar, and pore on Walter was done by hand. And there are a lot of lovely details that you don’t see on the final cover – Walter’s slightly beseeching eyes and gloriously awful teeth. You can practically smell his breath just looking at him.