Well, if that headline doesn’t get your attention, nothing will.

I’m absolutely delighted to announce that Orbit has agreed a three-book World Rights deal with Simon Morden for three superb future noir thrillers.  Simon has been the editor of the BSFA’s writers’ magazine Focus, a judge for the Arthur C Clarke Award and is a bona fide rocket scientist, having degrees in geology and planetary geophysics – not many SF writers have held a chunk of Mars in their hands!  He is also the author of the acclaimed YA novel The Lost Art. Let me assure you, though, that there’s nothing ‘Y’ about these books – they’re all ‘A’!

Equations of Life, Theories of Flight and Degrees of Freedom are set in the Metrozone – a dystopian future London – and feature protagonist Samuel Petrovitch: a Russian émigré with a smart mouth, a dodgy heart and a dodgier past. He’s brilliant, friendless, cocky and – even in a world where the No. 1 rule is ‘don’t get involved’ – stands out as a selfish, miserable b*****d.

The books are fast-paced, wise-cracking, action-packed romps through the overcrowded, decaying urban jungle of a not-so-distant future, featuring – amongst many other ingredients – exiled yakuza, Russian gangsters, gang warfare, virtual reality and a two-metre-tall warrior-nun packing an unfeasibly large automatic pistol. If these books don’t get your adrenaline pumping, you don’t have any!

We’ll publish in the UK, Commonwealth and US in the second quarter of next year – clear a space in your reading schedule.