Trudi Canavan’s debut series, Black Magician Trilogy, made her an international success, and all three volumes of her Age of the Five trilogy were Sunday Times bestsellers in the UK. Trudi Canavan lives in Melbourne, Australia, and her latest novel, The Ambassador’s Mission, is the compelling first volume in the sequel to the bestselling Black Magician Trilogy.
BOOK SIGNING: Saturday 5 June, 12-1:30pm
RICHMOND – VICTORIA GARDENS
Shop F11 Victoria Gardens Shopping Centre
Cnr Burnley & Victoria Streets Richmond 3121 AUSTRALIA
I’ve been seeing some interesting discussions around lately about realism in fiction — to wit, that positive portrayals of various human experiences and relationships were “unrealistic” and ought to be confined to the lowest forms of genre fiction.
Really? Is that what we really believe as a society?
In real life, all parents are evil, all relationships are dysfunctional, all faith is delusion and all trust is misplaced. All heroes are liars. All leaders are thieves. All love is codependent. All sex is hurtful. All beauty is illusion.
I feel very, very sorry for anyone whose life is so sad that this is their reality. It’s not my reality. I utterly and totally reject the idea that fiction must be dark and depressing to be realistic. Read the rest of this entry »
When I was about two or three chapters into Land of the Burning Sands, I sent a note to my agent to ask, facetiously, whether she could provide a role for the leading female character to play besides merely serving as the love interest in the story. If I didn’t come up with something important for that character to do, I said, I’d write her out of the book entirely.
Here’s another instalment of my Bookcast from the Great Wall of China, where I continue discussing The Iron Hunt, book one of the Hunter Kiss series (plus click here for an extract!).
Here’s a fancy new wallpaper from the Orbit UK team and illustrator Lee Gibbons, for the second book in Kevin J. Anderson’s Terra Incognita series: The Map of All Things. These books are great epic fantasy from one of our best known authors, and you should check them out. If you don’t believe me, let the sea monster convince you!
Cyberpunk is not really my cup of tea, so I was surprised when I got into This is Not a Game as much as much as I did. It’s all about connectivity, and how fast information and communication flies around the world now. There was of course also a cool thriller plotline along with it. Deep State is the next book by Walter Jon Williams, and picks up with the heroine & story of This is Not a Game. If you like William Gibson and Snow Crash-era Neal Stephenson, then you should check out these books. Read the rest of this entry »
Orbit author Brian Ruckley, whose FALL OF THANES (US/UK/ANZ) is now available, has a new improved website, and looks forward to his fans (and readers who haven’t yet encountered his books, and so haven’t yet had the chance to become fans) finding him at www.brianruckley.com. Be sure to update your RSS feeds!
I’m thrilled beyond belief that Orbit has asked me to finish Jane True’s story with books four, five, and six. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what I call my next three books: four, five, and six. For, while using the word “tempest” seemed like a GREAT idea at the time, I have run out of “tempest” titles. I know something will occur to me or to one of the dozens of people I have working on this problem, but in the meantime I’m having fun playing with the most inappropriate titles possible. Here’s a short list of the top five worst titles I’ve come up with (so far):
5) Tempest Somethingorother
4) The (Significantly Less Shakespearean) Tempest
3) The Urban Fantasy Series Formerly Known As Tempest
Tricia Sullivan is the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of an impressive body of work, including Maul, Double Vision and Sound Mind. Here’s just a sample of the praise that has been heaped upon her work:
‘A challenging, disturbing, often compulsive read’ Time Out
‘Tricia Sullivan returns to science fiction not a second too soon . . . I haven’t enjoyed a book so much in a long time’ Guardian
‘Painfully gripping throughout – read it if you dare’ The Times
‘Maul confirms an increasingly badly-kept secret – Sullivan is one of the best and most ambitious SF writers around’ Dreamwatch
‘Intelligent, sensitive and engrossing . . . You’ll be thinking about it long after you’ve finished reading’ SFX
‘Tricia Sullivan is why I refuse to give up on science fiction’ Pat Cadigan, Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author
I think it’s clear from the above that Tricia is almost universally regarded as an audacious and original voice in modern science fiction. And what better way to signal that to the reader than with an audacious and original cover. Ladies and gentlemen (and other forms of life – we’re not speciesist at Orbit!), we give you Lightborn:
Lightborn is a revolutionary new technology that has transformed the modern world.
Better known as ‘shine’, it is the ultimate in education, self-improvement and entertainment – beamed directly into the mind of anyone who can meet the asking price.
But what do you do if the shine in question has a mind of its own . . . ?
K.J. Parker’s critically acclaimed Engineer trilogy featured three great covers by Keith Hayes. Since then, Parker has been writing stand-alone novels, and any one of them is a great place to jump in without any series-long commitment. Of course, I’m sure you’ll be back at the bookstore buying the Engineer books as soon as you finish any of these books, but you can start slow if you don’t believe me…
The Company was really an ensemble story, so we wanted to show the characters on the cover, but for The Folding Knife and The Hammer, I really wanted to continue the “artifact” look of The Engineer Trilogy.
- - May 30th, 2010
