With sinister echoes of 1984 and Brave New World, this original novel features a near-future city where medical science invents a single-dose pill for eradicating many common genetic defects . . .
Read a sample
Aussiecon4, the World Science Fiction Convention for 2010, was held in Melbourne, Australia last weekend. Check out some photos from the convention on the Orbit Australia Facebook page, you’ll be able to spot lots of Orbit authors including Trudi Canavan, Marianne de Pierres, Kate Elliott, Trent Jamieson, Helen Lowe, Charles Stross, Gail Carriger and more! Stay tuned for even more photos uploaded soon, but in the meantime visit the first ones here
Another big award has come and gone, and I’d like to congratulate all the Orbit authors who won or were nominated. It’s great for them because, while being an author is a fabulous line of work, it can also be discouraging. Unless one is in the awards sphere, or one manages to claw his or her way onto one of the increasingly elusive lists, it’s hard to know if you’re really reaching anyone.
Which is why social media rocks. In my new university’s MFA in popular fiction, I’m teaching a course on building author platforms, and we’re talking a lot about social media. One of the things we’ve brought up peripherally is how rewarding it is to interact with fans of our books.
This weekend, I received some lovely letters and messages on Twitter and Facebook. It’s almost impossible for me to express how much these interactions mean for authors like me. I feel very disconnected, sometimes, from my life as a writer. So to see that people are not only reading my books, but really connecting with the issues they contain and really connecting with my characters means the world to me. Read the rest of this entry »
So it’s come to this . . . Jeff Somers and Philip Palmer arguing over whose character is better with the laaaaadies.
Again, Philip Palmer has resorted to getting a scientific expert involved – a certain Dr Paul Bostock (according to Phil, a ‘Professor in Protagonism and Genre Conflict at the Heinlein University, Colorado’ – this hasn’t yet been verified).
Ladies – judge for yourself.
(And mind the spoilers if you haven’t read Jeff’s previous 3 books yet!)
Since we began releasing the footage showing the incendiary events that occured during the filming of a joint promotional video, Jeff Somers has expressed his sheer outrage over the entire episode, and Philip Palmer has published an official ‘apology’ to Jeff here.
Though we are not proud of what has happened, we have decided to continue to release the footage so that the viewing public may come to their own conclusions about the events. In this video, Philip Palmer lists the many, many ways in which his character Version 43 is superior to Avery Cates. Orbit would like to make clear that it does not endorse the behaviour of either author involved in this incident . . .
On the weekend Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire) won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. It was awarded to her for the novel ‘FEED’ at Aussiecon’s Hugo Awards ceremony last Sunday in Melbourne. Charles Stross added another Hugo Award to his collection, winning the Best Novella category for ‘Palimpsest’.
The squaring off continues between Jeff Somers and Philip Palmer. This time they pitch the plots of The Terminal State and Version 43 against one another. Seriously guys – it’s not a competition . . .
Here on Planet Orbit we generally think there’s a pretty good community spirit – both in the office and amongst all our authors out there. But sometimes – just sometimes – those good times go bad.
Believing Jeff Somers and Philip Palmer to both be “team players” and decent, honourable gentlemen, we thought it might be a good idea to ask them to discuss and compare, in a series of videos, and in a sensible and controlled manner, their newest science fiction titles and their protagonists. But APPARENTLY that wasn’t possible. We’re still going to post the footage – if only to be an example to you all.
I was 13 years old when I first fell head over heels in love with Kate Elliot’s Jaran. I still remember sitting on the floor of my local library one minute, and being transported to another world the next. Over the years, I’ve gone back and read the series again and I still love it as much today as I did then. So it is an absolute privilege and a pleasure for me to welcome Kate Elliott to the Orbit list on both sides of the Atlantic now. Read the rest of this entry »
Phew! September is a busy month — fighting off Zombies, preventing the zombie Apocalypse, you know, the usual. But not to worry. To prep you for the uprising we give you MARRIED WITH ZOMBIES by Jesse Petersen. Yes, run out and buy it now in stores! Before you get eaten!
The book is about two unlikely heroes — a couple on the verge of divorce. On their way to marriage counseling, they notice a few odd things: a missing guard, a lack of cars on the freeway, and their counselor ripping out the throat of her previous client.
Now it’s up to David and Sarah to work together, save their marriage — and survive in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.
- - September 10th, 2010
