Archive for December, 2011
- Lauren Panepinto - December 23rd, 2011
Things are winding down at Orbit HQ for the Holidays and we just want to say, whatever continent (or planet) you’re on, whatever race (human or alien) or creed or religion you are, whatever holidays you celebrate (if any), we can all come together on at least one topic…Where’s our freaking jetpacks?! Here’s to hoping 2012 is finally the year of the commercially available jetpack! Happy Holidays and a great start to a New Year, from everyone at Orbit!
See you in 2012…once you recover from your New Years Eve festivities do remember to check in, because starting January 1st we have a very special week planned…
Thanks to Gregory Titus for providing the Jetpack Santa!
by Lauren Panepinto • Post a Comment • Posted in: Art, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US, Syndicate
author post
Seven Princes - released Jan 2012
So what’s your book about?
Is there any more difficult question for an author to answer? I know I have a hard time with this one. After spending so much time (often years) crafting a novel, living inside the souls of your characters, building the intricate world in which they live, overseeing the progress of an invented history and chronicling the fictional exploits of your literary “children”, it’s hard to encapsulate all the diverse threads of a novel into a single statement.
Yet the market demands a “hook” or “premise” on which any novel can hang its metaphorical hat. After all, if readers don’t know what to expect, why should they even buy the book? Blind faith? Hardly. Word of mouth? Well, that’s the best advertising you can get . . . but consider the irony. If you as the author don’t come up with a satisfying answer to “What’s your book about?” then your early readers and reviewers are going to do it FOR YOU. They’re going to summarize, encapsulate and foreshorten your Massive Undertaking of Artistic Purity to a description worthy of a sound-byte (or at least a Facebook update). So authors are better-off coming up with their own answer to this big question, rather than leaving it up to somebody else to explain.
All of this begs the question: “What is SEVEN PRINCES about?”
If you look at the cover text, SEVEN PRINCES is about war. “An age of legends. An age of heroes. An age of war.” Now that’s a great tag line. It’s engaging, evocative, and it rings with mythic resonance. Ready for more irony?
Here’s the thing: I never considered this book a “war novel” when I was writing it. Yet war itself is definitely one of the themes that drives the characters and the plot. Some characters want to prevent war—they know the red tragedy and the pointless slaughter that it brings—while others actively seek war to prove themselves, to avenge wrongs, or simply as a means of grabbing power. So the concept of war itself is definitely buried in there. There’s even a conversation at one point between two characters who argue about the essential nature of Man as a war-like being. Is Mankind capable of living in peace—true peace—for long? That’s a question that also lies at the heart of SEVEN PRINCES. So yeah, it’s about war. But it’s also about a lot more . . . Read the rest of this entry »
by John R. Fultz •2 Comments • Posted in: Commentary, Ebooks, Epic Fantasy, Fantasy, Guest Post, In Their Own Words, John R. Fultz, New Titles, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US
- Ellen Wright - December 15th, 2011
NPR posted their list of The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy today, and we were pleased to see Joe Abercrombie’s The Heroes (US) get a mention! Lev Grossman called Abercrombie “not nearly as well-known in the U.S. as he should be,” and sung the praises of his gritty style of fantasy:
It’s as if Tolkien cared about the back story of every individual orc: Each soldier is one among thousands, floundering in the fog of war, but each feels like he’s living out a tragedy or a triumph with himself as the hero. There’s no right side and wrong side — even the warriors aren’t sure which is which — and in the end the question of who’s the real hero comes down to who survives to tell the story.
The rest of the list has some other great books, so be sure to take a look.
by Ellen Wright • Post a Comment • Posted in: Joe Abercrombie, Orbit US
- Jenni Hill - December 13th, 2011
Our congratulations go to Helen Lowe, author of epic fantasy series THE WALL OF NIGHT, who has been awarded The Ursula Bethell Residency in Creative Writing by the University of Canterbury!
Helen says: “I’m absolutely delighted – not least for the recognition for speculative fiction, and I’m really looking forward to working exclusively on THE WALL OF NIGHT series!”
The Ursula Bethell Residency in Creative Writing was founded by the University in 1979 to promote and provide support for New Zealand’s many talented writers. Helen will hold the residency until July 31 2012; the project she will be working on during the residency is THE WALL OF NIGHT Book Three, DAUGHTER OF BLOOD. She shares the prize with the poet David Eggleton.
Book One, THE HEIR OF NIGHT (UK/ANZ) will be out in Mass Market Paperback on the 19th of January 2012.
by Jenni Hill • 5 Comments • Posted in: Awards, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK
- Rose Tremlett - December 12th, 2011
To celebrate some of the amazing books Orbit have launched during 2011 (and taking a sneaky peak at 2012) we are having a giveaway – but it’s a giveaway with a difference! We have 5 sets of Advance Reading Copies up for grabs. Obviously they are not so much in advance any more, but they are exclusive, limited editions that money can’t buy – and they are a great sampling of some of Orbit’s biggest and best titles of the year!
That’s five sets of the following titles:
THE FALLEN BLADE by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
LEVIATHAN WAKES by James S. A. Corey
THE DRAGON’S PATH by Daniel Abraham
THE EDINBURGH DEAD by Brian Ruckley
SEVEN PRINCES by John R. Fultz (New! Publishing this Jan. 2012)
The competition is open to the UK and US. Full terms and conditions below. Complete the following form for your chance to win one of the sets! Read the rest of this entry »
by Rose Tremlett • Post a Comment • Posted in: Contests, Giveaway, Orbit UK, Orbit US
- Jenni Hill - December 10th, 2011
Big thanks to Anne C. Perry, Jared Shurin and Den Patrick of Pornokitsch for the stellar steampunk night organised at Blackwells, Charing Cross Road, London yesterday! Orbit team members Anna Gregson, James Long and I had a wonderful time chatting to all the talented guests Pornokitsch had invited. Here are a few photos from the event:
Gail Carringer’s PARASOL PROTECTORATE novels and Paolo Bacigalupi’s THE WIND-UP GIRL sitting proudly among the steampunk titles picked out for the evening.
The boys compare gun sizes. Mark de Jager, Orbit’s James Long and Pornokitsch’s Den Patrick.
The Guardian at the gate! This squid guarded the entrance to the evening…
You can just about see Jared giving his welcome speech, over the heads of the large crowd the event attracted!
by Jenni Hill • Post a Comment • Posted in: Orbit UK
- Ellen Wright - December 9th, 2011
Daniel Abraham, author of The Dragon’s Path (US | UK | ANZ) and the upcoming The King’s Blood (US | UK), among others, has a guest post up at SF Signal today called “A Private Letter from Genre to Literature.”
Please, please, darling let us stop this. This artificial separation between us is painful, it is undignified, and it fools no one. In company, we sneer at each other and make those cold, cutting remarks. And why? You laugh at me for telling the same stories again and again. I call you boring and joyless. Is it wrong, my dear, that I hope the cruel things I say of you cut as deeply as the ones you say of me?
Check it out, and don’t miss all the related letters others are adding in the comments.
by Ellen Wright • Post a Comment • Posted in: Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US
author post
I wrote The Hedgewitch Queen, let’s see, ]mumblemumble[ years ago, in a feverish haze. It started, as so many books do, with a character whispering in my ear. If not for a muddy skirt, a clear, cultured, decorous voice said, I would be dead like all the rest.
Dead…or worse, perhaps.
Of course I had to continue writing to find out what was “worse.” Arquitaine opened around me, and several drafts later (I think this was the book that cemented my faith in my long-suffering beta reader’s patience) I had a novel I was happy with. Well, as much as a writer is ever happy with a draft. We’re inveterate pickers. But I digress.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the right time to release it. I was hip-deep in other series, and my editor and agent both agreed that dear Hedgie had to wait. I stuck out my lower lip, pouted a bit, and then got over it and cheerfully agreed. Of such moments are a career in publishing made.
Cut to years later, when my editor at Orbit called my agent. “Does Lili still have Hedgewitch? If so, there’s this opportunity. It’s an ebook-only release.” Read the rest of this entry »
by Lilith Saintcrow •2 Comments • Posted in: Ebooks, Guest Post
- Anne Clarke - December 9th, 2011
And here it is in all its beauty – the cover for the second book in the Assassini trilogy by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. We showed you the new cover for THE FALLEN BLADE (US | UK | ANZ) earlier this week – now here, as promised, is the cover for the sequel THE OUTCAST BLADE, coming from Orbit in trade paperback in May 2012. If you haven’t read THE FALLEN BLADE yet, try the first chapter here. Enjoy!
by Anne Clarke • Post a Comment • Posted in: Art, Covers, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US, Uncategorized
- Anna Gregson - December 9th, 2011
Hype continues to build for the movie adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s classic novel Ender’s Game. It’s due for release in 2013 and will be directed by Gavin Hood, whose previous work includes X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This is one of the most highly anticipated book-to-movie adaptations ever – and all over the interwebs fans have been getting excited that this book will finally be reaching the big screen.
Following the news that the role of Ender will be played by Asa Butterfield, star of Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, rumours are circulating about who will feature alongside him. The Hollywood Reporter announced recently that True Grit’s Hailee Steinfeld is likely to play the role of Petra, and just today we’ve heard the news that Ben Kingsley, known for movies such as Schindler’s List, Shutter Island and Species, is also in talks to star in the movie. Even Harrison Ford has been mentioned as a possible Colonel Hyrum Graff.
We here at Orbit just can’t wait to see how it turns out, and I’m sure Card’s legion of fans can’t either. But who else would you like to see starring in this movie? Personally, I’m intrigued to see who will play Valentine and Peter . . .
In the meantime, look out for our reissue of Ender’s Game the novel (UK / ANZ), released this month in a shiny new package, and with a boy on the cover who looks not too dissimilar to Asa Butterfield coincidentally . . . (we must be psychic)
by Anna Gregson • Post a Comment • Posted in: News, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Uncategorized
