Author Archive

Conclusion to the Griffin Mage Trilogy!

The conclusion to the Griffin Mage series, The Law of the Broken Earth, is available now!

I loved these books from the the second I got my hands on them. They remind of me so much of Robin McKinley and her wonderful book, The Hero and the Crown.  I love the fresh new take on griffins and how human — and alien — they are.


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THE WINDUP GIRL – unleashed today in print

We are very excited to announce that the print edition of The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi hits retailers in the UK today, fabulously garbed in it’s wonderful cover as seen in this spiral of windup-ness here …

We released the book in ebook form prior to the print edition, so those of you teched up with e-devices might already have had the pleasure, but it was very exciting to see the print edition enter the office still cold from the warehouse. Not sure what kind of preservation method they use on them there. You can get a FREE EXTRACT here, and in case this multiple award-winning book needs further introduction, here are just some of the highlights below:

Time Magazine named The Windup Girl as one of its ten best novels of the year

The book has also won five of 2010’s major international SF awards: the Hugo (as covered in the Guardian here), Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook Award and John W. Campbell Memorial Award

‘Bacigalupi is a worthy successor to William Gibson: this is cyberpunk without computers’ Time Magazine

‘Not since William Gibson’s pioneering cyberpunk classic, Neuromancer (1984), has a first novel excited science fiction readers as much’ The Washington Post

‘Heart-thudding action sequences, sordid sex, and enough technical speculation for two lesser novels’ Cory Doctorow

‘One of the finest SF novels of the year’ Publishers Weekly

‘It’s ridiculous how good this book is’ Techland

Praise for N.K. Jemisin’s THE BROKEN KINGDOMS

In the wake of her earlier novel, THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS, being selected as one of the top five sf/f novels of 2010 by Publishers Weekly and by Amazon as one of the top ten best sf/f novels for this year as well, praise for N.K. Jemisin’s newest novel, THE BROKEN KINGDOMS is now spreading across the web.

Today Charlie Jane Anders at io9.com calls it “a thought-provoking, haunting story” and observes that when it comes to narrative “the key is just to tell a great, exciting, engaging story that keeps you turning pages long past your bedtime. And Jemisin has definitely done that here.”

And, meanwhile, at Explorations, the Barnes & Noble Book Club sf/f blog, Paul Goat Allen wraps his review by noting that “those readers who are drawn to storylines featuring strong, heroic female characters – looking for a beautifully written and highly intelligent series should make it a point to seek out and read [THE BROKEN KINGDOMS and THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS]. These will be some of the very best fantasy novels you’ll read this year.”

We couldn’t agree more!

The Walking Dead 1.05 With Jesse Petersen

Jesse Petersen is the author of MARRIED WITH ZOMBIES and the forthcoming FLIP THIS ZOMBIE. Like many of us here at Orbit HQ, she’s also a fan of The Walking Dead on AMC. She’ll be offering recaps of each week’s episode here every Monday. This post will contain SPOILERS (also zombies). For previous recaps see 1.01 , 1.02, , 1.03, and 1.04.

Hello zombie fans!

When last we left off Rick and some of the gang had gone back to Atlanta to get the guns and try to rescue Dixon. Instead they found Dixon’s severed hand and some vatos who turned out to be not so bad. Dixon stole their car, they had to walk back and zombies attacked the camp, killing a bunch of people. Also, I ate too much turkey and strained a muscle in my back (not related to the turkey eating, at least I don’t think). So here we go with…

The Walking Dead 1.05: Wildfire (more…)

NEW ORBITEERS

We’re very pleased to announce that two new Orbiteers will shortly be joining the editorial team in the UK.

Anne Clarke, currently a commissioning editor at Hodder & Stoughton, will be taking up the role of Editorial Director. She will be working with our editors, overseeing the publishing program, acquiring and editing her own authors, asking us to make cups of tea for her . . . no, forget that last one. Anne will be starting in the New Year.

 Also joining us, on 6th December, will be James Long – our new Editorial Assistant. James may be known to you for his excellent blog, Speculative Horizons. This will be his first job in publishing, and – sorry though we are that Speculative Horizons won’t be continuing – we’re delighted to welcome him on board.

A Book-Lover’s Easy Virtue

I am, I confess it here, a genre slut; I have loved many genres, and though I currently spend most of my days in the fabulous and exotic terrain of science fiction and fantasy fiction, I still occasionally sneak out and enter other genres.

Romance, for instance. I don’t claim to be well-read in the romance genre, but I will admit to having indulged, from time to time, in a passion for passion. The main object of my affection was Maeve Binchy – who writes Irish feel-good sagas about community life with lashings of romantic cliches. And who is also, by the way, one of the greatest storytellers of our age, up there with Stephen King. I’ve also read the Welsh novels of Iris Gower, the Regency romances of Georgette Heyer and the superbly evocative tales of Catherine Cookson, the great mistress of grit-lit plus, well, quite a few others that were dreadful but I enjoyed them anyway.

Crime was once my profession (as a writer and script editor for TV crime dramas) and also my hobby. I love bleak noir, locked room mysteries, nostalgic period detective stories, and modern police procedurals. My favourite crime writers are Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Rex Stout, Carl Hiaasen, Donald E. Westlake AND Richard Stark…and many more. Crime is a great genre; it gives us a chance to wallow in evil and still feel good about ourselves. Nowadays, I haven’t the time to read much new crime fiction (apart from the excellent Stieg Larssons) but evil-wallowing continues to be my favourite pastime, expressed in, ahem, other ways. (more…)

Welcome to Hull Zero Three…

Will you survive the ship?

Greg Bear is one of the most well-known and beloved writers in the genre and I am delighted to announce the publication of his latest novel, HULL ZERO THREE. Set in the darkest, coldest reaches of space, this is the story of one man who wakes up cold, alone, and confused on a starship that seems to be determined to kill him.

For a glimpse into the harrowing life of a resident of Ship, see our video record, carefully reconstructed in machinima for your edification:

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The Walking Dead 1.04 With Jesse Petersen

Jesse Petersen is the author of MARRIED WITH ZOMBIES and the forthcoming FLIP THIS ZOMBIE. Like many of us here at Orbit HQ, she’s also a fan of The Walking Dead on AMC. She’ll be offering recaps of each week’s episode here every Monday. This post will contain SPOILERS (also zombies). For previous recaps see 1.01 , 1.02, and 1.03

Hello Zombie Fans! 4th episode and since this season of “The Walking Dead” is short (6 total episodes) we’re rapidly coming to an exciting close. Hang on tight, I think it’s going to be a bumpy ride! So when last we left off Rick reunited with Lori and Carl (and, oh yeah, Shane). Everyone was happy for about ten seconds but then Rick felt bad that he’d left Dixon locked up on the roof, so he got a new band of heroes together and they headed back to Atlanta, only to find out that Dixon cut his own hand off to escape. Ew. But where is he? Oh, and apparently Shane told Lori that Rick was dead (which then inspired her to sleep with him). So she’s annoyed. Now we pick up in The Walking Dead 1.04: Vatos. (more…)

Nano advice: Time Travel Edition

I’m back with more advice from the editor’s perspective for all you Nano people out there. So, this time I want us all to hop into the Orbit time machine. We have one of those. It’s how we know the future.

It’s December 1. You wrote like a madman all month long and now you have 50,000 words and a warm glow of satisfaction. You drank all the champagne and ate all the cupcakes and are ready to bask in the relaxing life of being an author.

So, what next?
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What kind of fantasy do you write?

For that matter, what kinds of fantasy do *I* write?

Many of the panels at the World Fantasy Convention this year were about specific categories of fantasy:  for example, Fairytale, Epic, Urban, and Sword and Sorcery.  Naturally all those panels tried to define their particular subgenre, frequently showing that there’s significant disagreement about what constitutes any particular type of fantasy.

During the Sword and Sorcery Panel, Patricia Bray specifically urged attendees to look up The Griffin Mage trilogy and made several flattering comments about it. And it was a packed panel, so many thanks, Patricia!

But I wouldn’t have thought of The Griffin Mage trilogy as Sword and Sorcery.  Later, thinking about what subgenre I’d personally put The Griffin Mage in . . . well, I’m still not sure. Of course the sub-categories of fantasy blend into one another, but here goes an attempt to sort them out: (more…)