Category: Orbit Australia
author post
We’re thrilled to announce that ABADDON’S GATE (US | UK | AUS) is a New York Times Bestseller hitting the extended trade paperback list at #22. Congratulations to James S. A. Corey!
ABADDON’S GATE is the third and latest installment in James S. A. Corey’s breakneck space opera that began with LEVIATHAN WAKES (US | UK | AUS). If you are a fan of science fiction and its subgenres, then you know that there are a thousand and one ways to die a horrible death. James S. A. Corey breaks down some of the worst ways to go.
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10) Energy Monsters
Classic Trek all the way, here. Let’s face it, half the planets in the galaxy have some form on nasty energy monster on them, and they all kill in nasty ways. Sucking out the iron from you hemoglobin, frying your nervous system, disintegrating you. Your phaser won’t work on it. But take comfort in knowing that the exact horrific manner of your death will give the important characters clues on how to defeat the creature. So thanks for that.
9) Id monsters
The most famous examples (and still the best) are the monster in Forbidden Planet and Mr. Hyde. The Id monster is someone else’s fault and your problem. It’s not that is doesn’t want anything. It wants to strip you into ribbons in a rage haze because of an unresolved Oedipal complex. As you’re being ripped apart, you’ll know that this is happening because of unexpressed and unrealized frustrations of some other person, and knowing won’t help. Kind of like working tech support, only literal.
8) Sandworms
Sandworms don’t chew. They just have a thousand meters of digestive tract. Enough said.
7) Sarlacc
Speaking of digestion, Jabba the Hutt claims that you digest in the belly of the Sarlacc for a thousand years. Figure you die of thirst after three days. That’s still a rough three days.
Read the rest of this entry »
by Laura Fitzgerald •1 Comment • Categories: Guest Post, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US • Tags: Abaddon's Gate, James S.A. Corey, science fiction, space opera, The Expanse series
- Anna Gregson - June 18th, 2013
Have you heard what people have been saying about Francis Knight’s debut fantasy novel FADE TO BLACK (UK|US|ANZ)? Here’s a clue . . .
If you’re amongst the hoard of readers who loved this thrilling and original tale set in the vertigo-inducing fantasy world of Mahala, you’ll be interested to hear that the follow-up BEFORE THE FALL (UK|US|ANZ) is released today.
Fade to Black – out now
Before the Fall – released today
Last To Rise – released November
The latest book again features the reluctant hero, bounty hunter and pain mage Rojan Dizon. He’d love to keep his head down and out of trouble – but he needs to get some power back to the city, and his worst nightmare is just around the corner . . .
Then there’s not long to wait until the third and final book in the trilogy is released. It’s called LAST TO RISE – and it’s a truly explosive finale (yes I did cry…)
If you haven’t checked this series out yet, you don’t know what you’re missing.
by Anna Gregson • Post a Comment • Posted in: Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US
author post
Since my first novel for Orbit Books deals with how the technology of the future has changed our most basic human relationships, I thought I’d pay homage to some of the great love stories in science fiction, be they in books, on film, or on TV. Needless to say, these are my top five choices. Your mileage may vary.
1. Desmond and Penny in Lost
There’s something about waiting for your true love that is especially poignant, that feels like undeniable proof of the power and purity of that love. When Desmond tells Penny he’ll call her–in eight years–and eight years later Penny answers the phone, and they shout “I love you” into the phone, back and forth, back and forth, until the tenuous telephone connection fails, they had me.
2. Winston Smith and Julia in 1984 by George Orwell.
In the darkest future imaginable, a woman Winston Smith barely knows slips him a note that says, simply, I love you. In the lingo of the rom com, this is their meet, and it’s a beautiful one. Their love is what ultimately leads to their downfall; they betray each other, and when they meet on the other side of re-education, their lack of feeling for each other is so incredibly devastating because their love was so convincing.
3. Joel and Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Joel and Clementine’s love is tumultuous, to say the least. Clementine is a force of nature, wild and unpredictable. She probably suffers from bipolar disorder. Joel is tight, introverted, and private; yet when they fight, Joel’s words are, if anything, more cutting than Clementine’s. They fight often, but somehow the passion in their arguments convinces us of the intensity of their love as much as their tender moments do. They erase their memories of each other, yet meet and fall in love all over again. These are two people who were meant to be together. Read the rest of this entry »
by Laura Fitzgerald •4 Comments • Categories: Guest Post, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US • Tags: Bridescicle, love minus eighty, science fiction, speculative fiction, Will McIntosh
- Anna Gregson - June 14th, 2013
In September we release CHOSEN (UK|ANZ), the fourth Alex Verus urban fantasy novel from Benedict Jacka. In an interview below, another Orbit fantasy star Francis Knight
(author of FADE TO BLACK – UK|US|ANZ, and the soon-to-be-released BEFORE THE FALL -UK|US|ANZ) finds out more about the writing of this highly popular series . . .
Francis Knight: So, Alex Verus, wizard in London. I suppose certain comparisons are inevitable, if a bit easy. So who and/or what were your inspirations for this series? I know when I start, the first idea generally morphs into something bigger. What was the initial spark, the first ‘what if…’ that led to the book becoming reality?
Benedict Jacka: The Alex Verus setting is an adult version of a YA setting that I’ve been using on and off for almost 15 years – the whole mage world and the magic types was something I first came up with back in 2000-ish. Between 2000 and 2008 I wrote four YA books in the setting, all with teenagers as the main characters who all had elemental powers of some kind. None of the books got published, so I kept giving up and shelving the series and trying something else.
In 2009 I decided to pull out the setting yet again to give it another shot, with an adult main character this time. I was getting dissatisfied with the elemental mages as protagonists, though, and at some point I had the idea of using a protagonist whose abilities were information-based instead of brute force. The rest of the story snowballed from there! Read the rest of this entry »
by Anna Gregson • Post a Comment • Posted in: Commentary, Ebooks, Fiction, Interviews, New Titles, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK
- Anne Clarke - June 13th, 2013
It is my great delight to reveal the cover for the book that everyone will be talking about in 2014.
Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her ‘our little genius’.
Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh.
Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children’s cells. She tells her favourite teacher all the things she’ll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn’t know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.
The Girl With All the Gifts will be published by Orbit worldwide in 2014.
by Anne Clarke • 2 Comments • Posted in: Art, Covers, Fiction, New Titles, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US, Uncategorized
- Anna Gregson - June 13th, 2013
Today we digitally release a ground-breaking and definitive anthology of short stories from some of the very biggest names in science fiction and fantasy . . . Presenting:
WASTELANDS: STORIES OF THE APOCALYPSE
An anthology of post-apocalyptic short fiction from genre heavyweights such as Stephen King, George R. R. Martin, Orson Scott Card, Cory Doctorow, Gene Wolfe, Jonathan Lethem, Paolo Bacigalupi, Tobias S. Buckell, Jack McDevitt, Neal Barrett Jr., Richard Kadrey and many many others….
(see a full list here)
At the same time, we’re also releasing THE LIVING DEAD – an anthology of zombie stories from even more superstars of the SFF genre . . . More on that next week, but for now it’s fair to say that if you’re into zombies and apocalypses, both these anthologies are perfect reading whilst waiting to see the WORLD WAR Z movie! They’re both edited by John Joseph Adams, the bestselling editor of many anthologies and a four-time finalist for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.
Today we’re focusing on WASTELANDS: STORIES OF THE APOCALYPSE. We asked the authors involved to give us a few comments about what inspired them to write the stories included . . .
Cory Doctorow on his story “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth”from WASTELANDS
The most important thing about a system is how it fails, though mostly we pay attention to how it works. Who cares how many houses you could buy on cheap credit if they all end up as subprime roadkill when the whole crooked business unravels?
We tell ourselves that civilisation fails badly. Stories I love, from Day of the Triffids to 1984, paint a picture of a world where disaster is attended by riots, rape and cruelty. The reality – shown time and again – is that disaster is attended by kindness, care, and compassion. When the lights go out, we don’t eat each other, we help each other.
‘Elite panic’ is the sociological phenomenon that causes the masters of the universe to send guns into Haiti after the quake – ahead of the humanitarian aid. It’s why the City of London is blanketed in CCTVs. It’s why police all over the world are so pants-wettingly terrified of public protest and treat every march like a riot in potentia.
We need to tell ourselves stories about the goodness of our neighbours as remedy for the vile slander that our stories have told us about the human race. It is the only way to counter elite panic. Read the rest of this entry »
by Anna Gregson • Post a Comment • Posted in: Orbit Australia, Orbit UK
- Anna Gregson - June 12th, 2013
Next week sees the release of the fantasy novel BEFORE THE FALL (UK|US|ANZ), the second Rojan Dizon novel by Francis Knight (following FADE TO BLACK – UK|US|ANZ).
Below, another Orbit fantasy star Benedict Jacka, author highly popular Alex Verus novels, interviews Francis on the towering fantasy world of Mahala . . .
Benedict Jacka: One way to describe the Rojan Dizon books would be dark fantasy – how did you end up moving into that genre, and what’s it like to write in compared to other things you’ve done in the past?
Francis Knight: By accident! It started off as an antidote to what I had been writing – romance – and went from there. I like to challenge myself each time I start something new, and this was it. Every genre has its restraints, and I wanted to explore not-so-nice “heroes” and not-so-Happy-Ever-After endings and lots of other things that a romance reader might be very disappointed to find in her book! In particular I wanted to explore how being a not particularly nice chap doesn’t have to prevent you from doing the right thing.
BJ: How difficult do you find it to write a protagonist of the opposite sex? Do you find yourself asking guys for advice on how a male character would react in a particular scene you’re writing?
FK: The first time it was hard, I have to say. I actually find I prefer it nowadays. It’s a lot easier to separate my characters from me for a start! Also I love trying to get inside a guy’s head, see what makes them tick. I do sometimes ask husband/male friends/betas for advice about whether a guy would do X – but it’s just not that simple. It’s not about whether he’s a guy or not, it’s about who he is. Some guys would do one thing, and others would do the opposite. They’re still both guys.
BJ: So, the scenes in Fade to Black which go into detail on exactly what Rojan and the other pain-mages do to themselves to fuel their pain magic . . . did you deliberately make them wince-inducing or did it just work out that way?
FK: I actually tried not to be too graphic there, but it was necessary to show something, I think, or it wouldn’t have been honest. There’s a fine line between glossing over something important and showing graphic things that are unnecessary. Of course, that line is going to be different for everyone. I inferred more than I showed (I think/hope), but that goes for lots of things. Read the rest of this entry »
by Anna Gregson • 1 Comment • Posted in: Orbit Australia, Orbit UK
- Will Hinton - June 11th, 2013
Today is the worldwide release of LOVE MINUS EIGHTY (US | UK | AUS) by Hugo Award-winning author Will McIntosh. Will is a truly original voice in SF and with this novel he’s given us a terrifying, uplifting, daring, and compulsively readable vision of where our path is leading.
Three hundred years in the future, technology has extended the lives of the rich and attractive decades. The wealthy can arrange to be reanimated multiple times, while in cryogenic dating farms, dead women await lonely suitors to resurrect them and take them home. In this big-hearted novel, the lovelorn navigate a world in which technology has found the outer limits of decency and love.
LOVE MINUS EIGHTY explores a time where we are completely entangled in social media, where life is a performance and privacy has lost all meaning, where our romances and relationships are choreographed in secret, and freedom is found in the ever-shrinking spaces off the grid. A time we can all relate to.
Read a sample, look at the amazing trailer and here is just some of the glowing praise the book has received so far:
Read the rest of this entry »
by Will Hinton • Post a Comment • Posted in: New Titles, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US
author post
Limits of Power – released today
Elizabeth Moon publishes LIMITS OF POWER (UK | ANZ), the penultimate volume in her epic fantasy series Paladin’s Legacy, today. As an author who’s returned to the classic fantasy world she first created in the Paksenarrion series again and again, we asked her how she keeps the details about this world realistic, and consistent . . .
My first visit to New World Arbalest wasn’t a quest for crossbow knowledge, but a chance to see a period (real, not modern make) rapier . . . to hold and flourish a sword that had been used, several hundred years ago, either to mark someone’s rank or kill someone’s foe. I had met “Master Iolo” (David Watson) and his wife Kathleen – both fencing instructors – at a convention. But in that first visit I saw the shop at the back of the house, full of wood, sawdust, shavings, antlers, arrays of tools, and crossbows in every stage of construction. I knew very little about crossbows then, except that I wanted to learn more.
Writers are often research junkies. We need to find out about all sorts of things in order to write stories that go beyond our own personal experience. Whether it’s a thriller or a mystery or a contemporary slice of life story – or epic fantasy – there’s always something we need to learn. So we haunt libraries, have overstuffed bookshelves in our own homes (or, now, overstuffed e-readers, or both), spend hours hunting down facts (we hope) on the internet. When we meet someone with first-hand knowledge of something we know we’ll need for later books, that poor soul hasn’t a chance. A writer in full research mode is like a hungry vampire: we will get what we want . . . Read the rest of this entry »
by Elizabeth Moon •Post a Comment • Categories: Guest Post, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK • Tags: Elizabeth Moon, limits of power, medieval weapons, Paladin's Legacy, weapons
- The Orbit Team - June 9th, 2013
We are incredibly sad to report that our beloved author, Iain Banks, died on Sunday, 9th June, following his cancer diagnosis in March. It has been Orbit’s great privilege to publish all of Iain’s SF works. Over the course of 25 years since the publication of CONSIDER PHLEBAS, we have been dazzled, entertained, heart-broken, inspired, exhilarated and – on a number of occasions – horrified, by the stories, characters (human and otherwise) and words that he has shared with us. As a person, and a writer, Iain’s generosity was boundless; his imagination spectacular; his intelligence piercing; and his spirit irresistible. The science fiction genre has lost one of its greatest and most original voices and we have lost one of our heroes. We will miss Iain enormously, and we extend our deepest sympathies to his family and friends.
The Orbit Team
by The Orbit Team • 12 Comments • Posted in: Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US, Uncategorized
