Archive for Orbit Australia

Welcome to Hell

I’ve got this book out. It’s called Death Most Definite (UK | US | AUS),  and it’s about Death and it’s set in Brisbane and Hell. That’s Brisbane, Australia (not Brisbane, North Dakota, which Wikipedia informs me is a ghost town, so it would have been kind of appropriate).

Most of you have an idea of where the Hell is, but, probably, not so many would know about Brisbane.

So here’s what you need to know.

It’s Australia’s third most populous city.

The outer eastern suburbs rub up against the coast, the inner suburbs cluster around Mt Coot-tha (a low mountain, really more of a hill, that I can see from my window as I type this). And all through it the Brisbane River winds– a tributary of the River Styx, but then all rivers are. (more…)

A different kind of fantasy heroine: the pregnant, short-sighted scholar…

Firstly, so far so good. Stormlord Rising has been selling well in US, an indication that readers of The Last Stormlord want to know what happens next. I have my first Amazon reviews, and — as I am totally into watching Amazon ratings because I’m ridiculously pathetic — I am delighted that they are 5 stars; as are the ratings over at Barnes&Noble. (Yeah, I look at those too. Didn’t I just say I’m pathetic?)

So, for those of you haven’t read it yet, what’s Stormlord Rising all about?

It continues the story of Terelle and Shale/Jasper, as Terelle is caught up in the coercion of waterpainter magic and Shale is trapped by his nemesis, Taquar. Book 1 ended with a siege and a war, you may remember. Stormlord Rising also ends with a war and a battle — although a very different sort of battle employing a great deal more water magic.

But in many ways, this is Ryka Feldspar’s story. In many ways it is also (I hope) a touching love story, although not a romance…

Imagine this: you are a privileged woman aged about 29 or so, newly married and expecting your first child, when your entire world is turned upside down. You see your husband fall in a battle, and have good reason to think he is dead. Your side loses the battle, your home and family are destroyed, your whole life has vanished into the maws of your enemies. You see and experience unspeakable things. (more…)

World Con bloggery and more

It’s been a while since I posted on the Orbit blog. Running three separate websites of my own has kinda sapped my blogging energies. However, Aussie Con 4 is just around the corner, and down here we’re very excited to be getting the opportunity to meet visiting Orbit-ites Charlie Stross, Kate Elliot, Mira Grant, Gail Carriger, Helen Lowe, and of course Kim Stanley Robinson.

So … I’m delighted to say that Mira Grant has guest blogged at my main site on pseudonyms and things. Charlie Stross has promised me a post when he’s finished eating “yesterday’s stone cold vomit” (*Facebook reference on edits). And I’m about to email Gail, Kate and Helen (fell free to beat me to it gals!) in the hope that they’ll also drop by and say hello.

And while you’re floating around my blog enjoying Mira Grant’s post, you can back track to Jon Courtenay Grimwood ruminating articulately about repeating yourself in your writing.

Stay shiny, y’all.

Marianne de Pierres

FEED is a Killer Thriller!

NPR ran a listener contest to determine the best 100 thriller novels of all time and we are absolutely delighted to announce that our own Mira Grant made it on the list at a very respectable #74! When your competition is Stephen King, Dashiell Hammett, and Stieg Larsson, #74 is killer indeed…

Check out the full list here!

And pop over to congratulate Mira on her twitter feed: @MiraGrant (aka @seananmcguire)

The Terminal State – the readers speak out

Out this month is the gun-blazing, throat-slitting, hover-riding, brain-augmenting THE TERMINAL STATE (UK/ US/ ANZ), the fourth book in Jeff Somers’ near-future thriller series, the Avery Cates sequence.

To celebrate its release, you might remember that Jeff Somers ran a competition to give his readers the chance to act out the roles of their favourite characters, by providing voiceovers for several videos based on the book. Jeff obviously managed to get people’s creative juices flowing, and received some highly inspired entries. The winners have now been chosen and they are the following: 

Canny Orel – read by Ben Linford

Wa Belling – read by Tyrel Devlin from Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

The Poet – read by Jeffrey Lamar from Chandler, Arizona

Mara – read by Patty Blount from Framingville, New York

The videos, with readers’ voices added, are now up on the site right here: www.theterminalstate.com (roll over the images to find the hidden footage).

If you haven’t checked out the Avery Cates novels and want to find out why SFX has called them ‘brash, brutal, [and] brilliant’, and the Guardian ‘an exhilarating example of powerful and entertaining storytelling’ then you can read an extract from the first book here.

Brent Weeks Video Blog Tour!

Brent Weeks kicks off a video blog tour today — answering questions from John at graspingforthewind.com about his forthcoming book, THE BLACK PRISM. Find out how THE BLACK PRISM is different from the Night Angel Trilogy, where the inspiration for the color magic system came from, and why Kip isn’t your typical fantasy hero.


Stay tuned over the next few weeks for more video interviews from some of your favorite sff sites!

The Black Prism Quiz

THE BLACK PRISM is coming out August 25, (US | UK | AUS) and to help introduce you to the amazing new world Brent has created we’ve just launched the “What Color is Your Magic?” quiz on www.brentweeks.com. Take the quiz and find out what kind of drafter you’d be.

Me?

I’m a yellow magic drafter!

Take the quiz at Brent Weeks.com

It seems that I like to blow things up. Hm…Don’t know if that surprises anyone. But wait, it gets better! “Yellows tend to be clear thinkers, intellect and emotion in perfect balance.”

Whoa. Thanks Brent! I am in perfect balance:)


Interviewing and Reading Ken MacLeod

‘This is one of the great ironies of contemporary literature: the books that ask the deepest and most profound questions tend to be situated in the most marginalised of genres . . . Ken MacLeod’s The Restoration Game, like his previous novels The Execution Channel and The Night Sessions, are works of science fiction so worryingly close to reality that he may well be hailed as a prophet . . .’

So says Scotland on Sunday and I’m hardly inclined to argue. As you can see, Ken MacLeod‘s latest novel, The Restoration Game, published earlier this month, is already garnering high praise from the critics:

As ever, MacLeod’s grasp of political intrigue is first rate, and in Lucy he’s created a complex heroine forever in doubt as to the true nature of events’ Guardian

This is a writer at the peak of his powers’ SFX

 

Hear! Hear! And to celebrate publication, we are delighted to present this small but perfectly formed interview that Ken did on a recent trip to Orbit Towers.

What, exactly, is the hitherto undisclosed secret of Ken MacLeod? Watch closely and learn. The answer may shock you . . .


Duck and Cover! The Unit is here…

When the manuscript that eventually became THE UNIT landed on my desk, I was a little skeptical. I’m a huge fan of post-apocalyptic fiction but after having recently read The Road and playing Fallout 3 more than was strictly healthy, I wasn’t sure I was ready for the grueling, depressing grind of another story about the end of times. Oh, how wrong I was…

THE UNIT is the post-apocalyptic story I hadn’t realized I was waiting for. Unflinching, honest, brutal, tender, and, above all, humane– Terry DeHart’s debut floored me on the first read. It’s not that it’s not dark. It’s not that horrible things don’t happen to good people. But it does what so many post-apocalyptic stories fail to do, it reminds us of the essential humanity of every player in the story.

One of my colleagues instantly pegged it as, “hey, it’s like The Road if they ever fought back” which, moving beyond the glib, was exactly what I thought was missing from Cormac McCarthy’s excellent, soul-crushing, tale.

Anyhow, you don’t have to take my word for it:

a striking picture of human vulnerability and strength.” — Publisher’s Weekly

Like a crowbar to the skull, the lethal narrative intensity of this novel comes from its brutal realism and all-too plausible story line.” — Explorations

And io9.com picked it as one of their July picks with a description that trumps any copy I’ve ever come up with:

You’ve got a zombie plan, I assume. How’s your fallout preparedness? Vacationing in the Sierra Nevadas, the Sharpe family survives a nuclear strike, but anyone who’s ever read Alas, Babylon! knows that’s the easy part. Now they’ve got to deal with radioactive snowstorms and killer teenagers. Jerry, a badass ex-Marine, just wants to get his family home to Sacramento, while his wife, Susan, does her level best to keep nurturing the kids. Their daughter, Melanie, tries to maintain her pacifist convictions, while her brother, Scotty, goes totally Red Dawn on the people chasing them. Worst family trip ever.” — io9.com

THE UNIT is out in stores now. Read the first chapter here and go download a wallpaper for your computer or mobile device here.