Archive for Orbit Australia

Holiday Studies: A Comparison of Elves

Here at Orbit, we are dedicated to the scientific method, always tempered with a healthy dose of sarcastic humor. We are powered by geeks, after all. Thus we will be taking a hard look at the many ways the Holiday Season and SFF overlap, and serving up our findings in lovely visual form for your end-of-year enjoyment. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks… and be sure to keep checking back over the next few weeks to enter our Epic Loot giveaways – the first one is here!

Epic Holiday Loot from Orbit!

It’s that time of the year — good cheer, decorations, warm fires, and of course: Loot! We’ve traveled deep into the Orbit HQ dungeon and returned with a chest of magnificent offerings that we’ll be giving away  over the next few weeks.  So check back here (or follow us on twitter or facebook) for updates, and chances to win.

Epic Loot 1: Win The Griffin Mage Trilogy!


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Nano advice: Break the rules…

I’m back to talk about National Novel Writing Month some more. This time, instead of complaining on the internet about how mean everyone is—because that’s productive—I figured I’d take a shot at giving advice. This, of course means, that I will get to be the target of enraged tweeting and, with any luck, at least one table-thumping LiveJournal post.

Anyhow, as with last week, this is all with the caveat that any advice I have is targeted towards Fantasy and Science Fiction writers, because that’s what I know and that’s what I love, and this is the Orbit blog, so, frankly, you’re probably a SFF fan anyways. Also, this is all from the perspective of someone who hasn’t written anything longer than an editorial letter since college. So, advice from an editor. Not even advice, let’s say it’s some things you may want to think about if you have a moment between pounding out thousands upon thousands of words a day. (more…)

Publishers Weekly: Three Orbit Titles in 2010’s SF/F Top Five

We’re very happy to announce that in a remarkable showing, three of the five books selected by Publishers Weekly as the best science fiction/fantasy titles of 2010 are published by Orbit — THE BONE PALACE by Amanda Downum, FEED by Mira Grant, and THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS/THE BROKEN KINGDOMS (a two-for-one deal!) by N.K. Jemisin.

Congratulations to our authors!! And if you haven’t yet gotten around to these books — happy reading!

SURFACE DETAIL LARGE SAGA TECH

There are an awful lot of words on the internet, and a number of them have been used in the brilliant reviews for SURFACE DETAIL – the new Culture novel from Iain M. Banks, out everywhere now. Thanks to worldle.net, we’ve been able to squish them together!

Connect the words to start building your very own Iain M. Banks review:

“lavish horror weapons” – yes!

“fast-paced glory novel” – you bet!

“vast reader fans Banks” … eh?

Blind artists, Rogue Gods. and Murder

N. K. Jemisin burst onto the scene this year with her much praised novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.  For those that didn’t get a chance to read it, it’s now in mass market paperback.  And with it, we are also releasing the second book in the Inhertiance Trilogy, The Broken Kingdoms.

It is the story of Oree Shoth, a blind artist who takes home a homeless man she finds in the rubbish heap. This one act of kindness will drag her in a nightmarish conspiracy.  I found it to be a fabulous read and I hope you will too.

“The very best kind of sequel: as lush and evocative and true as the first, with all the same sense of mystery, giving us the world and characters we already love, and yet with a new story and a wonderfully new perspective on the whole dazzling world and pantheon the author has built.”
—Naomi Novik

“A decade after the events of March 2010’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, artist Oree, blind to reality but able to see magic, sells trinkets to tourists in Sky, a city filled with supernatural entities and happenings in a world slowly emerging from doctrinaire authoritarianism.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred)

“Told from Oree’s point of view, the narrative voice is authoritative and original — this is a book that readers won’t be able to put down.”
—Romantic Times

Food for Thought

Mira Grant recently dropped this pearl of wisdom in an interview with therealmcast.com:

“Phorid flies are native to South America, and the way they reproduce is gruesome and horrible in the extreme.  See, they inject their eggs into fire ants, and when those eggs hatch, the larvae eat the ant’s brain and take over its body, driving it around like a new sort of economy car.  When the larvae are ready to hatch, they chew off the ant’s head and crawl out of the hole.  Ponder this for a moment.  Nature makes zombies on a regular basis. Rabies changes your behavior.  Parasites and parasitic insects are more than happy to take over your brain for fun and profit.  I think some sort of zombie outbreak could definitely happen–the only question is how.

These are the thoughts that keep me up at night. And Mira is the one who gives them to me. So, if I look more tired than usual, blame the zombies…

Karen Miller and N. K. Jemisin – London signing!

Two of our wonderful Orbit authors are over in the UK this week and will be doing a joint signing at Forbidden Planet in London this Saturday 30th October.

Karen Miller , author of The Innocent Mage and the recently released The Reluctant Mage, will be joined by N.K. Jemisin, author of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and the soon-to-be-released The Broken Kingdoms.

Pop down to the Forbidden Planet store on Shaftesbury Avenue between 4 – 5pm this Saturday to meet the authors and get your exclusive signed copies!