Archive for Orbit US

Parasol Protectorate Covers: Experts Weigh In

Ay-leen's photo by Anna Fischer

The competition is fierce and the comments are flying over at the finalist round for the Parasol Protectorate cover contest, and I thought it would be fun to have some “Steampunk Experts” give us some professional opinions of the finalists ensembles and posing. First up is the Ay-leen the Peacemaker, mistress of the fabulous blog Beyond Victoriana, who also contributes to other blogs and projects on retro-futurism. Beyond Victoriana focuses on multiculturalism in Steampunk and retro-futurism, and just won a Last Drink Bird Head Award.

I really enjoy reading Ay-leen’s essays because it’s good to remember that although there is a huge Victorian Age element to Steampunk, that does not mean that it has to be solely Victorian England. I’m really into the idea that a lot of the fun of retro-futurism is that you can really make it personal in style, and that can include your own family and cultural heritage. For example, check out the costume in the Careless cover below, which kind of has an awesome eastern/turkish element to it.

Anyway, enough about what I think…on to Ayleen’s comments…

(more…)

The Walking Dead 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 (she’s a few days late this week because she just returned from ZOMBCON, which takes a bit out of a girl, what with all the zombie action.) It should go without saying that this post has a giant SPOILER ALERT!

For months I’ve been salivating for the start of “The Walking Dead”, the new series on AMC that is based on the fantastic graphic novels by Robert Kirkman. So when Orbit asked me if I’d like to recap and review each episode here on the blog, the question hadn’t even been completely asked when I answered, “Yes… Yes… Yes… YES!!!”  There shall be spoilers,  so be aware. And my grade at the end, along with my comments. And so I give you, “The Walking Dead”:
 (more…)

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?

Parasol Protectorate: FINAL ROUND!

Voting is now open for the finals of the Parasol Protectorate cover contest! The competition was fierce, and after 5 rounds of intense voting, here are your finalists. You’ll have all this week to vote. On Monday I will again tally the votes and name the winner and new Team Captain for the Parasol Protectorate Class of 2010…or is that 1910?

You might notice there are 6 finalists, and that’s because there was a bit of suspicious voting in Round One. So let me make the rules clear once more. Only vote once. I can see your email addresses so if there are two votes coming from the same account (that aren’t an obvious computer error) then all the votes from that account will be disqualified. To vote, please state clearly in the comments which cover (by title) you are voting for. DON’T say “#3” and don’t say you’re stuck between Sugarless and Hairless, because neither will count as a vote. DO feel free to applaud, praise, or heckle other finalists in the comments as well. DO feel free to vote for yourself. And most of all DO remember that you are voting on the person’s costume and pose. And poise. Not the title, cover layout, or background, which were all entirely my doing.

Over the next few days I will have some Steampunk and fashion experts weighing in on the finalists, so stay tuned! The finalist covers are after the jump…

(more…)

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

New Wallpaper: LEVIATHAN WAKES!

The cover art Daniel Dociu did for Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey is so cool that we wanted to make it a wallpaper immediately (for our own use!) so why not share, right? I love the movement and action in the piece and I think that it says a lot about what kind of epic space opera reading experience you’re in for with Leviathan Wakes.

Hopefully these wallpapers can tide you over until the release in June 2011! Enjoy the fabulous illustration by Daniel Dociu, type by Kirk Behshoff, wallpaper layouts by Wendy Chan.

Enjoy the art fullsize and all the usual downloadable sizes after the jump… (more…)

Cover Launch: LEVIATHAN WAKES

Leviathan Wakes is by James S.A. Corey, which is the pen name of  Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. This behemoth is hitting stores May 2011. What an awesome project. We’re talking space opera, big ships, interstellar travel, secrets, conspiracies, and high adventure. Once I got my hands on it the gears started turning full tilt.

(more…)

The Art Department is multiplying!

As the Creative Director of Orbit US, I am very happy to make some announcements and introductions. And maybe a few explanations, with a small peek behind the curtain at a book publishing art department. SFF readers are pretty opinionated about covers, which is awesome, so I’m guessing you’d like to know a little bit more about how an art dept. is set up.

When Orbit first launched here in the US three years ago, the cover design was handled by the fabulous Art Directors and Designers of the Little Brown Art Department (some of their awesome work can be pointed out in my very first ever Orbit blog post here.) Orbit’s first year in the US went so swimmingly that it jumped out from under the Little Brown umbrella and teamed up with Yen Press to become it’s own division of Hachette Books. It then needed its own art department and I was hired to get that moving. Kirk Behshoff, who you will meet in a minute, had already been handling the cover art for Yen Press while it was a part of Little Brown Young Readers, and thank goodness he came over with Yen or I might have lost my mind those first few weeks. So long story short, the last two years were a lot of wonderful covers mixed with panic and a lot of late nights, because let me tell you, two people for two imprints is a bit of an insane workload. And because of the time crunch, I stuck mostly to Orbit and Kirk stuck mostly to Yen.

But now we are three! As of the beginning of September, we have welcomed Wendy Chan onto the Orbit/Yen team as a Junior Designer. With Wendy’s help we’ve been able to start to mix it up a bit. I did my very first Yen covers (for the High School of the Dead series) and Kirk is handling some Orbit covers—the first of which, Leviathan Wakes, is launching today! Very exciting.

(more…)

Parasol Protectorate: FINAL DAY!

Day five and competition is fierce. I love reading all your comments in the posts, so keep it up! This is the last batch of covers, and the winners of each day will have a runoff vote on Monday!

I kind of love the Steampunk-versions-of-characters costumes too. It’s already awesome to be mashing up time periods and technology, but then you throw Green Lantern, Doctor Who, and Star Wars into it, and that’s just doubly awesome… If you havent seen them around the web, there’s some really cool anachronistic and Steampunked worlds here, here, and here. And altho not technically Steampunk, these “premakes” are favorites in the same anachronistic vibe.

And on to today’s covers, after the jump… (more…)