Category: Orbit US
- DongWon Song - August 4th, 2010
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)
by DongWon Song • Post a Comment • Posted in: Awards, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US
- Anna Gregson - August 4th, 2010
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.
by Anna Gregson • Post a Comment • Posted in: Commentary, Contests, Extracts, New Titles, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US, Videos
- Alex Lencicki - August 2nd, 2010
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!
by Alex Lencicki • 1 Comment • Posted in: All posts, New Titles, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US, Uncategorized, Videos
- Devi Pillai - July 29th, 2010
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:)
by Devi Pillai • 5 Comments • Posted in: All posts, New Titles, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US
- Lauren Panepinto - July 29th, 2010
The most visible part of San Diego Comic-Con – and the hardest part to explain to non-geeks – is the costumes. I was trying to explain to a friend who had never been to any con before (talk about sink or swim, your first public geek experience being SDCC) that Comic-Con is like the prom, and everyone who dresses up is totally Prom King and Queen of their own personal universe. People who maybe are too shy, or just not attention-seekers normally can dress up as a kick-ass superhero and feel like a rockstar all day at con. All day people want to take pictures of you, tell you how awesome your costume is, tell you how much they love your character (and the more obscure, the better accolades). I have never dressed up for a con, but I have hit more than a few halloweens in NYC dressed up as Lara Croft, Dark Phoenix, assorted Jedi, and a few vampires, and it is kind of a heady experience. I can only imagine to do it at a con is even better. Read the rest of this entry »
by Lauren Panepinto • Post a Comment • Posted in: Art, Conventions, Orbit US
- Lauren Panepinto - July 28th, 2010
I had high hopes of blogging my first San Diego Comic-Con as it was happening (or at least, at the end of each day) but I woefully underestimated the sheer craziness going on every minute of the day and night. Even prepared with multiple cameras and an iPad, there wasn’t a spare minute to post! So, I’m going to be catching you all up now, categorically.
There is so much thorough SDCC coverage around the web that I’m going to try to keep this stuff edited to unique pics taken by me (or Orbit/Yen team members) and try to keep it edited down to a few topics. But don’t doubt for a second that I have a bajillion pics of bespandexed cosplayers posing like they practiced all year…and you know they did. Read the rest of this entry »
by Lauren Panepinto • Post a Comment • Posted in: Art, Conventions, Orbit US
author post
The other day I happened to be reading through Janet Fitch’s post on 10 Writing Tips That Can Help Almost Anyone. The list is worth reading, but I was particularly struck by Tip #7: Smarten up your protagonist.
Fitch writes, “The more observant [your protagonist] can be, the more vivid will be the world you’re creating.” This is no doubt true, but it’s not what leaps to my mind when I think about smart protagonists. Read the rest of this entry »
by Rachel Neumeier •4 Comments • Posted in: All posts, Commentary, Guest Post, Orbit UK, Orbit US
- Devi Pillai - July 21st, 2010
The August pick for io9.com’s Book Club is N.K. Jemisin’s THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS! Click here to read the first chapter.
We’re excited for Nora, especially because you can look forward to reading the second book, The Broken Kingdoms in November 2010. Read the rest of this entry »
by Devi Pillai • 2 Comments • Posted in: News, Orbit US, Uncategorized
- Alex Lencicki - July 19th, 2010
Comic-Con San Diego is right around the corner! If you’re attending, be sure to stop by the Orbit US booth (#1116) throughout the convention for signings and giveaways, and mark your day planner with the events below to meet our authors.
And if you’re in the San Diego area but didn’t get a pass to Comic-Con – don’t fear! The reading on Sunday with Brent Weeks, Brandon Sanderson, and Patrick Rothfuss is open to all. Full schedule and all the details after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »
by Alex Lencicki • 2 Comments • Posted in: All posts, Conventions, Orbit US
- DongWon Song - July 14th, 2010
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.
by DongWon Song • 4 Comments • Posted in: All posts, New Titles, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US
