That would be the suite party at the just-held World Fantasy Convention in San Jose, hosted by the always snazzily dressed Gail Carriger, in honor of her debut novel SOULLESS.
The soiree featured delectable delicacies, luscious libations, oscillating octopi, parasols aplenty, a bevy of neo-Victorian beauties, as well as numerous delightful dandies — and all immortalized in glossy color photos by photographer Britt Hart.
Devi, my esteemed colleague and likely better in every respect, is a battle-scarred veteran of many a convention. Going into this past weekend she had strategies and plans for survival (and apparently a whole list of mad inventions for future years). I, on the other hand, was an impressionable innocent wandering blindly into the crossfire. I’ve been at Orbit a little over a year and didn’t make it out to Denver last year. I’d bopped around the NYCC a little bit and BEA but those are more trade-shows and I’d somehow avoided all the intense networking and partying they surrounds them. I’d always been interested in going just as a fan, but between work and money and all the other little excuses had never ventured afield to that most scary of SFF meet-ups. I was, as embarrassed as I was to admit it, a convention virgin. (more…)
Someone asked me recently how many conventions I had been to. And sadly the answer to that is so many that I have no idea. I’ve been to at least one a year for the past few years and probably as many as three a year in some cases. What I love about them is the great sense of energy—talking to authors (which I have much to comment on later) and catching up with people you haven’t seen in months and especially the people you’ve yet to meet. I think this year was more fun than other years for a host of reasons. First, I had not one, but two parties that I was invited to. YEAH ME!!! Beat that! Um. Well, one of them was the Orbit party we hosted, so I guess I can’t, in good conscience count that. And the other was my author Gail Carriger’s launch party for Soulless and I guess I had to be invited – being her editor and all. . . But on to the news from WFC! (more…)
Another great urban fantasy debut!
TEMPEST RISING is the story of Jane True, outcast, night swimmer, and half-selkie. It’s a fabulous world full of characters straight out of myth, from rock gnomes that bag groceries to a sea pony named Trill. What made this one really stand out for me was the fact that Jane True didn’t live in big urban city, but in a small town off the coast of Maine. The big attraction there? The Old Sow, a whirlpool that once in a while throws out something interesting. Like a dead body. Which is how Jane True discovers — and is dragged into—a world of supernaturals that she didn’t even know existed in her small and sleepy town.
Coincidentally, the author, Nicole Peeler, works in Shreveport – and her writing did remind me of a certain waitress from that part of the county.
Nicole has a bunch of links on her website, including a post she did for John Scalzi’s The Big Idea Blog, excerpts from the book, and, of course, the obligatory photos of cats enjoying the book.
Check it out this week in bookstores everywhere. Oh, and I should also tell you that #2, Tracking the Tempest, will be out next July for your reading pleasure.
Stealing Fire is another great historical fantasy novel from Jo Graham and another beautiful painting from John Jude Palencar.
Black Ships and Hand of Isis were some of the first books I read from Orbit when I joined the team here, and they’re books I still press into people’s hands when they come to visit the office. They’re really well-written books in the vein of Mists of Avalon and I can’t give higher praise than that, people. The books are not quite a series in that you can read them in any order, and they don’t follow each other chronologically. However they are tied together by the characters and I won’t say more than that because I don’t want to give it away. (more…)
Today, lucky readers, I have not one but TWO covers to launch: Lord of the Changing Winds and The Land of Burning Sands by Rachel Neumeier, Books I & II of the Griffin Mage Trilogy. I am launching them together because they are releasing back to back in May and June 2010, and the final book will be out in December 2010. (We know you guys love it when we do a quick publishing schedule so you can get the whole epic, right? We’re geeks too, we know waiting for book 2 is the worst.)
Anyway, back to the books. The author has a fresh take on griffins, much more raw, and dangerous than the traditional fantasy griffins — and I wanted that to show through in the covers. These griffins are animal creatures first, and I think that’s never been explored before, so I have focused on those details of the griffins, and then just added touches of the story – in the first book you can just see the reflection of Kes in the griffin’s eye, and then in the second book you can see the role the desert will play. (more…)
And just in time for Halloween….
I’m very excited to tell you that Bite Marks is out today! Yeah! This is Jaz Park’s newest adventure. And this time, she’s in a bit deeper than before with gnomes trying to bring down NASA and a demon bent on dragging a friend’s soul to hell. But to top it off, she’s also hearing voices in her head – and they’re not all hers.
It’s a wild ride. I hope you’re as excited as I am to check this book out in the bookstores. And I’m over the moon because the next book just delivered into my greedy wittle hands! Which you’ll be seeing next fall…
And be sure to check out Jennifer’s post on “The Ick Factor.”
One of the things that intrigues me as a writer is the question: “And then what happened?”
That’s one reason why I’m so excited to be writing The Fallen Kings Cycle for Orbit, carrying my characters and world from The Chronicles of the Necromancer into all-new adventures. It gives me the chance to ask, and answer, my favorite question and to share that answer with readers.
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![9780316056588_154X233[1]](https://www.orbitbooks.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/9780316056588_154X2331.jpg "9780316056588_154X233[1]")
Nicole Peeler, author of TEMPEST RISING, knows the differences and the similarities between Modernist Literature (which she teaches) and Urban Fantasy (which she writes) and is very happy to tell you why the impulses behind both aren’t quite so different as you might think.
And, Nicole is more than happy to defend her big idea.
The Unit by Terry DeHart has a pretty straightforward concept: it’s about a family fighting to survive the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse. It’s a very violent, gritty book, and it reads like an action movie, so we wanted to give the cover a very cinematic look. The “Unit” of the title is a bit of a play on words, as it’s a family unit that must turn itself into a military unit in order to survive. I could go on about the “nuclear” family having to face “nuclear” holocaust but then you’d all groan and go read someone else’s blog post here. (sorry, couldn’t resist)
The cover is a collaboration between the fabulous designer Chad Roberts and myself. He really gets all the credit for establishing the look and typography, but the original had more graphic, as opposed to photographic, figures of the family. After the final manuscript came in we realized the book was a little more gritty than the graphic look communicated, so yours truly took the template for the characters Chad had designed and found more realistic images we could then backlight and do fancy photoshop magic on to make them look like they were totally all standing together in front of a big fireball waiting to spring into action. (A.K.A. “Designer Magic”)
