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The eleventh annual MeCon convention takes place at Queen’s University Student Union in the city of Belfast from the 29th-31st August this year, and the Guest of Honour will be Orbit’s very own Charles Stross.

Charles will be taking part in a variety of events and readings over the course of the weekend, details of which can be found on the MeCon website.

MeCon’s other guests this year include authors Michael Carroll, Ian McDonald and C.E. Murphy, plus comics artists Paul J Holden and John McCrea.

All in all, we had a great time at the show. Lilith Saintcrow rocked the Eye on the Present panel, which should be online eventually. We had a limited giveaway of Orcs galleys which were snatched up by fans in minutes. Kevin J. Anderson chatted with us about The Ashes of Worlds (vid to come) And our friends at Yen Press threw a great rooftop party complete with fireworks.

Canberra’s fifth annual Conflux convention takes place later this year, over the weekend of Friday October 3rd - Monday October 6th, at The Marque, Canberra, Australia.

Ahead of the main event, Conflux is staging a Virtual Minicon this coming weekend, August 2nd - August 3rd.

Participation is easy: simply sign up for the Conflux Forums and then log in at the appropriate time, depending on the author(s) you’d like to chat to via the forums and bearing in mind the relevant time-difference between your own timezone and Canberra’s (GMT +10) of course.

A number of Orbit authors are taking part in the online activities over the course of the weekend, with time-slots as follows (again, these are Canberra-time…)

Saturday August 2
12.00 p.m. - Glenda Larke
7.00 p.m. - Karen Miller

Sunday August 3
11.00 a.m. - Sean Williams
12.00 p.m. - Kevin J Anderson
5.00 p.m. - Marianne de Pierres

Visit the Virtual Minicon page of the Conflux website for more information.

Well, not beyond really, but Lilith Saintcrow will be at Comicon in San Diego! She’ll be on the “Looking at Our World: Eye on the Present” panel along with Kelley Armstrong, L. A. Banks, Kate Brallier, Marjorie M. Liu, C. E. Murphy, Justine Musk, and moderator Samantha Sommersby ( Room 3). That’s a veritable who’s who of urban fantasy stars, so if you’re a fan this is a can’t miss event.

And stop by the Orbit booth to get your books signed and to pick up a sweet Orcs pin, which will likely be handed to you by a bedraggled looking guy with a few days’ old beard (me). You can also get some great stuff from our friends at Grand Central Publishing, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, and Yen Press. For a complete listing of HBGUSA events at Comicon, including panels with Stephenie Meyer, Jacqueline Carey, Brad Meltzer, Method Man and more, download our event schedule here.

If you can’t make it to Comicon, you can still catch up with Lilith at her sparklingly redesigned site, www.lilithsaintcrow.com – and stay tuned for a free, never before seen serialized novel coming very soon.

If you’re going to Wiscon, look out for Orbit author Pamela Freeman. She’ll be there talking about her new book, Blood Ties, and reading from her academic work (If you get a chance to chat, be sure to ask her about her thoughts on science in fantasy fiction.)

Pamela’s Wiscon Schedule (check the site for up-to-date details.)

Saturday, 10:00-11:15 A.M: Reading from Blood Ties.
Sunday, 11:30 P.M. to 12:45 A.M. Imagination as Resistance, panel.
Monday, 10:00-11:15 A.M: Kings. What a Good Idea: Monarchy in Epic Fantasy Fiction.

This Saturday’s annual Alt.Fiction event in Derby was a fantastic example of just how vibrant and lively the UK genre scene currently is. A panel-packed day offered readings from some of the UK’s top genre talent - including Orbit’s very own Charles Stross, Mike Carey, Philip Palmer (who has posted his own Alt.Fiction write-up) and Brian Ruckley (who has likewise posted his impressions of the day) - as well as discussion sessions and workshops on a variety of writing and publishing-related topics.

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This Saturday, April 26th, the cream of the UK genre fiction crop will be heading to Derby’s Assembly Rooms for the third annual Alt.Fiction Festival.

Alt.Fiction is a one-day convention that brings together sf/f/h authors, readers and publishers for a series of panel sessions, workshops, readings and more. Think Eastercon or Fantasycon, condensed into a single day and organised to within an inch of its life by Alex Davis and his team of willing and enthusiastic volunteers from Derby City Council, and you’ll get the picture.

This year, several Orbit authors will be in attendance, including Mike Carey, Philip Palmer, Brian Ruckley and Charles Stross. The four of them will be appearing on various panels and reading sessions throughout the day; you can see which ones by checking out the schedule of events.

And yes, that is yours truly on a panel at 12.00 on the topic of ‘Writing and the Internet’, alongside Simon Spurrier and Hub Magazine editor Lee Harris. Hecklers welcome!

Tickets for Alt.Fiction are on-sale now at a very reasonable £20 from the Derby Assembly Rooms website.

Further to Bella’s post, below, on the 2008 Eastercon, I thought it worth mentioning that Eastercon returns to the Radisson Edwardian at Heathrow (amusingly nicknamed the “Radisson Non-Euclidean” by convention wags), in two years time. Even more exciting for us at Orbit Towers is that the convention committee have shown the great good taste to invite Mike Carey as one of their Guests of Honour.

First Charles Stross, now Mike Carey - they can hold Eastercons at Heathrow every year, as far as we’re concerned!

Back refreshed after some post-Easter holiday, I thought I’d give a little round-up of the weekend’s Eastercon excitements. These didn’t include the weather (a most distracting hail storm during Darren’s Very Important Panel), or getting lost in the hotel’s Shining-esque corridors and missing breakfast, so I’ll spare you that.

So, over the Easter weekend, two key highlights in the science fiction calendar took place. One of these was Orbital, the British national science fiction convention (otherwise known as Eastercon), We were very excited as our Ken MacLeod was on not one, but two shortlists for BSFA awards, up for both best novel with The Execution Channel and best short fiction with Lighting Out, in the anthology disLOCATIONS from Newcon Press. Many congratulations to Ken for winning in the short fiction category, and to Gollancz’s Ian McDonald, who took away the best novel award for the much-admired Brasyl.

I also have to make special mention of Charles Stross, who was guest of honour at Orbital, alongside Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, and China Mieville. Charlie wasn’t just guest of honour but, in an astonishing tribute to the genre, had actually managed to clone himself in order to take part in a myriad of panel discussions. Amongst others, I attended Writing the Near Future, on why it might be harder to predict 50 years in the future than 500. Charlie was as fascinating as ever, and managed to pause briefly for breath before his next panel on the Appeal of Lovecraft. His clones were no doubt equally knowledgeable in an in-depth discussion of Accelerando, and in a panel on how to be a full time novelist to name just a few. On the other side of the fence, Orbit’s Darren Nash told a packed room (yep, people were actually standing at the back) what an editor Actually Does. I found this particularly pertinent, and obviously made copious notes(!). The panel was split between editors of novels and short fiction, so covered some interesting differences in how the two forms might be edited.

But the Eastercon activities didn’t end there … the other highlight of the weekend was Swancon on the other side of the globe – the annual West Australian Science Fiction Convention and forum for the Ditmar awards. We are delighted to say that Sean Williams picked up yet another well-deserved Ditmar for best novel, for the fabulous Saturn Returns. Australia’s Dark Fiction zine HorrorScope has the full listings. Ken MacLeod also attended the convention as a guest of honour so, although much in demand, had to miss out on the British event. Sure, it would have been great to travel to Australia to help Ken and Sean out, but the Orbital invites came through first … Maybe next time!

We’re happy to announce that Brian Ruckley, Charles Stross, Mike Carey and Philip Palmer are going to be at this year’s Alt.Fiction event, taking place at the Assembly Room in Derby on Saturday, April 26th.

If you’re not familiar with Alt.Fiction it’s a fantastic weekend of writers, writing and all things genre. The schedule of events and more information is available here and here. Hope to see you all there!

Just a reminder to all those in the Glasgow area - and all those who have a chance to get to the Glasgow area - the Aye Write! Bank of Scotland Book Festival is on this weekend. Iain Banks and Ken MacLeod will be discussing their latest novels, Matter and The Execution Channel, at The Mitchell Library at 6pm on Sunday, March 9th.

Find out more about the festival and buy your tickets here.

The shortlist for the 2007 BSFA Awards has recently been announced, and we’re absolutely delighted to see Ken MacLeod’s wonderful The Execution Channel in the running for the Best Novel. 

Fighting has spread across the Middle East and Central Asia to the borders of China. In the US, refugees from climate-change disaster subsist in FEMA camps. Images of official executions circulate on the Internet like al Qaeda videos. State agencies sponsor conspiracy theories as cover-ups. As the troops of the last superpower stand astride the last of the oil, China and Russia aren’t the only states considering their options: certain nations of Old Europe are quietly preparing for the worst.

The war on terror is over. Terror won.

 As with all of Ken MacLeod’s novels, The Execution Channel has garnered great critical acclaim.  The Times calls it ‘Politically engaged, speculative fiction at its finest, with a conclusion that’s absolutely mind-blowing’; noted critic Paul Kincaid, writing for Strange Horizons, says ‘A very good book, perhaps the best Ken MacLeod has written to date . . . an extraordinary novel’; while SFX sums it up as ‘Jaw-droppingly audacious’.

The BSFA Awards will be presented on 22nd March at Orbital, this year’s Eastercon, where a very smartly attired paperback edition will be available for your reading pleasure!

Hmm. . . ‘Orbital’, eh?  Dare we see that as an omen . . . ?

Terry Brooks
(photo: Judine Brooks)

Internationally-bestselling author Terry Brooks is going to be touring the UK later this month to promote his new book The Elves of Cintra. Selecting places to do book signings is always a fraught process — especially for an author as popular as Terry with fans all around the country. Future tours will concentrate on areas that we haven’t covered this time, especially Scotland and the North of England. However, for this tour, we’ve come up with the following itinerary for Terry, and hope very much to see you at one of these signings.

Monday 17 September

1pm: Signing at Forbidden Planet, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London. For more information, call the store on 020 7420 3666 or visit www.forbiddenplanet.com.

Wednesday 19 September

5.30pm: Signing at Waterstone’s Bluewater, Greenhithe, Kent. For more information, call the store on 01322 624831, email manager@bluewater-west.waterstones.com or visit www.waterstones.com.

Thursday 20 September

12.30pm: Signing at Waterstone’s, Wesley Walk, Basingstoke. For more information, call the store on 01256 460646, email manager@basingstoke-wesleywalk.waterstones.com or visit www.waterstones.com.

4.00pm: Signing at Waterstone’s, 17 Stanley Walk, Bracknell. For more information, call the store on 01344 488124, email manager@bracknell.waterstones.com or visit www.waterstones.com.

Friday 21 September

12.30pm: Signing at Waterstone’s, 50-52 Smithford Way, Coventry. For more information, call the store on 02476 634224, email manager@coventry.waterstones.com or visit www.waterstones.com.

7pm onwards: Terry is one of the Guests of Honour at Fantasycon — see their website for details.

Saturday 22 September

10am onwards: Terry will be doing an interview and panel at Fantasycon — see their website for details.

4.00pm: Signing at Waterstone’s, 1-5 Bridlesmith Gate, Nottingham. For more information, call the store on 0115 948 4499, email manager@nottingham.waterstones.com or visit www.waterstones.com.

Mike Carey
(photo: Charlie Hopkinson)

Much ecstatic piping on the tin whistle (Clarke original, key of D, natch) greeted the news that Mike Carey’s superb debut The Devil You Know, featuring freelance exorcist Felix Castor, has been shortlisted for the British Fantasy Society’s August Derleth Award for Best Novel.

The award will be presented at Fantasycon in Nottingham this September, which Mike will be attending — along with fellow Orbit author Terry Brooks, who is one of the Guests of Honour.

You can read an extract of The Devil You Know here.

Congratulations to all the shortlisted authors, and our best wishes to Mike — everyone at Orbit is hoping for a well-deserved win for Felix Castor’s first outing.

Some more convention news, this time from Australia: Conflux 4 takes place in Canberra from 28 September to 1 October. As part of the build up to Conflux 4, there’s a ‘virtual minicon’ taking place on 4-5 August on the convention forums. A number of the guests appearing at the main convention will be chatting online — there’s a full list here. Orbit authors taking part include Glenda Larke, Fiona McIntosh, Karen Miller and Karen Traviss.

It’s still quite a long way off, but planning has already started for the Alt.Fiction event in Derby next April.

2007 was Orbit’s first year at the event, and we really enjoyed it: I appeared on a panel with literary agent John Jarrold and John Berlyne of sfrevu.com, Mike Carey did a workshop and a reading, and Iain M Banks rounded off the day in triumphant style with the first public reading from his forthcoming Culture novel, Matter (a covert recording of which turned up on YouTube shortly afterwards!).

After such a great experience, we were keen to return for the 2008 event, and I’m very pleased to say that we’ll be back there next April — so far, Orbit authors attending include Mike Carey, Philip Palmer and Brian Ruckley and Charles Stross. You can follow updates to the Alt.Fiction schedule at organiser Alex Davis’ blog.

Jo Graham
(photo: Robert Walters)

Wilda Williams at Library Journal reports here on a lunch hosted by Orbit at the ALA (American Library Association) Convention in Washington D.C. recently. It was great to have the chance to talk with so many librarians and journalists about our launch list and publishing strategy, and hear about some of the issues and challenges they face.

And I got to meet Jo Graham, author of Black Ships, for the first time. She’s fantastic. She spoke wonderfully about her debut novel and read the opening pages beautifully. Everybody wanted more — but they’ll have to wait! Also got to see the White House for the first time — but Jo was the highlight of the day for me.

Orbit launched in the US at Book Expo America in New York. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to say hello. We still have ten messenger bags left, so we’re giving one to the first ten people to email us at orbit at hbgusa.com with the words “gimme one of those bags!” in the subject line. (This offer is only available to US residents.)