www.orbitbooks.net

Robert says:

What are the Jason Wander books about?

My inner teen thinks they are about cool stuff: hovertanks, dinosaurs, captured alien starships, firefights, swordfights, and cracking wise when authority least welcomes it.

My inner grown-up thinks the books are about the distance between Eisenhower and the paratroops shown here, west of London on D-Day eve, 1944. That distance is an armspan across the grass of Greenham Common Airfield, but the journey of a soldier’s lifetime across the calendar.

Why do I think you’ll like them over there? I strive to write prose spare and funny enough to make readers smile, while jammed in middle airline seats, after twelve-hour days, with headaches.

Plus, there’s all the cool stuff…

Robert Buettner’s Jason Wander series is officially published by Orbit UK on August 7th and all three books were published by Orbit US in April this year:

• - Orphanage [US / UK]
• - Orphan’s Destiny [US / UK]
• - Orphan’s Journey [US / UK]

Book four in the series, Orphan’s Alliance is scheduled for publication by Orbit US in November 2008.

Image Credit: U.S. Army. “Dwight Eisenhower giving orders to American paratroopers in England.” 1944 June 5. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

Kevin says:

Yeah, I know you’ve been burned before. As a SF/F reader, you tend to look at anything touted as “a new epic series” with a jaded eye. You’ll believe it when the author actually delivers finished books instead of promises.

You’ve gotten hooked before by reading the first volume or two, and then the author goes AWOL, losing interest in the series, or being years late on delivery, or — worse — the purported trilogy turns out to be ten books or more, with no end in sight.

I stand before you humbly offering my “Saga of Seven Suns” — planned as a seven-volume continuous story (“Seven Suns” = 7 volumes, get it?) with a beginning and an actual end, not to mention a lot of high points in between.

Just as a good architect draws a detailed blueprint of a skyscraper complex before breaking ground and erecting the framework, so I outlined the “Saga,” knowing generally where all the features were going to be, but leaving plenty of room for embellishments.

I’ve worked eight years of my life on this series, which I consider to be my love letter to the science fiction genre: galactic empires, alien races, lost civilizations, strange worlds, horrifying monsters, exciting space battles, a vast cast of characters, dozens of tangled plot threads, romance, betrayal, politics, religion, and even some nasty robots.

Each book in the “Saga” came out on time, each year, seven years in a row. As a fan and a reader myself, I know what you expect from your authors — and if you read this series, I hope you think I’ve delivered what I promised.

Book 1: Hidden Empire
Book 2: A Forest of Stars
Book 3: Horizon Storms
Book 4: Scattered Suns
Book 5: Of Fire and Night
Book 6: Metal Swarm
Book 7: The Ashes of Worlds

Patricia says:

Blood Bound is the second of my series about Mercy Thompson, a coyote-shapeshifter VW mechanic who lives in a world where werewolves and vampires hunt the night. Moon Called, the first book, introduced the werewolves. Blood Bound focuses on the vampires. Mercy owes one of them a favor and it’s time to pay-up – but the cost turns out to be more than either of them expected.

One of the things I most love about urban fantasy is that the monsters can really be monsters. I didn’t want my vampires to be just people with fangs – they had to (forgive the pun) have a bite to them.

Blood Bound - book two of Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series is out now in paperback in the UK.

You can find our more about Patricia and her writing over at her official website, www.patriciabriggs.com.

Lilith Says:

I got so, so tired of all those gritty, hard-boiled heroes who were against the police, or who the police didn’t understand and gave them a hard time. It occurred to me that if there were things that went bump in the night, law enforcement would know about it and would welcome help in dealing with it. So why wouldn’t someone who handles exorcisms and demons be an unofficial member of a police department, working closely with the DA’s office on certain cases? It just seemed to make sense.

Of course, Night Shift is one of my stories. So we had to have leather pants, demons, and enough weapons to start your own urban insurrection. But that’s why I love my job so much.

Night Shift - the first part of Lilith Saintcrow’s brand new series of books starring Jill Kismet, demon-hunter extraordinaire - is out now in both the US and UK.

You can find our more about Lilith and her writing over at her official website, www.lilithsaintcrow.com.

Charles says:

Like him or loathe him, it’s impossible to ignore the impact Robert A. Heinlein has had on science fiction. 2007 - the year I wrote Saturn’s Children - was the 100th anniversary of his birth. So how better to mark it than by writing the sort of novel that Heinlein might write, if he was alive today and about 43 years younger? (I’m 43. Subtract my age from his, and you get 57 - the age at which he was writing The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, arguably the most solid of his later works.)

Lots of writers seem obsessed with re-writing Heinlein’s 1950s young adult novels, the gateway drug that got them hooked on SF. I decided to look at his later work, at a time when he was trying to tackle bigger and more complex themes, but before his obsessions ran away with him. Which is where Saturn’s Children comes from: it’s an attempt at re-imagining Heinlein, as if he’d lived in the age of the internet and manga, of global warming and greenhouse Venus. It’s also an adventure yarn and a romance and a cautionary tale, and it doesn’t take itself, or its source material, too seriously.

Saturn’s Children, the brand new novel from Charles Stross, is out now in the UK.

You can find our more about Charles’ writing over at his official website, www.antipope.org/charlie/.

Sean says:

I’ve always conceived Astropolis as three fairly different books. Saturn Returns is a complicated psychological piece (with lots of explosions) in which Imre Bergamasc puts his mind back together and decides that he’s going to do the same thing for the galaxy. Earth Ascendant is what he tries to do with the pieces. How does one go about managing an empire that large? At what cost success? (The third book is, naturally, a car-chase.)

The time-scales in Astropolis are huge. Every now and again I’d stop myself and think, “Did really send those guys on a journey that will last fifty thousand years?” It seems so wrong, and yet so right. In order to realistically manage a galactic civilisation, with no ftl technology at all, people will have to think this way.

And they’d better have a good knowledge of Edgar Allen Poe too, if Imre’s version of the future is anything to go by.

Saturn Returns, book one of the Astropolis sequence, is out now in the UK.

You can find our more about Sean’s writing over at his official website, www.seanwilliams.com and keep up to date with the latest developments via his LiveJournal page.

Brian says:

My new book – Bloodheir – is book two in my Godless World trilogy. It’s been entertaining to write, and will hopefully be entertaining to read, in part because it tracks the rise to power of the main villain in my story, and everyone likes writing and reading about the bad guys, right?

Bloodheir is where we get to see just how much trouble my invented world might be in. The battles are bigger, the stakes are getting higher, pretty much all the characters are learning just how easily things can run out of control, and I’m afraid one or two of them are heading for an untimely end…

In other words: all good, clean, honest fun.

Bloodheir is the second volume of Brian’s epic fantasy saga The Godless World and is out now in the UK and US. You can read the whole story so far by picking up a copy of Winterbirth [UK / US] and starting your journey there.

Find out more about Brian and his writing over at his official website, www.brianruckley.com, where he also writes a regularly-updated blog.

Fiona says:

Goddess is the final ‘movement’ to the Percheron symphony. And if I continue with the orchestral reference then this is the book where the drums are rolling, the cymbals clashing and every musician is blowing, or strumming, or bowing, or banging. All the characters are on the move and we enjoy resolution to the myriad of storylines, especially who the Goddess is…

Always a high body count in my books and be assured that those that deserve it usually get their come uppance. Read it and see who survives - you may be surprised . Thanks to all who have read the story so far. Enjoy Goddess.

Goddess is out now in the UK and is, as Fiona says, the final part of the Percheron series, which began with Odalisque [UK] and continued in Emissary [UK].

You can find out more about Fiona and her work by visiting her official website: www.fionamcintosh.com.

Pamela says:

Blood Ties is the first volume of an epic fantasy about dispossession, trust, enchantment, revenge and the unreliability of history. It’s also about the Eleven Domains - created by invasion, ruled by warlords - where it is possible to foretell the future… accurately.

An unusual element in Blood Ties is that, interspersed in the larger adventure, you’ll find minor characters’ own stories, told in their own words, and will learn about daily life in the Domains, which is mixed with magic and love and sorrow and joy and death.

I hope you’ll like the book because of its characters, especially Bramble and Ash, and because the world of the Eleven Domains has more surprises in store with each turn in the Road…

Blood Ties is the first book of the Castings trilogy and is available now in the US and UK.

You can find out more about Pamela Freeman and the Castings trilogy at www.castingstrilogy.com.