With sinister echoes of 1984 and Brave New World, this original novel features a near-future city where medical science invents a single-dose pill for eradicating many common genetic defects . . .
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BLONDE BOMBSHELL is Tom Holt’s hilarious science-fictional debut and features one of the most fiendishly clever weapons of mass destruction you are likely to encounter. With the future of mankind possibly at stake, we did what any publisher would do. We asked the author some questions and then hid under a table.
10. How smart can a missile really be?
Not that smart, or it wouldn’t allow itself to get blown up to further a socio-political disagreement between partially evolved primates. I wouldn’t want to play chess with one, though.
9. Could the events you describe in the book actually happen?
Actually, they already did (see below; extensive research), though the Orbit guys have done a great job blaming the ash cloud on the Icelanders. As with all my novels, nearly all the non-fiction bits are partially true. Read the rest of this entry »
Cyberpunk is not really my cup of tea, so I was surprised when I got into This is Not a Game as much as much as I did. It’s all about connectivity, and how fast information and communication flies around the world now. There was of course also a cool thriller plotline along with it. Deep State is the next book by Walter Jon Williams, and picks up with the heroine & story of This is Not a Game. If you like William Gibson and Snow Crash-era Neal Stephenson, then you should check out these books. Read the rest of this entry »
Tricia Sullivan is the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of an impressive body of work, including Maul, Double Vision and Sound Mind. Here’s just a sample of the praise that has been heaped upon her work:
‘A challenging, disturbing, often compulsive read’ Time Out
‘Tricia Sullivan returns to science fiction not a second too soon . . . I haven’t enjoyed a book so much in a long time’ Guardian
‘Painfully gripping throughout – read it if you dare’ The Times
‘Maul confirms an increasingly badly-kept secret – Sullivan is one of the best and most ambitious SF writers around’ Dreamwatch
‘Intelligent, sensitive and engrossing . . . You’ll be thinking about it long after you’ve finished reading’ SFX
‘Tricia Sullivan is why I refuse to give up on science fiction’ Pat Cadigan, Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author
I think it’s clear from the above that Tricia is almost universally regarded as an audacious and original voice in modern science fiction. And what better way to signal that to the reader than with an audacious and original cover. Ladies and gentlemen (and other forms of life – we’re not speciesist at Orbit!), we give you Lightborn:
Lightborn is a revolutionary new technology that has transformed the modern world.
Better known as ‘shine’, it is the ultimate in education, self-improvement and entertainment – beamed directly into the mind of anyone who can meet the asking price.
But what do you do if the shine in question has a mind of its own . . . ?
The Orphaned Worlds is now out and available for just a few earth pounds from a book vendor near you. Or have a taster first with this entirely free extract or perhaps a free Orphaned Worlds wallpaper. But Michael Cobley can tell you more about the masterwork himself, as he will be taking part in the SFX Summer of SF Reading event and signing on 10th May, at Waterstone’s London Piccadilly store. For SFX competition winners (closing date is tomorrow) the open signing will be followed by a VIP party and panel discussing why more fans of SF on TV/in films don’t also read the books, also featuring the talented Mr Cobley. Signed copies of the book will also be available soon from The Forbidden Planet‘s London branch.
So, to go back to the book itself, The Orphaned Worlds is a rip-roaring ride and we’ve had a lot of great review coverage from fans. We’re lucky to count the Guardian, Waterstone’s Books Quarterly and also SFX amongst those fans. Bloggers have also been very supportive and good things have been said by Bookgeeks (win a copy of the Orphaned Worlds comptition currently running) and Walker of Worlds.
We recently published the hardback of Changes by Jim Butcher, the latest instalment of the eagerly awaited Dresden Files series, and we’ve been blown away by the response so far. And to see what all the fuss is about, read a few chapters of the book here. Below is just a bit of the early praise this book has received as PI Harry Dresden, the only wizard in the Chicago phonebook, goes from strength to strength.
Fast-paced and compelling … Butcher throws one high-stakes curveball after another at his hero” Publishers Weekly
“Changes is a compelling installment in what continues to be an outstanding series … A can’t-miss entry in one of the best urban-fantasy series currently being published” Booklist(starred review)
“If you’re only going to read one Dresden Files novel, this is the one to read, as it’s got all the aspects that make the series great, with magic thrown around, lots of characters from both the worlds Dresden inhabits and wonderful pacing” TheBookbag.co.uk
“Changes is yet another excellent instalment in what is arguably the finest urban fantasy series being written at the moment” Bookgeeks.co.uk
“I am always delighted by these books and always taken by surprise but this one. Damn. Really that’s about all I have to say. This is a fantastic series with a brilliant lead and awesome cast of supporting characters” Un:bound blog
“It doesn’t stop til the OH MY GOD moment at the end of the book. It’s an emotional, engaging, gritty ride that doesn’t really let up apart from the laugh out loud sections that Butcher has such a talent for … Jim Butcher at his very best” Bookthing.co.uk
We also published Turn Coat just ahead of Changes, this being Harry Dresden’s previous outing. It was out in hardback last year, but SFX had this to say on release of the recent paperback edn “The Dresden Files are the best novels in the supernatural PI subgenre, and Turn Coat is more of the same — and a very welcome return it is too”. Here is a sample extract of this too for your delectation – and Harry Dresden will be back next year with Ghost Story!
Welcome back to your Monday morning installment of Orbit Cover Launch. This week I’m very excited to launch the cover of a brand-new book by science fiction great Greg Bear. Orbit is really excited to start publishing Greg Bear and we’re even more excited about starting with Hull Zero Three. It’s a fast-paced space thriller and a real page-turner. It’s definitely of the ilk of Aliens and Event Horizon, and I could totally picture it as a film as I was reading. It’s also a great place to start if you’ve never read Greg Bear before.
This cover was a little tough because although it does happen in space we didn’t want to give it that space opera kind of feel – it’s smart, but also much more immediate and suspenseful than operatic. It’s a much more in your face page-turning thriller, so I kind of tried to design a hybrid of scifi and big thriller book. The texture is SO much better in person, but for now you’ll have to make due with just a screen image. Read the rest of this entry »
FEED has arrived and with it all the zombie noshing, political savvy, and smart-assed badassery you can handle. This isn’t your parent’s zombie story, although we’re pretty sure Mira Grant knows where the bodies are hidden…
The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we had created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.
Now, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives– the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them.
It sometimes feels like you have to wait SO long from when a book is acquired until you can share it with other readers (probably because this process does take, oh, around two years…). But I am now delighted to say The Poison Throne (UK I US) was released this month at a bookstore or via an online retailer near you — and you can get an advance peek via an extract here!
We knew the author Celine Kiernan was chock-full of talent, and here are just a couple of quotes from a mountain of early praise.
“Marvellous, vivid writing, and story telling at its absolute best … I was utterly engrossed” Roddy Doyle
“Told with great assurance and attention to detail, this is an exciting, fast-paced story” SFX
“Atmospheric, complex, and intense … this epic starts strong and doesn’t falter” Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Eloquent, sharp and lush…set to surprise a lot of readers” SFRevu.com
And Celine has of course visited the Orbit site already, with her really insightful (plus amusing) article on the perils and wonders inherent in being translated, and she’s discussed our covers and what she makes of them, always an interesting subject. We’ll have more Celine Kiernan news in the form of a new and exciting competition which is a bit of an Orbit first, but news to come next week!
Ever think you know exactly how a character in a novel should sound? Think you could put on a good performance of playing that character yourself?
Well Jeff Somers has set up a competition in which you have the chance to do just that. For the official website of his next novel, The Terminal State (UK/ US), Jeff is creating four mini video clips to represent four different characters from his series. He’s already provided some superb images to depict the nature of each character, and mini excerpts from the book have been supplied as scripts.
All that’s missing is you - the reading public - to put on your best acting voices and provide voiceovers for the videos. Whichever voice clip that Jeff feels best represents each character will be used on the final site. Visit this site to hear some examples that Jeff has provided himself, such as the one below. There, you’ll also find more information on how you can get creative and start sending in your own voiceover submissions.
When Harlan Ellison was asked “Where do you get your ideas from?” he famously answered “Schenectady.” Ellison was commenting on the absurdity of pinning down a process as ephemeral, multi-dimensional and just plain murky as the origin of an idea. However, if the question had been modified to exclude the final word from the sentence then Ellison’s answer would work for me.
Author by Mohawk River in Schenectady
I’ve lived in Schenectady. It’s an industrial city on the Mohawk River in Upstate New York. It’s famous for being the site of the Schenectady Massacre of 1690, where French and Native American forces attacked the fledgling settlement at midnight, burning it to the ground and slaying sixty men, women and children who were still in their bedclothes, and also for being the place where Thomas Edison chose to headquarter his fledgling General Electric Company. Schenectady is built on land that was once the territory of the Mohawk nation, and its name comes from the Mohawk phrase, “over the pine plains.”
I wrote a great chunk of Watcher of the Deadwithin the city’s limits. And as the answer to the question, “Where do you get your ideas?” is always “Where I was physically located at that moment the idea occurred to me,” then my ideas are officially from Schenectady. Read the rest of this entry »
- - June 2nd, 2010
BLONDE BOMBSHELL is Tom Holt’s hilarious science-fictional debut and features one of the most fiendishly clever weapons of mass destruction you are likely to encounter. With the future of mankind possibly at stake, we did what any publisher would do. We asked the author some questions and then hid under a table.
We also published 
Ever think you know exactly how a character in a novel should sound? Think you could put on a good performance of playing that character yourself?
