www.orbitbooks.net

I’ve just received my copy of issue 3 of Death Ray, a startup glossy SF magazine. It’s good to report that there are some nice reviews of Orbit UK titles, especially Allen Steele’s Spindrift — “an interesting, entertaining, well-told tale” — and Christopher Moore’s A Dirty Job, described as “an insightful piece on the nature of death, and grief, how we deal with such things and find the strength to go on. Christopher Moore is adept at making such points even while making the reader laugh out loud at the absurdity of life in general. And that’s his greatest strength.”

There’s also an interesting feature on the young adult/SF crossover, with contributions from Orbit’s Publishing Director Tim Holman and Editorial Director Darren Nash. And though we don’t publish either of these authors, I really enjoyed the extended piece on Neil Gaiman and a shorter article on Samuel R. Delaney’s Babel-17. Death Ray is available through newsagents in the UK, and readers in the US can find it at branches of Barnes & Noble and Borders.

This month, Orbit UK is extremely excited to be publishing Dark Space, the new start of a new series from Marianne de Pierres.

As a sharply written space opera, it’s something of a departure for Marianne, who until now has been best known for her near future thrillers. It’s great to be able to report that reviewers seem to agree: in particular, there’s a great review of the book in Hub Magazine:

“This is serious modern space opera, grappling with big themes and painting on a broad canvas with a great eye for detail, and readers of simple spaceship adventure stories may wish to pass this title by. On the other hand, readers who hunger for perceptive, intelligent and unflinching literary science fiction should seek this book out as soon as possible.”

Here’s the trailer, and there’s more on Marianne’s official website.

Ken MacLeod’s The Execution Channel is published by Orbit in the UK next week, but has begun to hit bookstores. There’s a great buzz building around it: in a five star review, The Bookbag says:

“The SF elements . . . are subtle and muted, but undeniably there. The feel of the book, however, is that of a tense spy thriller. Cleverly too, although violence is all around, we don’t meet much of it head on. It’s all in the background, adding to a feeling of threat and menace in a world that has become so immersed in power games and double bluffs it lacks even the semblance of a moral framework on which to stand. The Execution Channel was easy to read and difficult to think about. And it pressed every single one of my buttons.”

You can read the rest of the review here. More information about the UK edition of The Execution Channel is available here.