This edition contains the three titles The Spirit Thief, The Spirit Rebellion and The Spirit Eater – all in one handy volume and topped off with this gorgeous packaging from Sam Weber (see this great post here showing him at work in his studio on these very illustrations).

Take a minute to stop by Rachel Aaron’s attractive new site, where’s she’s posted some very interesting tidbits recently, such as this fantastic book trailer put together by our friends at Orbit France for the très sophistiquée French version of The Legend of Eli Monpress. Also, check out this extremely creative pictorial review for The Spirit Thief, part one of the Legend. Good effort!

Read on for the blurb and some great reviews:

Eli Monpress is talented. He’s charming. And he’s a thief.

But not just any thief. He’s the greatest thief of the age – and he’s also a wizard. And with the help of his partners – a swordsman with the most powerful magic sword in the world but no magical ability of his own, and a demonseed who can step through shadows and punch through walls – he’s going to put his plan into effect.

The first step is to increase the size of the bounty on his head, so he’ll need to steal some big things. But he’ll start small for now. He’ll just steal something that no one will miss – at least for a while.

Like a king.

Aaron’s outstanding fantasy debut is the first in a trilogy about unrepentant thief Eli Monpress . . . Fast and fun, Spirit Thief introduces a fascinating new world and a complex magical system based on cooperation with the spirits who reside in all living objects. Aaron’s characters are fully fleshed and possess complex personalities, motivations, and backstories that are only gradually revealed . . . Highly recommended for all fantasy readers. – BOOKLIST

Witty, smart, snappy, sassy, fast, furious and let’s not forget fun . . . Rachel Aaron isn’t so much knocking at the door as kicking it down – TOM HOLT

The Spirit Thief is a delightfully giddy romp of a novel – KAREN MILLER

Wry humour, engaging characters and full-tilt action - GAIL MARTIN

 

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I admit I was a bit terrified to show these to Joe…these covers have more in common with movie posters than most covers in the fantasy section…and Joe is a really savvy author on visuals — he’s had a lot of different styles, and he’s not afraid to give his opinion. And I was in love with these, which makes it even more stressful showing the author. So what did he say?

“It’s got attitude, it’s got individuality, it’s got big forearms.”

More from Joe (and big cover shots…and animated process covers! ) after the jump…

“In your face.  I take absolutely all the credit I can possibly get for these, of course, but of equally course, I don’t deserve any of it, for they are the brain child and indeed work of the Art Director at Orbit, Lauren Panepinto, and my US editor Devi Pillai.  The treatment was basically for something reminiscent of modern sports photography – high contrast, high detail, high drama, fast shutter speed, frozen action.  A filmic approach, you might say, and I think they’ve totally nailed it…In summary they look like tough, edgy, very modern, kickass action fantasy for the discerning man or woman of today.  Which of course is what they are.”

Whew! Joe will be posting more of his thoughts about this new direction on his blog, but in the meantime…

So since these are reissues, I’m not going to put teaser text here but you can read excerpts from THE HEROES and BEST SERVED COLD at those links…

Can’t wait to here what you all think! Comments below…

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Last year, Mira Grant landed on the science fiction scene with a bang. A great big zombie-filled bang called FEED. Since then, she’s had a very good year. She won the John W. Campbell award for best new writer (as Seanan McGuire). FEED was named one of NPR’s top 100 Killer Thrillers and the winner of Goodreads’ 2010 reader’s choice award. Now, FEED has been nominated for the Shirley Jackson award and is a candidate for the Hugo Award in the Best Novel category.

DEADLINE, book two of the Newsflesh trilogy, picks up where FEED left off. Early reviews are ecstatic and at BEA fans were lined up an hour ahead of time to get their hands on a signed DEADLINE.

DEADLINE is out now. To check out sample chapters head over to Facebook to read the first two chapters. Follow Mira Grant at @seananmcguire on Twitter and check out the Feed site to learn more about the series and the world at http://www.theFEEDBOOK.com

Script by Mira Grant, design/animation by Lauren Panepinto, Audio by Matt Schwenker

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Then someone forced me to drink several cups of strong black coffee, put me in a warm bath, stroked my hair for a few minutes, and suggested perhaps they meant to reference good action movies. Something from the Bruce Willis oeuvre, perhaps. Or some classic Steve McQueen. I mean, if you’re trying to say that my books are like Steve McQueen jumping the fence on his motorcycle in The Great Escape, well, okay then. Tantrum regretted.

What’s interesting about living in the modern world is that we’re a bunch of people who have never lived without films, for the most part. You can no longer really write a novel without having movie conventions and styles in your head. I have no idea how people imagined things before movies. Even if you somehow avoid imagining things as movie scenes in your head as you write, your readers will no doubt do that heavy lifting for you, friend. You can’t win. All you can do is try to imagine a really good movie version of your story as you write. As opposed to, say, something by Uwe Boll. I know at least that for every line of the THE FINAL EVOLUTION I wrote, something like this was happening in my head:

The Avery Cates novels are set in an unspecified future that in my head isn’t too far off. Far enough for the entire world’s geopolitical face to change, but hey, let’s face it: We’re one oil shortage and famine away from that happening, so it might not be that far away. Heck, I think if the next iPhone is delayed a few months the Western world might be engulfed in riots and revolution. It’s that easy. That’s why I’ve built a huge bunker under my house and filled it with cans of tuna fish and plastic bottles of water.

But I digress.

There may, someday, be a film version of the Avery Cates books. I for one cannot wait, because of the immense bar debts and medical and legal bills my adventuresome boozing has generated. Aside from the riches, however, this makes me ponder the films with which the eventual Cates films will be compared to: Near-future Sci-Fi films. Most of these are rubbish, of course, and the Cates films will rise above them easily. The Cates novels rise above most of them despite a complete lack of special effects budget. There are, however, a few that will give us stiff competition:

Blade Runner: This is assumed, as one can imagine that I wrote the Cates novels after ingesting several bottles of whiskey and watching Blade Runner about 50 times. The way Earth is portrayed wordlessly conveys hundreds of pages of exposition in a few tight shots, and every misery inflicted upon the inhabitants seems like an organic outgrowth of seeds planted in the 20th century. Although it also an abject lesson in how slowly the world actually changes: No flying cars yet.

Children of Men: Aside from the fact that I want to hire Clive Owen to read me stories every night before bed, this film is one of the best visions of a near-future dystopia ever conceived and filmed. Instead of indicating Future!Future!Future! via horrifying fashion and architecture that could never happen, it simply sets up a horrific scenario and then imagines the fallout of that scenario with intricate, consistent detail. And, epic tracking shots. Epic, epic tracking shots. There’s more back story and exposition in the background images of these shots than in the dialogue.

A Clockwork Orange: Stanley Kubrick messed with my brain several times in my life. After watching A Clockwork Orange when I was a teenager I lost the ability to speak for several weeks. This movie always finds me and pins me down because it’s really not about technology or any fundamental change: People are already brutal and horrifying, which is why I never leave my house. You could remove every single SFnal detail in the movie (and the book, actually) and the story would be as insanely terrifying as it is today. Because we are one Milk Bar away from this actually happening.

Sleeper: Woody Allen is going to be one mysterious bastard to the Alien Archaeologists who come to pick over the charred remains of this planet someday. When he released Sleeper he was still mainly known as a comedian, and was years away from the Oscar-tinged perch he resides in nowadays, casually casting every working actor in Hollywood as his avatar and then writing scripts in which they have sex with the most beautiful actresses of the moment. Sleeper is hilarious because instead of taking every thread of misery and extrapolating it into a horrifying future, he takes every thread of the ridiculous and extrapolates into a horrifying future. The topical references are a bit stale these days, especially a sequence in which Woody, as an “expert” from the past, glibly fabricates explanations for random television clips Future Scientists have been puzzling over, but it remains more incisive and interesting than most “serious” takes on the near-future.

Strange Days: This is a Movie that Time Forgot. A great movie that time forgot. Although it’s not explicit in the film, I always imagined that the horrific dystopia shown in the movie is actually the result of the illegal technology that allows people to record their own experiences and let others play them back, so you can experience exactly what they did from a perfect first-person POV. The implications of such technology are only hinted at — the pornography produced in such a world would have the potential to end human society entirely — but even the small amount demonstrated is powerfully attractive and repulsive at the same time. Imagine being able to re-live moments from your own life, perfectly, whenever you wanted. Imagine being able to live moments from someone else’s life, any time you wanted. This is also perhaps the last time I actually enjoyed Ralph Fiennes on screen, but that’s a whole other matter.

As for what to do about my competitors, I’m not sure. Certainly, I can simply wait for the inevitable collapse of civilization and assume that post-apocalypse there won’t be any way for folks to watch these films. But that will also mean no one can watch the eventual Cates films either, unless I dedicate a portion of my bunker to a screening room, which would naturally become the basis of a new post-apocalyptic religion. Since any other option sounds like an awful lot of work, I think I’ll go this route, which allows me to sit here and drink, waiting for the end. And in preparation for my novels’ new status as religious texts, I’ve prepared the following to be played endlessly in the bunker:

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So I have written before about how I love the Simon Morden trilogy that has started hitting shelves. Samuil Petrovitch is my favorite kind of snarling sarcastic anti-hero, and a genius rocket scientist to boot. My kind of guy. And I especially love Orbit for letting me be a bit daring with the cover design and rock these really graphic optical illusion covers.

So what you don’t know is that the initial design was even crazier. I wanted to hide the cover text IN the optical illusions. Slight legibility problem, I admit, for a teeny book cover…but FABULOUS for a poster. And since I know you guys love these how-to videos, I screen-captured my process so you too can make your own Editable-Text Optical Illusion Poster…and melt the retinas of all your friends. After the jump you can even download the Illustrator file I used, and add your own text.

Click HERE to download the poster file (Adobe Illustrator or comparable vector program required.)

And make sure you go HERE and enter to win one of ten posters we’re giving away!

Last but not least, don’t forget to pick up EQUATIONS OF LIFE (out now), THEORIES OF LIFE (out in May) andDEGREES OF FREEDOM (out in June)…don’t you love the 3-in-3 month trilogies? Instant gratification…

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So in this trailer for The Fallen Blade, we’re taking you there…

You can read the first chapter here.

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Greg Bear is one of the most well-known and beloved writers in the genre and I am delighted to announce the publication of his latest novel, HULL ZERO THREE. Set in the darkest, coldest reaches of space, this is the story of one man who wakes up cold, alone, and confused on a starship that seems to be determined to kill him.

For a glimpse into the harrowing life of a resident of Ship, see our video record, carefully reconstructed in machinima for your edification:

“…A menacing wonderland of a ship…” — Marc Laidlaw

“Hull Zero Three is a lean, mean, supercharged sense-of-wonder engine.” — Alastair Reynolds

“Hull Zero Three is a grand adventure of scientific discovery … by turns chilling and touching, it poses challenging questions about what it means to be human.” — Charlie Stross

“Greg Bear’s voice is a resonant, clear chord of quality binding some of the best SF of the 20th Century to the short list of science-savvy, sophisticated, top-notch speculative fiction of the 21st. More than a grace note, Hull Zero Three is a compelling allegro in the growing symphony of Greg Bear’s finest work.” — Dan Simmons

“Not for those who prefer their space opera simple-minded, this beautifully written tale where nothing is as it seems will please readers with a well-developed sense of wonder.” — Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“I loved Hull Zero Three – this book reminds me of why I fell in love with science fiction in the first place. Searing questions of humanity, a good old fashioned riddle of a plot, and excellent conceptualization make Hull Zero Three more than worth the effort.” — thebooksmugglers.com

“One of Bear’s most thought-provoking and well-crafted novels to date.” — Booklist

Read a sample here. Or, go to your local Starbucks, grab a coffee, and read the whole book on their free wifi!

HULL ZERO THREE is out today! Go to your favorite bookseller and pick up a copy!

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We’ll be posting a video response to some of your questions later in the week.

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