Category: Uncategorized
- The Orbit Team - May 11th, 2011
The Locus Science Fiction Foundation have put up their list of nominees for the 2011 Locus Awards. Iain M. Banks (US/UK) has been nominated for Best SF Novel. Charles Stross (UK) has been nominated for Best Fantasy Novel. And N.K. Jemisin (US/UK) seems hellbent on getting on every major award list with a nod for Best First Novel. Congrats as well to Joe Abercrombie (US) for his nomination in the Novelette category.
And, finally, congrats to us for being nominated for Best Publisher!
Check out the whole list here!
by The Orbit Team • 1 Comment • Posted in: Orbit UK, Orbit US, Uncategorized
- Anna Gregson - May 11th, 2011
Tech news site The Register recently held a poll to ask readers which SF book most deserves to make it to the big screen, but has up until now been shamefully overlooked by the Hollywood bigwigs. An impressive 27,088 people voted, and the winner - with a stunning 10,032 votes - was Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks.
It seems Iain is a popular choice, with Consider Phlebas, Excession, The Player of Games and The Algebraist all also making it into the top 50. But Use of Weapons was the clear favourite.
So what more evidence does Hollywood need? It’ll be a sure fire hit – get it into production straight away!
You can see the results of ‘The Best Sci-Fi Film Never Made’ poll right here. But the question is: who should play the leading man Zakalwe…?
by Anna Gregson • Post a Comment • Posted in: News, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US, Uncategorized
- Anne Clarke - May 10th, 2011
Congratulations to Trudi Canavan for hitting the Sunday Times top ten fiction list last weekend – and we’ve just heard today that The Rogue will be in the Sunday Times top ten again this week too! To celebrate, here’s a round-up of her action-packed tour so far…
After a busy launch day and extended signing session in London’s Forbidden Planet last Thursday, Trudi was whisked away to sunny Dublin on Friday morning. First stop was Eason’s, who had this fantastic window in place…
…and a full house of over 80 fans for the evening event. Trudi read a passage from the book, did a Q&A, and then some signing:
On Saturday there was a quick run around some of the other stores, signing stock including pre-ordered dedications for her fans who couldn’t be there to meet her in person. After a lot more signings and interviews Trudi even managed to squeeze in a little sightseeing before flying back to London, where she has spent the afternoon today in the Orbit UK office doing a ‘twinterview’ with Waterstones – see #tcav on Twitter for the final list of questions and answers. Now our Marketing guys are making her answer yet another set of questions, after which we will be releasing her for a well-deserved evening off!
Thank you to all Trudi’s fans who have already been to an event or followed the interview on Twitter – and if you haven’t caught her yet, check the tour dates via the link on the right of this page to find out where she’ll be next.
by Anne Clarke • Post a Comment • Posted in: Fiction, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US, Signings and Events, Uncategorized
- Anne Clarke - May 6th, 2011
The lovely Trudi Canavan arrived in London this week, and her UK tour kicked off yesterday in style with a welcome glass of bubbly at the Little, Brown office, where she was ambushed by a flurry of inhouse fans eager for her to sign their copies of her newly published hardback The Rogue (which she did, very graciously) followed by a jampacked signing at Forbidden Planet in London. Here’s how the evening went in photos:
Pre-mayhem pose in Forbidden Planet, just before we let in the hordes:
Hope your arm doesn’t fall off, Trudi – the queue doesn’t look like going down any time soon . . .
And here’s your first fan:
We’ve never had a request for an author to sign a Kindle before, but last night not one but two superfans were delighted when Trudi agreed to do just that – in permanent silver marker!
A close-up of the freshly autographed Kindle:
Finally, here’s a posh arty pic of Trudi signing a non-digital book:
All in all it was a great evening – over 200 books signed for the extremely happy fans, Trudi was touched and delighted to see everyone, and it was the best possible start to her first major UK and European tour. Trudi is off to Ireland today for some events in Dublin, then back to England next week where she will be meeting fans at Costa Coffee in The Peacock’s Centre, Woking on Monday 9th May at 7pm – tickets are still available from Waterstone’s Woking. She will also be on twitter for a Waterstone’s ‘twinterview’ at 4pm on Tuesday 10th May. Just tweet your questions using #tcav and there are signed copies of The Rogue for the best questions!
For a list of all Trudi’s other UK events, just click here or click the link on the right hand side of this page to find the one nearest you.
by Anne Clarke • 2 Comments • Posted in: Fiction, New Titles, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US, Signings and Events, Uncategorized
author post
Certain times of the year I have odd dreams. Just about the time I’m drifting off to sleep, I find myself in an outdoor tea party. You know the type. There are all these women in sleeveless dresses in spring colors that match the tasteful mid-heel pumps they are wearing. In the corner, over by a small fountain, a group of middle aged (like me) women are talking. I can’t hear what they are saying, but their harsh, high-pitched laugh rings through the garden.
“Oh,” I think, stirring in my bed and opening my bleary eyes. “The coyotes are singing us to sleep.”
They sound like the ladies in my dreams. Their laughing voices aren’t beautiful or powerful, the way a wolf’s is, but they are incredibly cheerful. There are several dens of coyotes who live in the field behind our house, eating the mice who live in the nearby orchards and vineyards. The pioneers used to call coyotes “prairie song-birds”. I keep their voices in my head as I write about my little coyote shapeshifter. There are other voices I hear as well.
In the remote valley my husband’s family used to live in, we would listen to the coyotes sing early in the evening. They were answered by any dogs nearby (usually the only ones in hearing range belonged to us). Then a lone voice would sound through the trees, maybe from miles away because that’s how sound carries out in the wilderness. And all the other noise would cease. Not a dog or a coyote would answer — only the wolves.
My poor words cannot convey the eerie majesty of their song. Safe on the porch of the big log house, we humans would smile as the wolves serenaded us. But we knew that if we’d been out walking in the dark woods, our reactions would have been a lot different. The songs of the wolves didn’t often last very long. Just a few minutes. When they were done, sometimes a single coyote would call its defiant, laughing answer before slinking off into the darkness.
*
Patricia Briggs is a bestselling urban fantasy author who’s perhaps best known for her Mercy Thompson series. This features the feisty Mercy Thompson who is a mechanic, a coyote shapeshifter and possesses a powerful sense of curiosity that sees her getting into more than her fair share of supernatural trouble.
by Patricia Briggs •1 Comment • Categories: Guest Post, Uncategorized • Tags:
- The Orbit Team - April 18th, 2011
Orbit Short Fiction officially launches today and we have a shiny new website to prove it. Stories published today come from Mira Grant, T.C. McCarthy, Jennifer Rardin, and Jaye Wells.
All stories are available widely from ebook retailers in the US (and further afield soon).
Enjoy!
by The Orbit Team • 1 Comment • Posted in: Orbit US, Uncategorized
author post
Epic fantasy is back. Peter Jackson brought out an unprecedented work of filmmaking with the Lord of the Rings films. HBO is rolling out Game of Thrones based on the books of George RR Martin, the man dubbed “the American Tolkien” by Time magazine. The publishing industry is generating a huge number of similar titles by people like Pat Rothfuss, Joe Abercrombie, Brandon Sanderson, and – putting too fine a point on it – me, many of which are showing up on the bestseller’s lists.
The faux-Medieval world of dragons and knights seems like an odd genre to have caught our collective attention, but I think you can gauge a cultural moment by its guilty pleasures. The same way that our huge romance industry tells us something about our fears about love, and urban fantasies like True Blood and Anita Blake tell us something about our discomfort with femininity and power, the knights and orcs that got us laughed at in middle school are attracting literally billions of dollars. That means something interesting has happened.
We as a culture are anxious about something, and these particular stories comfort us. They say something that we, the audience are willing to pay a lot of money to hear but from a distance that we can stand to hear it.
In particular, our two Tolkiens are telling us that we’re tired of war. Read the rest of this entry »
by Daniel Abraham •14 Comments • Categories: Guest Post, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US, Uncategorized • Tags:
- Anna Gregson - March 29th, 2011
THROUGHOUT THE CAPITAL, THE SIGNS ARE APPEARING
THE APOCALYPSE IS ALMOST HERE
AND WHAT WILL REMAIN IS THE LONDON METROZONE
WE STRONGLY ADVISE THAT YOU MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE INZONE
INDIVIDUALS LEFT IN THE OUTZONE WILL NOT BE GRANTED CITIZENSHIP
BORDERS WILL SOON BE CLOSING
FOR INFORMATION ON HOW TO GAIN ENTRY, VISIT THE NEW OFFICIAL WEBSITE HERE
by Anna Gregson • 1 Comment • Posted in: New Titles, News, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US, Uncategorized
- James Long - March 18th, 2011
The UK’s premier fantasy and science-fiction magazine, SFX, has recently launched its 2011 Blog Awards. Rubbing shoulders with other nominees for ‘Best Celebrity Blog’ – a list that includes such luminaries as Neil Gaiman – is none other than Orbit’s very own Kate Griffin, author of the much-acclaimed Matthew Swift novels A MADNESS OF ANGELS, THE MIDNIGHT MAYOR and THE NEON COURT.
Be sure to check out Kate’s blog, which is a fascinating mix of writing anecdotes, tales of her experiences working in theatre and ruminations on how it feels to be up against Sir Terry Pratchett in the ‘best novel’ category at the SFX Awards . . . and if you enjoy what you see, feel free to vote for Kate in the ‘Best Celebrity Blog’ category!
Speaking of THE NEON COURT, its publication last month was met with widespread acclaim:
‘Few can claim to share the same level of creativity and individual style as Griffin, who at her young age, and expressing this level of assured skill, is almost certainly set to become a leading voice in the genre.’ SCIFI NOW
‘Overall the book reads like a hybrid of Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden stories and early Christopher Fowler: there’s a wisecracking, beaten-up, powerful hero, but also a real love of London, down to its grimiest corners and most dimly-remembered legends.’ SFX
‘Great pace alongside a plot outline to keep you going to the last line . . . this series really has got a lot more potential to evolve into something entirely unique. A real joy to read and I really can’t wait for the next instalment.’ FALCATA TIMES
And if you’ve not yet delved into Kate Griffin’s magical, murky London – why not? – then perhaps this article by Orbit author N. K. Jemisin will convince you.
by James Long • Post a Comment • Posted in: Awards, New Titles, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US, Uncategorized
