- The Orbit Team - March 12th, 2013
A new season of books is inbound, and it sure looks like it’s going to be an exciting one! Here’s the first crop of covers from the Fall 2013 – Winter 2014 season. We’re still putting the finishing touches on a few more, but you’ll be seeing them soon.
Because the smaller scale doesn’t do any of these fantastic covers justice, click on the images below to see a larger version. So pin, tweet, and comment to your heart’s content and tell us which books are already on your “Must have!” lists!
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by The Orbit Team • 10 Comments • Posted in: Art, Covers, Orbit US
- The Orbit Team - March 12th, 2013
Spring is almost here but we’re already looking forward to summer and autumn 2013! That’s because we’ve got some amazing books coming up for the rest of this year with freshly designed covers to share with you. This isn’t our whole list of published titles for the year – just the covers we think you might not have seen before.
Click on the individual cover images below to see the larger version and let us know your favourites!
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by The Orbit Team • 1 Comment • Posted in: Covers, Orbit UK
author post
Album artwork for Opheliac by Emilie Autumn. Image from emilieautumn.com
I don’t know about other authors, but for me the process of writing a book has always included music. Music provides so much inspiration for me, can really help in capturing the tone or feel of a scene – or an entire book! There are songs that have come to be so associated with one of my stories that I can’t listen to them without thinking of the characters the lyrics have come to represent.
I came into my teens in the 80s – I do not feel that old! – the decade of the music video. I remember seeing ‘Thriller’ for the first time, and staring slack-jawed at the TV as this amazing story played out in front of me. Aha’s ‘Take On Me’ is still one of my all-time favorite videos. The merging of music and story took hold of me and refused to let go.
The first book I ever wrote (I was 12 so be kind!) was about a rock band. OK, it was about Duran Duran, but I changed the names. Over 300 pages of angst and music – I even wrote lyrics, which were awful. To this day, if a song grabs my attention I’m going to think of a story to go along with it – my own little music video playing inside my head. It doesn’t matter if it’s Nine Inch Nails, Bon Jovi or Alice Cooper, if it catches my attention, I’m going to find the plot and play it out in my head.
So, it shouldn’t surprise you that the Immortal Empire has a soundtrack behind it. As I plotted and planned, and then began to write, I actually embarked upon a quest to find the the perfect music. I wanted something that was modern, but would make me think of the Victorian Era as well. Then, I discovered Emilie Autumn and I knew I’d found my soundtrack. Not just my soundtrack, but a target audience. At this point I wasn’t certain my weird little book would be of interest to anyone, but then I visited Emilie’s fan boards and realized that there were people out there who would like this sort of book.
I could ramble on and on about music and how it inspires me, and how I’m making a jacket to wear to Emilie’s next concert in New York with all the glee of a 14 year-old dying her bangs to match John Taylor’s, but I think I’ll share some of my playlists with you instead. Here are just a few songs (in no particular order) that I listened to while writing these books. Will they make you think of various scenes or characters in the Immortal Empire? Oh, I’m not going to list songs from LONG LIVE THE QUEEN – I don’t want to give anything away! Read the rest of this entry »
by Kate Locke •Post a Comment • Categories: Ebooks, Fiction, Guest Post, New Titles, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US • Tags: 30 Seconds to Mars, Belly, Coheed and Cambria, Collide, Emilie Autumn, Garbage, God Save the Queen, Hannah Fury, Hierosonic, Kate Locke, Kerli, Long Live the Queen, Nine Inch Nails, Opheliac, Soundtrack, The Breeders, The Immortal Empire, The Queen is Dead, The Used, Tokio Hotel, urban fantasy, Victoriana, Victoriana-punk
- Ellen Wright - February 6th, 2013
A little late this month, but here’s what Orbit authors will be up to for the rest of February!
February 6 (today!): Jesse Bullington at Tattered Cover, Denver, CO, 7:30 PM
February 7: Miles Cameron at the Book Lover’s Ball, Toronto, ON
February 8-10:
Gail Z. Martin at ShevaCon, Roanoke, VA
Amanda Carlson at Olde City, New Blood, St. Augustine, FL
February 15-17: Jaye Wells at Con DFW, Addison, TX
February 15: Gail Z. Martin at Books-a-Million Cotswold, Charlotte, NC, 1 PM
February 16: Gail Z. Martin at B&N Carolina Place Mall, Pineville, NC, 2 PM
February 19: Kate Locke at John Fluevog Shoes for “Shoepunk: Fashion and Fantasy,” New York, NY, 6:30 PM
February 22-24: Gail Z. Martin at Mysticon, Roanoke, VA
by Ellen Wright • Post a Comment • Posted in: Events, Orbit US
author post
THE QUEEN IS DEAD (US | UK | AUS) releases officially today and if you thought GOD SAVE THE QUEEN (US | UK | AUS) was good, wait until you read this next installment of The Immortal Empire series. If you’re new to these, get ready for a modern day London unlike our own in so many fun and mysterious ways. But you might be wondering how it got that way. To fill in the gaps, Kate Locke has written up an alternate timeline of notable events in the world of the Immortal Empire. So get ready. Get set. This is not your average history lesson, boys and girls.
…
February 5 2010 – Vex MacLaughlin spies a grown Xandra Vardan for the first time at a society function. Sources claim to have overheard Churchill telling the Scottish wolf to stay away from his ‘dear girl.’
March 27 1937 – The corpse of Human League activist and German painter Adolf Hitler was found in his home almost completely drained of blood. The killer was never found.
April 4 1968 – Popular British TV show ‘Coronation Street’ introduces it’s first Half-blood character, Nancy. The daughter of a working class couple who had no idea that both of them carried the plague from long-dead ancestors. Nancy’s look was based on model Jean Shrimpton, and her iconic violet hair was said to be inspired by an Andy Warhol painting of Marilyn Monroe.
April 16 2012 – Sid Vicious released his Frank Sinatra tribute album and dedicated it to his wife Nancy.
May 24 1819 – Her Ensanguined Majesty Queen Victoria was born. Her parents knew she was a vampire the moment she bit her nurse.
June 3 2001 – Bertie, Prince of Wales is named one of the world’s ‘sexiest men’ by People Magazine. His mother, Queen Victoria is not amused. Werewolf Alpha Vex MacLaughlin is also mentioned. He was decidedly amused.
June 3 1990 – Courtesan Juliet Claire is attacked and bitten by a were while pregnant with the Duke of Vardan’s eldest daughter.
July 13 1971 – A pink-haired half-blood named Locke was mistakenly admitted to Bedlam Asylum for the Insane when she began to rant about the voices in her head. The poor soul wasn’t mad, she was just an author. Though, some would say the two are synonymous.
August 21, 1765 – The Duke of Clarence born the first goblin of the Royal Family. His mother, a strong woman by all accounts, fainted at the sight of him.
September 17 1982 – Miranda Windsor crowned the first aristocrat Miss America. She was also Miss Congeniality.
September 30st 1972 - American toy company Mattel introduces it’s ‘Vampire Barbie’. A half-blood Skipper and Werewolf Ken follow.
October 12 1905 – Exotic dancer Mata Hari becomes mistress to Bertie, the Prince of Wales.
November 8 1847 – Birthday of Bram Stoker, who would be exiled from the UK because of his scandalous depiction of vampires in his novel Dracula.
December 18 1990 — Alexandra Vardan born. Long may she reign.
…
Want to know more? Kate Locke elaborates in this article on RT Book Reviews.
by Laura Fitzgerald •Post a Comment • Categories: Guest Post, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US • Tags: God Save the Queen, Kate Locke, Steampunk, The Immortal Empire, The Queen is Dead, urban fantasy
- Laura Fitzgerald - January 25th, 2013
Xandra is back next month in the next installment of the Immortal Empire series! THE QUEEN IS DEAD (US | UK | AUS) will knock your spats off when a new threat to kingdom and crown rises up and Xandra and her family find themselves again at the heart of the matter.
The first chapter can be found here, but if you haven’t read GOD SAVE THE QUEEN (US | UK | AUS) yet, HOLD UP! There are some major spoilers ahead. So do yourself a favor and start with GOD SAVE THE QUEEN – a unique blend of urban fantasy and Victorian flare. Check out some of the great praise these novels have received.
Praise for the Immortal Empire series:
“Locke has developed an intricate and darkly political world that has various races on edge and on the verge of confrontation. Packed with knife-edged danger, treachery and murder, nothing is simple, as Xandra quickly learns. Although it certainly helps to have read the first book in Locke’s Immortal Empire series, readers can pick up the story from here. If you like your steampunk gritty and challenging, this is the series for you!” – RT Reviews on THE QUEEN IS DEAD
“Readers will be intrigued by the author’s original take on the origins of vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures and their interactions with “normal” humans. Rapid-paced action and an original interpretation of goblins (they are not J.K. Rowling’s cranky, clever, gold-centric goblins) add much to differentiate Locke’s fantasy from the rest of the pack.” – Library Journal on GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
“This is truly a book to sink your teeth into.” – SF REVU on GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
by Laura Fitzgerald • Post a Comment • Posted in: Extracts, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US
- Ellen Wright - December 13th, 2012
The long-awaited day is almost here! In a few short hours, The Hobbit will be hitting the silver screen. To mark the occasion, we decided to ask several of our Orbit authors with recent and upcoming books what Tolkien’s The Hobbit has meant to them. We hope you’ll also share your own story in the comments below, and if any of you are going to the movie in costume, we’d love to see pictures!
…
I was introduced to The Hobbit and to Lord of the Rings in high school by the same friend who got me into Dungeons and Dragons (gee, think there was a connection?). While I had been a Star Trek and Star Wars fan for a while, and had read a few sci-fi novels, I had never read anything with the scope of The Hobbit and LOTR. I was totally hooked, and I credit it with giving me another nudge toward growing up to write epic fantasy.
Gail Z. Martin, author of ICE FORGED (US | UK | AUS)
I have to admit a shameful secret — I was a late bloomer as far as Tolkien is concerned. While I knew of his work, I’d never read any of it until I was 25. I was introduced to the incredible world of Middle Earth by my then-boyfriend (whom I later had the good sense to marry), Steve. My older sister is a fantasy and science-fiction fan. Without her I don’t think I would have developed a love for either genre. She has in her possession, an illustrated, hard cover, gorgeous edition of The Hobbit that I … liberated from her library for a brief time. Steve couldn’t believe I’d never read it, so it then became a ‘thing’. Every night one of us would read The Hobbit to the other. Mostly he read to me, because he would comment on things characters did, make up voices, and basically make the entire experience wonderful because of his love for the story.
Now, 25 wasn’t yesterday, but there are things about The Hobbit that linger for me. As a small-town (I’m talking mud puddle small) girl, I instantly related to Bilbo. In fact, I’m pretty certain my maternal grandmother was a hobbit. Poor Bilbo was so outside his comfort zone, but he found so much courage inside himself. Who wouldn’t love such a character? Of course finding ‘the’ ring was a big moment in literary history, but I remember the trolls more than the ring. I remember loving the character Beorn, even though I can never remember his name. And despite having a deep-seated crush on Richard Armitage, I think I’d love Thorin no matter who played him, because his character was just so… great. Of course, who can forget meeting Gollum for the first time? In the end, The Hobbit is — literally and figuratively — all about the little guy taking on seemingly insurmountable problems to triumph at the end. But there’s a cost. There’s always a cost. I think what I took away from The Hobbit are two lessons I try to remember in my own writing — 1: It’s the journey, not the destination, and 2: Bittersweet endings are sometimes better than happy ones. Oh, and I guess there was a third as well, though it doesn’t apply to writing – second breakfast is the most important meal of the day. :-) Thank you, Mr. Tolkien.
Kate Locke, author of THE QUEEN IS DEAD (US | UK | AUS)
I can’t recall how or why I first picked up the Hobbit – I suspect one of my brothers left it lying around. I can recall how it inspired my son into reading voraciously, something he still does even now he’s a teen. It was the first proper book he’d ever read on his own, and it was that and the new and unexplored vistas that utterly captivated him.
For years afterwards, every book report that he could get away with was on the Hobbit. Every book he read was compared to it, and most often found wanting. He reads, I sometimes think, to try to rediscover that sudden realisation that the world is a different place, that things and people are strange. He reads because he wants to fall for a world, a story, the same way he did with Middle Earth. It was his first literary love.
As legacies go, I think that’s the best one to hope for – Bilbo and his friends inspired my son to read.
Francis Knight, author of FADE TO BLACK (US | UK | AUS)
The Hobbit is, more or less, the distillation of the purest, deepest of wish of the child (or of any adult who still has a spark of curiosity smoldering away in them, for that matter): the wish that one day, while you’re bumbling through your silly little routine, adventure will walk right up your front path, knock upon your door, and refuse to be turned away.
When I first read the Hobbit, I yearned so much for the leafy, cool shadows of Middle Earth that one summer, in an attempt to recreate that world, I carried a hefty bag of wax myrtle seeds to my grandmother’s house – for she had a much bigger yard than ours – and planted them all over her property, as well as the piney properties of the people on either side of her. Wax myrtles, as it turns out, can be wildly invasive, so within several years the damn things were popping up everywhere; but by then, unfortunately, I was a bit too old to enjoy them properly. I still hope that some child may come along, rest in their shade, and feel, for an instant, a bit more hobbity than before.
Robert Jackson Bennett, author of AMERICAN ELSEWHERE (US | UK | AUS)
In a word, what The Hobbit means to me is Fantasy, with a capital F, for the same reason that The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy means Science Fiction in Bullingtonese—my parents had book-on-tape versions of those two novels when I was a kid, and long before I even understood most of what was going on in the stories, I adored the broad strokes and general cadence of the narratives. The Hobbit was actually a radio play version produced by the Mind’s Eye in the late seventies, and to this day I can’t talk about the book without imitating some of the silly voices that imprinted the text on my young brain.
When I was older and read the book on my own I was delighted to discover all the content which had been abridged from the radio play, but my progression to The Lord of the Rings was not met with the same enthusiasm—I found it a colder, less-engaging read. Although with age I’ve grown to appreciate a lot about the trilogy, its epic, fate-of-the-world action and dully black-and-white ethics can’t hold a light of Earendil to The Hobbit’s comparatively small-scale adventures and petty moral dilemmas, at least for this particular Sackville scribe. Like many of my peers, I owe a great debt to Tolkien; he still has a lot to teach, both by his strengths and his failings, and The Hobbit is the text of his that keeps pulling me back, even after all this time, and always with a smile on my face.
Jesse Bullington, author of THE FOLLY OF THE WORLD (US | UK | AUS), available now
by Ellen Wright • 3 Comments • Posted in: New Titles, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US
- Ellen Wright - October 9th, 2012
Orbit is going to New York Comic Con! We’ll be in the Hachette booth, #1027, with giveaways, raffles, and several author events, so be sure to stop by if you’re in town. Here’s the schedule of events:
Friday, October 12
1 PM: Kate Locke signing GOD SAVE THE QUEEN @ booth 1027
4 PM: Nicole Peeler signing TEMPEST’S FURY and TEMPEST RISING @ booth 1027
4 PM: Senior editor Devi Pillai will be on the panel “Publisher’s Paradise: Adult Publisher Spotlight” in Rm. 1A06
Saturday, October 13
12:15 PM: Nicole Peeler will be on the panel “Myth Mixology: How Urban Fantasists Create the Perfect Cocktail” in Rm. 1A08
1:30 PM: Creative director Lauren Panepinto will be on the panel “Ladies Who Steam: The Publishing Industry on Women in Steampunk” in Rm. 1A01
Sunday, October 14
11 AM: Michael J. Sullivan will be signing THEFT OF SWORDS @ booth 1027
4 PM: Michael J. Sullivan will be on the panel “The Brave New World of E-Book Publishing” in Rm. 1A07
We’ll also be running raffles every day of the convention, with prizes including books by Gail Carriger, Joe Abercrombie, Iain M. Banks, and Rachel Aaron. See you there!
by Ellen Wright • 2 Comments • Posted in: Conventions, Events, Orbit US, Signings and Events
- Lauren Panepinto - July 26th, 2012
Hey Ladies and Gentlemen, fans of all things Steampunk and Vampiric and Victoriana: for your device’s pleasure we have made you some fantastic God Save The Queen wallpapers! Please plaster across all your screens and enjoy at your leisure. We have also started making facebook timeline headers for your social media adornment!
For more info on the making of the cover, please stay tuned for a behind the scenes video of the photoshoot coming soon!
1024 x 768 | 1280 x 800 | 1440 x 900 | 1680 x 1050 |1920 x 1200 | iPhone | iPad | Facebook
by Lauren Panepinto • Post a Comment • Posted in: Art, Covers, Orbit UK, Orbit US, Wallpaper
author post
God Save the Queen (US | UK | AUS) is about vampires, goblins, werewolves, humans and in-betweens. It’s about politics, power and loyalty, with a healthy dose of sex and blood tossed in for good measure. It’s set in a world where the Victorian Era never ended, and the Black Death ironically created an immortal aristocracy.
It also never would have been written without tea and Duran Duran.
When I was but a babe in the wilds of rural Nova Scotia, the first hot drink I remember having was not hot chocolate, but tea. Tea, it was understood, fixed everything, complimented all food groups, and had magical properties. We brewed it by the bag if we had to, but the norm was to toss a handful of leaves into a pot, add hot water and spend the rest of the day picking the bloody things out of your teeth. My mother read tea leaves. In fact, she was quite well known for it. She said the leaves in the bottom of my cup told her I was going to be a writer (she also told me they said I’d meet John Taylor, but more on him later). People came from all over to have her read their leaves. Some of them came back every freaking week, eager to hear what she saw in the bottom of their cup.
I wondered if perhaps she should buy stock in Red Rose.
My mum passed away a year and a half ago. She never did buy stock in Red Rose tea, but she passed on her knowledge of the leaves, and when I have a cuppa, I almost always think of her. I also think of her whenever I see Victorian clutter, pink Christmas tree ornaments, big hats and Grisly Adams (don’t ask). Anyway, tea remains an important part of my life and my career. I feel I must also acknowledge Mum’s love of the supernatural as well, because this apple certainly didn’t fall far when it comes to things that lurk in the shadows. My mother also made up bedtime stories for me, and sometimes we’d plot them together.
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by Kate Locke •4 Comments • Categories: Guest Post, Orbit Australia, Orbit UK, Orbit US • Tags: God Save the Queen, Kate Locke, Steampunk, The Immortal Empress, urban fantasy, Xandra Vardan
