February 2-4th: SFX Weekender
This convention in Prestatyn Sands, North Wales, will play host to several Orbit authors. Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Benedict Jacka, Michael Cobley, and Ken MacLeod will all be on panels and signing books (full schedule) — and we will have exclusive early copies of MacLeod’s Intrusion and Jacka’s Fated available.  Plus, our own Anne Clarke will appear on the “How to Get Published” panel on Friday evening.

Saturday, February 4th
Gail Z. Martin at B&N Carolina Place Mall, Pineville, NC, 1 PM.
Mira Grant (with Stephen Blackmoore) at Borderlands Books, San Francisco, CA, 3 PM.

Friday, February 10th
Gail Z. Martin at B&N Morrison Place, Charlotte, NC.

Saturday, February 11th
Gail Z. Martin at Books-a-Million Concord Mills, Concord, NC.

Wednesday, February 15th
N.K. Jemisin (with Livia Llewellyn) at KGB Fantastic Fiction, New York, NY, 7 PM.

February 17-19: SheVaCon
Gail Z. Martin will be at this science fiction convention in Roanoke, VA.

Thursday, February 23rd
Kate Griffin & Benedict Jacka signing advance copies of their new books (both being published in March) at Forbidden Planet, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, 6pm

February 24-26th: MystiCon
Gail Z. Martin will be at this SFF and horror convention in Roanoke, VA — including a launch party for The Dread in the con suite at 7 PM on Friday.

Saturday, February 25th
Gail Carriger as keynote speaker at the inaugural Passion & Prose Conference, Long Beach, CA.
Walter Jon Williams at Page One Bookstore, Albuquerque, NM, 7 PM.

Sunday, February 26th
Gail Carriger at SF in SF, San Francisco, CA, 1 PM.
Gail Carriger at Borderlands Books, San Francisco, CA, 6 PM.

Monday, February 27th
Robert Jackson Bennett at Book People, Austin, TX, 7 PM.

Wednesday, February 29th
Yes, it’s a leap year! Gail Carriger will be kicking off her tour for Timeless at Powell’s Books at Cedar Hill Crossing, Beaverton, OR, 7 PM.

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The Mystery Writers of America announced their nominees for the 2012 Edgar Award this morning, and Robert Jackson Bennett’s The Company Man (US | UK | ANZ) will be on the ballot for ‘Best Paperback Original’!

This comes on the heels of The Company Man‘s Philip K. Dick Award nomination, and almost exactly a month before the release of Robert’s new novel, The Troupe (US | UK | ANZ). The Troupe  follows 16-year-old piano prodigy George Carole and the mysterious vaudeville troupe he runs away to join, whose performances have a strange effect on their audiences. George gradually realizes the troupe is not simply touring: they are running for their lives.

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The award will be presented by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust to the winner at Norwescon in Seattle on Friday, April 6, 2012. The full list of nominees appears below.

• A Soldier’s Duty by Jean Johnson (Ace Books)
• After the Apocalypse by Maureen F. McHugh (Small Beer Press)
• Deadline by Mira Grant (Orbit)
• The Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit)
• The Other by Matthew Hughes (Underland Press)
• The Postmortal by Drew Magary (Penguin Books)
• The Samuil Petrovitch Trilogy by Simon Morden (Orbit)

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The Troupe

I’m going to write more about the process and how I got to the final design. But since we’re so excited about launching the cover, here it is today!

After the jump see the cover full-size with a teaser…

Here’s a description for you:

George Carole ran away from home to join the Vaudeville circuit. Sixteen years old, uncommonly gifted at the piano, he falls in with a strange troupe – strange even for Vaudeville.

Under the watchful eye of the enigmatic figure of Silenus, George comes to realize that the members of the troupe are more than they appear to be. And their travels have a purpose that runs deeper than entertainment.

George must uncover the mysteries of Silenus’s Company before it is too late. He is already entangled in their web of secrets and if he doesn’t learn where they are taking him, he may never find his way out.

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Mr Shivers, the critically acclaimed horror debut from Robert Jackson Bennett, is released in paperback today. Chronicling one man’s journey through the Depression blighted Texan Dustbowl in search of the mysterious, scarred vagrant who murdered his daughter, the book is a must read for fans of old school horror, literary dystopia or anyone looking for something to knock their socks off this autumn. To celebrate the paperback release of Mr Shivers we have 10 copies of the book to giveaway.

If you caught the paperback cover launch back in July (or Mr Shivers in hardback) you’ll already be familiar with hoboglyphs, the ingenious system of symbols developed as a means of coded communication by the scores of homeless men and women who rode the rails across the US during the Great Depression. You’ll also be familiar with the awesome ‘Orbit original’ hobogylph for Mr Shivers himself which takes centre stage of the paperback cover. (See also exhibit A, a handy symbol sheet starring all of the hoboglyphs that appear in Mr Shivers, above!)

Now, as you can imagine, since discovering hoboglyphs we have found all kinds of uses for them. In fact, in open plan offices such as ours, we even went so far as to create a few glyphs of our own painstakingly crafted to covertly share highly confidential information vital to survival of day-to-day Orbit life (click on an image to enlarge):

BE PREPARED TO STIR TEA WITH MAKE SHIFT SPOON

GOOD SLEEP HERE

THIS MEETING ALLOWS ALCOHOL

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning a copy of Mr Shivers (the book called ‘Supremely chilling’ by the Daily Mail, ‘a deft amalgamation of thriller, cerebral horror and American gothic’ by the Guardian, and ‘like a collaboration between Stephen King and John Steinbeck . . .’ by Publishers Weekly) is to create a modern hoboglyph of your own and send it in to us at the usual address orbit@littlebrown.co.uk. Please send glyphs to us by midnight GMT on Sunday 3rd October including the title Mr Shivers Paperback Giveaway in your email subject line.

Your glyph can take the form of a warning, a direction, or any general piece of information you think needs to be communicated covertly. You can chalk it on the pavement and take a photograph of it, paint it on a piece of paper and scan it in, charcoal it onto the side of a local freight train (rubbing it off said freight train once you have taken the picture and sent it to us of course). All glyphs must be accompanied by an explanation. Profanity will not be accepted (who are we kidding?) Have fun!

Mr Shivers is available now from Orbit US|UK. To read a first chapter extract click here.

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It’s very noir, a retro-futuristic, some gumshoe detective, and of course a horror story, all rolled into one. Here’s a description:

A trolley car pulls into the station with eleven dead bodies inside. Four minutes before, the inhabitants were seen boarding at the previous station. All are dead. And all of them are union.

The year is 1919. The McNaughton Corporation is the pinnacle of American industry. They built airships that cross the seas. Guns that won the Great War. And above all, the city of Evesden. But something is rotten at the heart of Evesden.

Caught between the union and the company, between the police and the victims, Hayes must find the truth behind the city before it kills him.

Although I didn’t want to make The Company Man look like a sequel, I definitely wanted to tie them together in feel. They have the same strongly historical feel (although different historical periods), and the same sense of decay:

Out now in Hardcover, out in Paperback September 2010

Out October 2010

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‘Mr Shivers is a startling début, a deft amalgam of thriller, cerebral horror and American gothic’ Guardian

You can read an extract here.

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