Author Archive

How to make a fantasy book cover: FADE TO BLACK

It’s finally here! Today is the release date for FADE TO BLACK (UK | US | ANZ) by Francis Knight, one of the most hotly anticipated fantasy releases of the year.

The illustrator for the covers of this series, Tim Byrne, did an awesome job representing the vertigo-inducing city of Mahala, the setting for FADE TO BLACK and all the Rojan Dizon novels. We asked Tim to go step-by-step through the process of creating such a cool image:

I started off by doing a very quick sketch of the cover to get an idea of how the perspective might work. I wanted to convey the extreme height of the city of Mahala and how it might be if you were at the bottom looking up. I nearly always start a cover by positioning the type – as once I know where and how that is sitting, I know how much space I have left for the rest of the image.

Sketch by Tim Byrne for FADE TO BLACK by Francis Knight, the first Rojan Dizon novel and a highly anticipated fantasy debut

Next I started blocking in the faces of the buildings/vertical streets using an image of a mud face that I had – which I repeated, scaled and distorted in order to get the perspective to work. This gave me a base on which to start adding bits of buildings and windows.

Stage 1 of a cover by Tim Byrne for FADE TO BLACK by Francis Knight, the first Rojan Dizon novel and a highly anticipated fantasy debut

(more…)

Cover launch! WITCH WRAITH by Terry Brooks

The new Uk cover for WITCH WRAITH, book three in the Dark Legacy of Shannara series by Terry Brooks - perfect for fans of Christopher PaoliniPresenting the brand new cover for WITCH WRAITH (UK | ANZ), the third and final volume in the Dark Legacy of Shannara series by Terry Brooks.

Shannara fans are getting a real treat this year, since they’ll be able to get hold of all three books in this new series by mid-summer. (Thanks Terry!)

Book 1 in this series WARDS OF FAERIE (UK | ANZ) is already out in hardback, but the paperback releases next week on 26th February.

Book 2, BLOODFIRE QUEST (UK | ANZ), releases hot on its heels in a few short weeks on 12th March, and volume 3, WITCH WRAITH, on 16th July this year.

It’s a far faster publication schedule than usual, because we know just how hard it is to have to wait for the next Terry Brooks!

For anyone who’s new to the entrancing world of Shannara, the Dark Legacy trilogy is a fantastic place to start. Find out just why Christopher Paolini says: “If you haven’t read Terry Brooks, you haven’t read fantasy“.

See all three of the skull-tastic covers of the Dark Legacy of Shannara in their full glory below! (more…)

My top six anti-heroes in film and literature

Yes, it was supposed to be five but . . .

I love an anti-hero. I think they appeal to my non-conformist nature – they tend to do what they want, as far as possible, even if it gets them into trouble. Plus there’s that whole bad-boy vibe and, very often, a darkly cynical sense of humour, which I am a sucker for.

So, that said, here’s a few of my favourites.

© AVCO Embassy Pictures
© AVCO Embassy Pictures

6. Snake Plissken (from Escape from New York). I mean, what’s not to like? Under a totalitarian government, he thumbs his nose at them and does what he wants for the most part, at least until he’s forced to do what “they” want. Weirdly – and perhaps essentially – he appears sometimes to have more morals than the “good” guys. It does not hurt that Kurt Russell looks good in leather.

5. Conan the Barbarian. Your classic anti-hero. He’s out for himself, always. He’s dark, he’s brooding, he’s itching for a fight. But if you’ve got a bad guy you want rid of, he’s your guy. Just don’t expect him not to ravish your girlfriend while he’s saving you.

4. Sandman Slim. You don’t get much downer and dirtier than the Sandman. His saving grace is, apart from his black humour, no matter how bad he gets, pretty much everyone else is worse. He’s on your side for the right price, but if he hates the guys you want dead, maybe you’ll get a freebie. Plus he has a nice little redeeming feature of falling hopelessly in love. Even men from hell just want a bit of lovin’.

© Walt Disney Pictures
© Walt Disney Pictures

3. Jack Sparrow. He lies and cheats and steals, but he doesn’t hide it, he flaunts it. But of course he’s a pirate, and who hasn’t wanted to throw off the yoke and just sail about doing whatever you felt like, especially if it involves a bit of swashbuckling and derring do? Again, crucially, he has morals. They just aren’t quite the same as everyone else’s. (more…)

The challenges of building a vertical city

While world-building a city is an exercise in imagination, it’s always preferable, I think, to make sure you’re grounded in at least the basics of reality.

It’s possible to make buildings that can support many, many levels, so why not a city that can do the same? It takes a little extra forethought and planning perhaps. In the case of Mahala, it didn’t start off meaning to grow up, that’s just the way it happened. They ran out of room sideways, so they began building up. While this is fine to start with, just building as and when, at some point things are going to start to collapse under their own weight. Not to mention other considerations, such as “what do you do with all the waste?”.

isbn9780356501666-detailSo at some point in the past, well before the story of Fade to Black starts, a bright mage-king decided it was time to sort it all out. A superstructure was grafted on to what already existed and gave a backbone for more and bigger buildings. As Mahalians are well known for their inventiveness and ingenuity, it wasn’t just any old superstructure – the steel was strengthened to withstand almost anything. Archive details are hazy, but it seems likely that magic was involved in this – in those days magic was involved in everything. The only thing the superstructure couldn’t withstand, so it turned out, was mages. But never mind, the resulting Slump made a handy dumping ground for bodies, especially when space for crypts was at a premium.

A second problem was light – once you go up far enough, light is at a premium at the bottom. That same thoughtful mage-king made sure that even the poor sods far below his sun drenched palace got at least a minute of daylight a day by the cunning installation of lightwells and mirrors to bounce all that light around, and I’m sure everyone was jolly well grateful.

(more…)

Ian Tregillis in conversation with Charlie Stross on The Laundry Files

The Coldest War - the second novel in the Milweed Triptych following BITTER SEEDS, a fantasy series featuring superhumand and dark magic, and earning comparisons with Charles Stross's Laundry Files novelsThis week sees the release of THE COLDEST WAR (UK | ANZ) , the second novel in Ian Tregillis’s landmark series, the Milkweed Triptych. The trilogy began with BITTER SEEDS (UK | ANZ) and concludes with the forthcoming NECESSARY EVIL (UK | ANZ).

These novels feature a secret history of Twentieth Century conflicts in which scientifically-enhanced superhumans and dark magic collide. The result is described by Fantasy Faction as ‘oh-so compelling, fascinating and frighteningly convincing’ and by Cory Doctorow  as, ‘some of the best – and most exciting – alternate history I’ve read. Bravo.’

The Apocalypse Codex, a Landry Files novel by Charles StrossIt’s possible to draw a few parallels between the themes in the Milkweed novels and Charles Stross’s highly popular Laundry Files (including the recent THE APOCALYPSE CODEX – UK | ANZ) – a series of science fiction spy thrillers featuring Bob Howard, once an IT geek, now a field agent working for a British government agency dealing with occult threats. They’re what SFX calls ‘beautifully handled, believable and well envisioned – a highly enjoyable bit of spy-fi.’

For that reason we were really interested to hear these two exceptionally clever Orbit authors in conversation about their series. The results are below!

Ian: In an afterword to THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES (“Inside the Fear Factory”) you mention that while writing the first Laundry novel you were advised to avoid Tim Powers’s novel DECLARE.  And that later you were made aware of the Delta Green supplement to The Call of Cthulhu RPG, which again resides in a similar neighborhood.

Bitter Seeds - the first novel in the Milweed Triptych, a fantasy series featuring superhumand and dark magic, and earning comparisons with Charles Stross's Laundry Files novels(After BITTER SEEDS debuted, people assumed I had been influenced by DECLARE, Delta Green, *and* the Laundry novels!  But, like you with DECLARE, I wanted to avoid cross-contamination. So I didn’t dive into THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES until after I turned in THE COLDEST WAR, at which point I was 2/3 through the Milkweed trilogy and the story was on a ballistic trajectory.)

But of course even Powers wasn’t the first to marry espionage and the occult – Dennis Wheatley’s novel THEY USED DARK FORCES first appeared in 1964, and Katherine Kurtz‘s LAMMAS NIGHT was published in 1983, as just two examples.

In the above-mentioned afterword, you make a strong case for why it’s natural to blend horror, the occult, and espionage.  So is this an idea that’s continually bubbling into the aether to be rediscovered by other writers?  Or have we reached the point where we’re having a conversation within an actual subgenre?

Charlie: It is indeed an actual subgenre! Or maybe a sub-subgenre: a corner of that section of urban fantasy that is preoccupied with the interaction between agents of the state and the occult. (more…)

Petrovitch is back! Presenting THE CURVE OF THE EARTH

The Curve of the Earth, a science fiction adventure novel set in the Philip K. Dick award-winning world of the Samuil Petrovitch novels - perfect for fans of Richard Morgan Coming up in March is something we’ve all been waiting for: a new novel in the mind-blowing Philip K. Dick Award-winning Samuil Petrovitch series by Simon Morden.
THE CURVE OF THE EARTH (UK | US | ANZ) is a pure hit of adrenaline-filled science fiction goodness. It features everyone’s favourite foul-mouthed, bad-tempered, cybernetically-enhanced, AI-implanted, sociopathic, mad Russian genius Samuil Petrovitch.

This novel is a great place for anyone new to the Petrovitch novels to start. If you’re a fan of the likes of Richard Morgan and his classic novel Altered Carbon (another Philip K. Dick Award winner) then this is certainly for you.

THE CURVE OF THE EARTH is set 10 years after the previous three Petrovitch books ended (EQUATIONS OF LIFE, THEORIES OF FLIGHT and DEGREES OF FREEDOM) and features more high-octane action in the gritty world of the Metrozone – a dangerous post-apocalyptic London full of crooked cops, mad cults and gun-toting nuns.

This story will again see Petrovitch come head-to-head with those people he just loves to hate: Reconstructionist America. But this time he’s on a trip to the frozen slopes of North Alaska to find out what’s happened to his adopted daughter Lucy…

See the blurb below and Prepare to be Petrovitched. (more…)

EXILES, Uplift and a message to any lurking aliens out there

Exiles, an omnibus edition of the Uplift Storm Trilogy containing Brightness Reef, Infinity's Shore and Heaven's Reach by the Hugo, Locus, Nebula and Campbell award-winning science fiction author David BrinToday Orbit UK is proud to release EXILES (UK | ANZ), an omnibus edition of the critically acclaimed science fiction trilogy, the Uplift Storm series by David Brin. It contains BRIGHTNESS REEF, INFINITY’S SHORE and HEAVEN’S REACH.

These novels, like all books in the multi-award winning Uplift universe, revolve around the theme of biological “uplift” – which is where one species genetically enhances another species to make it sentient.

The intergalactic civilisation called the Five Galaxies is made up of a multitude of sentient races, with each species having its own “patron” race, responsible for uplifting it. But it’s a mystery why humanity seems to be the only species in the universe that hasn’t been uplifted by another patron race . . .

This theme seems to reflect many fundamental questions we have about our own existence. Why do we appear to be alone in the universe as the only form of intelligent life? And if there are other intelligent life forms out there – how will they view us?

Being an active member of SETI, the organisation which conducts scientific research on life in the universe, David Brin is very qualified to talk on this subject. I thought Orbit readers might be interested to read David Brin’s recent post “An Open letter to Alien Lurkers”. It’s his plea to intelligent alien life forms to make sure they don’t get the wrong end of the stick about us humans. To paraphrase a few of the messages within this great piece:

—> If you’ve been monitoring humans’ TV, radio and internet for years now – please be reassured: we’re not all THAT crazy, violent or extreme. Our fiction exaggerates our actions, and our news just covers the bad stuff. But most of us are actually quite relaxed, stable, peaceful beings.

—> If you’re seeing us as dangerous competitors – please don’t. The more civilised we get, the more we realise that competition and cooperation aren’t mutually exclusive. We might be able to add something to the galactic community – and a little bit of competition is always healthy. So please can we talk about it before you either overlook us or blow us to smithereens?

—> If the reason you haven’t contacted us yet is because you’re waiting for us to reach some milestone level of cilivisation, then please could you give us a helping hand with this? We’re very keen to learn!

Trust me, it’s very worth checking this brilliant piece out.

EXILES (UK | ANZ) is the final in a number of beautiful reissues we’ve produced for some of David’s most prestigious and best-known titles, to celebrate the release of his recent masterpiece EXISTENCE (UK | ANZ). All of these books can be seen below in their full glory.

New covers for some of David Brin's most classic and award-winning science fiction novels : UPLIFT (containing Sundiver, Startide Rising and The Uplift War), Exiles (containing Brightness Reef, Inifinity's Shore, Heaven's Reach), The Postman, Earth and Existence

SEVEN KINGS – epic fantasy with a capital EPIC

Seven Kings, the second novel in John R. Fultz's Shaper series, an epic fantasy series of huge proportions, perfect for fans of Dungeons and DragonsToday is the worldwide release date for the SEVEN KINGS (UK |US | ANZ), the masterful second book in the Shaper series by John R. Fultz.

Starting with SEVEN PRINCES (UK |US | ANZ), this whole epic fantasy series really made a big impact on us here in Orbit. It’s crazily imaginative, powerful, energetic and so damn enjoyable.

We loved an io9.com review which said:

‘Breakneck pacing and nonstop insanity . . . It’s epic with a capital EPIC’

. . . as that just about summed it up for us.

With giants walking alongside men, monstrous serpents wreaking havoc and kingdoms doing battle with sorcery, we think this is ideal for anyone who likes their fantasy big, epic and about the ultimate clash between good and evil.

Whilst in some ways the series could be said to hearken back to the “old school” or “traditional” type of fantasy, in many other ways we really felt this series was one of the most original we’ve read in years – having a beautifully lyric, mythical tone and what we considered to be a very unique, distinguished style.

Seven Princes, the first novel in John R. Fultz's Shaper series, an epic fantasy series of huge proportions, perfect for fans of Tolkien and Dungeons and DragonsWe were really interested to hear about how this style of writing came about. So we asked John what the influences behind his series were:

I could write a whole book answering this question, but I’ll try to contain myself.

Lord Dunsany was perhaps the inventor of the modern fantasy tale. His work never ceases to inspire me, and his novel The King of Elfland’s Daughter is an immortal classic. His gift for speaking with clever metaphor and concise imagery is stunning, even a hundred years later. Fantasy writers should study his works the way classical composers study Mozart and Bartok.

I’m also a big Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft fan, but Clark Ashton Smith is my favorite of the old-school Weird Tales writers. In my opinion Smith invented the whole dark fantasy genre. He had the lost cities, the sorcerers, the creatures from beyond space and time, the mummies, the vampires, the decadent dying empires of Zothique and the primordial ooze of Hyperborea. (more…)

Cover launch! BEFORE THE FALL by Francis Knight

The cover for BEFORE THE FALL, book 2 in Francis Knight's debut fantasy series, the Rojan Dizon novels - perfect for fans of Scott Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora and Douglas Hulick's Among ThievesI’m delighted to unveil the cover for BEFORE THE FALL, the second novel in the Rojan Dizon series by the debut British fantasy author Francis Knight.

This superb new fantasy series kicks off at the end of this February with book 1, FADE TO BLACK (UK | US |ANZ). BEFORE THE FALL will follow in June 2013, and the final book in the trilogy, LAST TO RISE, will be out in November 2013.

I’m just loving the design for these books, created by the very talented illustrator Tim Byrne. The crazy, dizzying perspective on the covers really sums up just how mind-warping and unusual the city feels in the books.

The series is set in the vertigo-inducing fantasy world of Mahala, where the streets are built upwards from the shadow of a steep valley. While the dregs of society lurk in the city’s shadowy depths, the sinister Ministry rules over everyone from the privileged sunlit summit.

The novels feature the reluctant hero Rojan Dizon, a mage whose power relies on drawing magic from pain – both his own and other people’s. His powers are officially forbidden, but it turns out that he’ll have to use them if this city’s going to survive. And only one thing’s sure: it’s going to hurt.

We’ve all been raving about this series here in Orbit, as we really think it’s one of the top fantasy debuts to look out for this year. If you enjoy fast-paced adventure fantasy, such as Scott Lynch‘s Lies of Locke Lamora, Douglas Hulick‘s Among Thieves or even Ben Aaranovitch‘s Rivers of London, then this will be up your street.

Check out both covers in full below, and look out for the books later this year! (more…)

HITCHERS by Will McIntosh – be careful who you give a ride to . . .

Hitchers, a chilling supernatural/horror tale about the dead coming back to haunt the living, from the Hugo Award-winning Will McIntosh, author of SOFT APOCALYPSE, Bridesicle and LOVE MINUS EIGHTYThis month Orbit UK digitally released two titles from an award-winning author. I can honestly say that these two novels have affected me so deeply, stayed with me so long, that I just want everyone to read them. EVERYONE. So it’s just darn lucky I work in publishing, meaning I can actually help bring these books to you . . . (And yes, this is the best job in the world).

The Hugo Award-winning Will McIntosh has already talked about his debut science fiction novel SOFT APOCALYPSE here, so today I wanted to focus on his other title released this month – HITCHERS.

HITCHERS is a hard book to define. Part horror story, part contemporary supernatural tale, part post-apocalyptic adventure, part touching tale of grief and redemption. But ALL compulsively readable. Chilling, amusing, sad, creepy, gripping, and deeply, deeply affecting.

To start with, the book has just about my favourite prologue ever. Read it here, and see a brief excerpt below:

“You don’t think she’ll get fired, do you?” Lorena had asked drowsily as we drifted. “I didn’t mean to get her in trouble, even though she was incredibly rude to me.” She was still ruminating about the argument she’d had with our waitress at the Blue Boy Diner. I was ruminating about the argument I’d had with my grandfather that morning, which had far greater implications for our future.

What I didn’t know at the time was that we had no future. We had about twenty-five minutes.

Someone is about to die . . . and this opening sets up one of the most fantastically-crafted and creepy tales you’ll read. In fact, in not too long, a terrorist attack is about to wipe out half the population of Finn Darby’s home city.

With all this destruction around, it’s expected that everyone would be pretty upset. But what isn’t expected is the mass phenomenon that starts to occur after the attack. People start to blurt out voices beyond their control. They appear to be taken over by a sinister unknown force, and can do very little about it. What’s so disturbing is that these voices sound freakishly similar to the voices of the recently deceased, that somehow the dead seem to be “hitching” onto the living . . .

If I say much more then I’ll be giving away too much, but what I really want to get across is how  addictive this book is, how intelligent and multi-layered the writing, how intriguingly unsettling Will McIntosh’s view of the afterlife, how heart-wrenchingly attached you’ll become to his characters.

***

Love-Minus-Eighty, a tale of love, loss and technology 100 years in the future,, from the Hugo Award-winning Will McIntosh, author of SOFT APOCALYPSE, HTICHERS and BridesicleSo the moral of the story is – you need to read this (and that’s not even with my publishing hat on).

You also need to look out for LOVE MINUS EIGHTY, which will be a big worldwide release from Orbit next summer.

And you also need to put pressure on Film4 to make sure that they actually make a film out of the rights they optioned for ‘Bridesicle’, the Hugo award-winning short story that LOVE MINUS EIGHTY is based on, because it would make the best, most wonderfully weird, chilling and entertaining movie ever.

Get mobilised people – let’s make this happen.