Orbit Links for September 26th 2008

Welcome once again to our weekly round-up of online Orbit author activity:

As always, if you see any online articles, reviews or interviews that feature an Orbit author, please feel free to drop us a line and let us know! We’ll happily name-check your website or blog with a heads-up credit in return (please remember to provide us with a link…)

2008 SFX Awards now open for online voting

The UK’s largest sci-fi magazine, SFX, has opened its annual reader’s poll – the SFX Awards – for online voting.

Along with all the film and tv-related categories, there’s also one for Best Novel and we’re delighted to note that three Orbit titles have been included in SFX’s drop-down selection of suggested titles:

  • Matter [UK | US | Aus] by Iain M Banks
  • The Escapement [UK | US | Aus] by K.J. Parker
  • Halting State [UK | Aus] by Charles Stross
Matter, by Iain M Banks, UK hardbackThe Escapement by KJ Parker, UK paperbackHalting State by Charles Stross, UK paperback

Visit the SFX website if you’d like to cast your votes for this year’s Awards.

Review round-up: Ken MacLeod’s THE NIGHT SESSIONS

The Night Sessions UK HardbackKen MacLeod is surely one of the most intriguing, astute and perceptive of the current crop of British science fiction writers and so it’s no surprise to see his latest novel, The Night Sessions being covered by a number of review venues.

In print: Eric Brown, writing for The Guardian calls it “a stunning indictment of fundamentalism of all kinds”. A review in SciFi Now said: “MacLeod spins a yarn that moves at a fast pace, and which doesn’t disappoint; exciting and intriguing, it keeps a consistent level of interest throughout its passage.”

BBC Focus called it: “A twisting conspiracy tale shot through with MacLeod’s gloriously mordant sense for the absurd.” And Lisa Tuttle, writing for The Times gives the book a brief mention in one of her regular science fiction review columns.

And online: Daniel Coysh, writing for the Morning Star Online, takes a close look at the book from a left-wing political perspective, concluding: “Once more, MacLeod delivers the goods in style and cements his position not only as one of science fiction’s most intelligent and politically conscious authors but also as a great writer who transcends the genre.”

Bloggers Gav at NextRead.co.uk and Doug at A Convenient Truth were both equally enthusiastic. Gav was suitably impressed by Ken’s pace and plotting, whilst Doug enjoyed the sense of thematic relevance and grim foreboding that Ken conjures up: “Nobody can read this book without a sense of foreboding, as so much of it feels painfully possible.”

You can get a feel for the opening of the novel by reading an extract from The Night Sessions here on the Orbit website. And do let us know if you’ve written a review, or spotted a new one online, by leaving a comment below…

Orbit Links for September 19th 2008

Arrrrrr me hearties! Cap’n Orbit here, markin’ International Talk Like a Pirate Day wi’ another fine haul o’ Orbit Author Links, plundered from the briny depths of T’Interwebs! Arrrrrr!

As always, if you see any online articles, reviews or interviews that feature an Orbit author, please feel free to drop us a line and let us know! We’ll happily name-check your website or blog with a heads-up credit in return (please remember to provide us with a link…)

Arrrrrr! ;)

Robert Buettner talks to ConceptSciFi.com, ORPHANAGE reviewed

We recently released all three books (to-date) in Robert Buettner‘s Jason Wander series in the UK (having first re-published them with new cover art in the US this April) and it’s lead to a definite resurgence of interest in the series.

Orphanage - UK editionOrphan's Destiny - UK editionOrphan's Journey - UK edition

Over at UK-based blog / webzine Concept SciFi, blogger Gary Reynolds has posted a detailed email interview with Robert, which covers a range of topics including the author’s inspiration for the series, his writing processes (“Compared to most writers, who are planners, I’m a duct tape improviser. I begin with an idea of where my story will end, and some idea of who will live it and how. But I don’t know exactly what has to happen next.”) and his current projects and plans for the future.

Meanwhile, over at Grasping For The Wind, John Ottinger has reviewed the first Jason Wander book, Orphanage [US / UK]. John explains that the book is a (freely-acknowledged by the author – see the ConceptSciFi.com interview, above) homage to Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and Haldeman’s The Forever War, but points out that Buettner also brings “post-9/11 sensibilities” to the classic ‘young man goes to war’ storyline. He also points out that whilst this isn’t a hard-sf novel, it’s a gripping and engaging one, summing it up by saying:

“Some suspension of disbelief will be required for those who like their science fiction to be based wholly in reality. But if you can let that go, you will end up with a deeply emotional and adventure filled novel of particularly high quality.”

We recently asked Robert to introduce the Jason Wander series in his own words, and this is what he told us.

The first three books in the series are currently available, as follows:

  • – Orphanage [US / UK]
  • – Orphan’s Destiny [US / UK]
  • – Orphan’s Journey [US / UK]

Book four in the series, Orphan’s Alliance is scheduled for publication by Orbit US in late October 2008 and Orbit UK in January 2009. Book five in the series, Orphan’s Triumph is currently being finished.

Iain M Banks Q&A III – Call for Questions

The one and only Iain M. Banks will be taking part in a third Q&A session via his official website in a couple of weeks’ time, and so a new call for questions has gone out.

If you have a burning question you’d like to put to the man himself – it can be something specific to one of his books, or a more general query about his writing habits, interests or influences – then here’s how.

The deadline for this round is Friday, October 3rd, so you’ll need to get your thinking caps on quick. And don’t forget to check out Email Q&A I and Email Q&A II to see what’s already been asked and answered. Follow-up questions are welcome, as long as they’re interesting…

Shannara, Star Wars and All That

The Gypsy Morph by Terry Brooks, UK hardbackYou say ‘to-MAY-to’ and I say ‘to-MAH-to’,
You say ‘shu-NAR-a’ and I say ‘SHAN-uh-ra’,
‘shu-NAR-a’ . . . ‘SHAN-uh-ra’,
‘shu-NAR-a’ . . . ‘SHAN-uh-ra’,
Let’s call the whole thing Geekspeak. . .

Behold! The Gods of Geek have seen fit to bestow upon me a brand new, super-shiny iPhone, and – lo! – I have become addicted to podcasts.

Hmm. So what does the above mock-portentous gibberish have to do with the ill-conceived George and Ira Gershwin pastiche that opened this blog post? I’m glad you asked! This morning on the train in to work, I passed the time standing up, plotting horrible deaths for the train company executives who can’t organise enough seats for paying customers listening to Terry Brooks discussing his career on Rick Kleffel’s excellent Agony Column podcast.

This particular episode is a ‘cast of Geekspeak, Santa Cruz public radio station KUSP’s live weekly show. Terry talks about how he got started as a writer, his Shannara series (the latest volume, The Gypsy Morph, is available now), Star Wars, writing the Episode One tie-in and a whole lot more.

Check it out here.

Philip Palmer talks DEBATABLE SPACE with ConceptSciFi.com

Debatable Space pbOver at his ConceptSciFi blog and ezine, Gary Reynolds has been talking to novelist, screen- and radio-writer Philip Palmer, author of the gloriously head-mashing space opera Debatable Space [UK | US] about a whole range of subjects, including (of course) the book itself, as well as Philip’s approach to writing, his techniques and processes and his experiences with writing and publishing.

Philip had the following to say on the subject of his love of science fiction:

“Science fiction is a genre that deals with exciting ideas. It’s about speculation and dreaming and imagining; and once you add real vibrant characters to that mix, it’s unbeatable.”

And in an update on his current projects, he drops a few hints about his next Orbit novel:

“I’ve just started a second draft of Red Claw, my latest Orbit novel, which is a high concept action thriller – think Predator on an alien planet and you pretty much have it. I wanted to do something exciting and visceral and also brainy … I also wanted to write a science fiction book in which the ‘science’ isn’t quantum physics or astrophysics, it’s biology. This is a book which brims with aliens of every sort, not just alien monsters – alien grasses, alien bugs, alien soil, alien plankton, alien everything.”

You can read the whole interview over at www.conceptscifi.com and find out everything you ever wanted to know (and a whole lot more) about Philip Palmer over at his blog/website www.philippalmer.net.