In Their Own Words: Philip Palmer on DEBATABLE SPACE

Philip says:

Debatable Space pbSpace pirates, exotic aliens, battles in outer space, exploding stars, and characters we care about and love or hate (or both) and secretly or not so secretly want to be.

Those were the elements I wanted to include in Debatable Space. I think of it as a rocket fired through the reader’s imagination.

The several narrators of Debatable Space – the pirate crew who steal and pillage and murder and endeavour to save the universe – are like a family to me. Which means, sometimes annoying! But always my family.

And Lena is my favourite of all the characters I’ve ever created. She has many flaws, and one redeeming feature; she is vividly alive.

Debatable Space is Philip Palmer‘s gloriously mind-mashing debut space opera and is out now in paperback from Orbit UK and large paperback from Orbit US (the regular paperback will be published in the US on September 1st). Click here to read an extract.

You can catch up with the latest news from Philip Palmer at www.philippalmer.net, where he regularly blogs about his writing (screenplays and radio-plays as well as prose), the movies he’s seen, the books he’s read… all sorts of good stuff.

Orbit Links for August 08 2008

It’s the eighth day of the eighth month of the eight year of the century and the Olympic Games are kicking off (if that’s even vaguely the right term) in Beijing. But you guys don’t care about all that running and jumping and swimming and stuff, do you? No! What you really want is your weekly dose of Orbit Author links:

As ever and 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…)

P.S. A quick note on last week’s links round-up. I’m pretty sure I posted it at lunchtime on Friday, but at some point during the week it seems to have been relegated back to the bench and reverted to draft status. I’ve dug it out of the ‘pending’ file and reinstated it to its proper place, which would be here, in case you missed it… DT

Press Release – Orbit US

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Scoundrels! Grave-robbers! Spinsters! Heiresses! Hot on the heels of its decision to double the size of its list in the US, Orbit welcomes four new stars of fantasy fiction.

Orbit is pleased to announce the upcoming releases of four new books from four new stars of fantasy fiction: BEST SERVED COLD by Joe Abercrombie (June 2009); THE SAD TALE OF THE BROTHERS GROSSBART by Jesse Bullington (Sept. 2009); SOULLESS by Gail Carriger (Nov. 2009); and THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS by N.K. Jemisin (Sept. 2009). (more…)

Show your Facebook Fandom to win a copy of DEBATABLE SPACE

Debatable Space pbCalling all Facebook users: we’re running another ‘Sign up as a Fan’ competition through August, this time offering a chance to win one of a dozen signed paperback copies of Philip Palmer‘s wonderfully brain-mashing debut space opera Debatable Space [UK / US], which is officially out today in the UK and will be published in the US on September 1st (click here to read an extract).

The rules of the competition are simple: there will be four draws, taking place at lunchtime-ish (UK time) on Friday 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th August, with three copies of the book to be won in each draw. You’ll be entered for the draw if you’re a fully signed-up and confirmed Fan of Philip Palmer’s Debatable Space Page on Facebook at the time the draw takes place.

So there’s an obvious early-mover advantage to be had here: sign up as a Fan before tomorrow lunchtime’s draw and you’ll be entered in all four (which is also the case if you’re already a Fan, of course!)

Full rules, regs etc. (not that there’s really much more to add) can be found here.

So, what are you waiting for? Sign up for a chance to win!

In Their Own Words: Robert Buettner on the ‘Jason Wander’ series

Robert says:

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

What are the Jason Wander books about?

My inner teen thinks they are about cool stuff: hovertanks, dinosaurs, captured alien starships, firefights, swordfights, and cracking wise when authority least welcomes it.

Eisenhower addressing the D-Day troops

My inner grown-up thinks the books are about the distance between Eisenhower and the paratroops shown here, west of London on D-Day eve, 1944. That distance is an armspan across the grass of Greenham Common Airfield, but the journey of a soldier’s lifetime across the calendar.

Why do I think you’ll like them over there? I strive to write prose spare and funny enough to make readers smile, while jammed in middle airline seats, after twelve-hour days, with headaches.

Plus, there’s all the cool stuff…

Robert Buettner‘s Jason Wander series is officially published by Orbit UK on August 7th and all three books were published by Orbit US in April this year:

  • – 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 November 2008.

Image Credit: U.S. Army. “Dwight Eisenhower giving orders to American paratroopers in England.” 1944 June 5. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

Orbit Links for August 01 2008

Welcome once more, gentle reader, to our regular Friday links round-up. We have another choice selection of Orbit authors’ online activities for you to peruse this week:

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…)

Charles Stross interviewed for Agony Column podcast

SaturnCharles Stross features in the latest podcast from Rick Kleffel’s Agony Column, which is a recording of a Geekspeak interview that was broadcast on KUSP radio on Monday.

Rick and Charlie, along with Lyle Troxell and Sean Cleveland, talk about a wide range of topics, including Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein; two of the major literary influences on Charlie’s recently-released novel Saturn’s Children.

They then go on to discuss the building blocks of the milieu that Charlie explores in Saturn’s Children: artificial intelligence, a robotics-based and dehumanised future extension of human civilisation, interplanetary travel, space exploration (and the necessity for robotics therein), memory backups and personality duplication, the class-structure of robotic society in the book, the ethics of programming an artificial intelligence and a whole range of other great sf-nal subjects.

You can visit Rick Kleffel’s Trashotron site to read the intro to the podcast, and then download the MP3 file from a link in the text.