The Free-willing Brian Ruckley

Brian Ruckley

There’s a fascinating interview with Brian Ruckley over at Grasping for Wind that covers the role of fate in Winterbirth.

“…I (in my infinite wisdom) had a pet theory that there were too many fantasy stories in which prophecies of one kind or another were central drivers of the plot (this was quite a long time ago – there are fewer of them around these days. Prophecies have gone out of fashion a bit.). I figured that every time a prophecy shows up it raises an obvious question about the role of free will in all these imagined worlds, since it at the very least implies an element of inevitability about what’s going on.”

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More, more, more Dresden Files!

Orbit UK are so keen on this fast-paced supernatural detective series that we have just acquired two more books. Currently so far in the future that they now have the catchy titles of Dresden Files Books 12 and 13, they will probably take us up to 2013 or so. Excellent news for all Dresden-philes(!)

In the rather nearer future, White Night is out in paperback in January 08, then we move to two editions as Small Favour starts out in hardback a few months later. Harry Dresden will be a busy wizard. Not to mention Jim Butcher’s workload of course.

Ian Irvine’s quest for world domination . . .

We’d just like to report that this particular quest might actually be over . . . We’ve just heard that Ian Irvine now has over a million books in print around the world, and would like to add our happy congratulations!

Ian’s latest book with Orbit in the UK is adding to the aforementioned domination this month: The Curse on the Chosen is the second book in an impressive fantasy trilogy set within his Three Worlds Cycle. It deals in corruption, despair and, ultimately, hope and is also a fabulous epic read!

Oooh, and news just in – Ian’s gearing up for a new quest – to reach a million copies with his Three Worlds Cycle alone. Luckily he hasn’t got far to go.

World Fantasy 2007

This year, World Fantasy was at Saratoga Springs, New York. It was a lovely town upstate and I, for one, had forgotten what trees looked like!

Attending the convention was Orbit from both here and across the pond: Tim Holman, Publishing Director (US & UK); Darren Nash, Editorial Director (UK); George Walkley, Business Manager (UK); Alex Lencicki, Marketing and Publicity Director (US); Jennifer Flax, Editorial Assistant (US); and me (Devi Pillai, Editor, US)!

Some of our lovely authors also attended: Marie Brennan, Robert Buettner, Jo Graham, Karin Lowachee, Jennifer Rardin, Lilith Saintcrow, Jeff Somers and Walter Jon Williams. It was also great to see Daniel Abraham and Scott Bakker from Orbit in the UK.

Friday

The Orbit team took an early train fortified with plenty of Dunkin Donuts coffee on Friday morning. Our car, fully packed for World Fantasy, included: Diana Gill of Eos, Anne Sowards and Jessica Wade of Ace and Roc and Rome Quezada of the Science Fiction Book Club.
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A Very Jaz Parks Halloween

Happy Halloween from everyone here at Orbit! In honor of this most scary holiday, Jennifer Rardin, author of Once Bitten, Twice Shy (US / UK ) and the upcoming Another One Bites the Dust, has written us a Jaz Parks treat!

Taking Out the Trash: A Jaz Parks Mini-Mission

The demon appeared just as the president’s psychics had predicted, clattering from the furnace of the deserted glass blowing studio. He saw us immediately, targeting him with the only weapon that would vanquish him. A bazooka whose charges were packed mainly with shredded law books. Apparently to this devil, justice was a killer.

“Wait!” he squeaked. “Avarice! Apartheid! What the hell is the word!” He banged his knobby knuckles against his forehead so hard they left red marks.

Vayl and I traded puzzled looks as he screamed, “I’m not the one you want! Please!” He went to his knees, probably staining his white pants. Since it was Halloween, it made sense that he wore a sailor suit. And people might actually buy that his bulbous nose and square, yellow teeth were part of a mask—if he survived the night. It was our job to see he didn’t.
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Review Round-Up

Another One Bites the DustAnother great review for Jennifer Rardin, as LoveVampires is calling Another One Bites the Dust:

Fast-paced, exciting and entertaining . . . recommended reading. It has mystery, spies, mad villains, romance, humour and vampires. Really, what’s not to like?

In other kick-ass vampire news, check out the interview they did with Charlie Huston, whose latest novel, No Dominion, is described by The Gravel Pit as:

[A] blast. It offers the same gritty noir-style with the brutal pace as did Already Dead . . . Bring on the third Joe Pitt!

And over at The Book Swede, there’s a wonderful review of Daniel Abraham’s The Long Price:

The ideas on which Abraham has built this series are original and thought-provoking . . . he is surely one of the brightest stars to come into the genre for quite a while.

Finally, Gav’s Blog gives Dead Men’s Boots an impressive five stars, saying:

Carey is a master plotter. His plots are focused and well planned though with enough clues that you mentally kick yourself when you start to see the connections . . . It’s a great read. You can’t help yourself from wanting to know how deep in shit Castor can go before he drowns.

Devices and Desires

desires.gif Devices and Desires is getting terrific reviews for its US launch. The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly said:

“Parker’s intricately plotted and meticulously detailed book, the first in a proposed trilogy, moves as deliberately and precisely as an antique watch.”

Publishers Weekly called it an “exquisite feat of literary engineering.” And in the December issue of Realms of Fantasy Magazine, Paul Witcover says:

“…the first volume of the Engineer Trilogy is an audacious and utterly captivating novel that, like the great Gormenghast books of Mervyn Peake, eschews magic in the creation and elaboration of an intricately detailed fantasy world.”

Read chapter one of the book right here. Book two, Evil for Evil, is out now in the UK, and will be in stateside stores this November.

Pushing the Boundaries

The Long PriceThere are some great reviews coming in for Daniel Abraham’s The Long Price. Starburst says of it:

In this enjoyable, intelligent, original fantasy series, plot springs with tragic inevitability from character and there are no heroes and villains but only often flawed but eminently understandable human beings

SFX go further in their review:

Far from being a bog-standard tale of swords and sorcery, Daniel Abraham has served up a compelling, emotionally brutal and edgy fantasy that’s genuinely worthy of comparison with genre heavyweights like George R.R. Martin . . . [pushes] way beyond the genre’s comfortable boundaries, into bold and unsettling new territory.