Archive for Orbit US

Cover Launch: THE ENTERPRISE OF DEATH

The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart had one of my all-time favorite Orbit covers, and I was thrilled to work with Keith Hayes from the Little Brown Art dept. and the illustrator Istvan Orosz on the design. So when I saw that a new Jesse Bullington book was on this list I was  really excited at the challenge — and really curious to see where Bullington would go after his violent, revolting, sensibility-offending debut novel (and I mean that all in a good way!)  Well, let’s just say The Enterprise of Death does not disappoint on any count — you’ll either love this book, or you’ll want to burn it at the stake.

Like Brothers Grossbart, the story takes place in a specific historical place and time — this time during the height of the Inquisition and Moorish expulsion from Spain in the late 1400s. Not only are there real-life historical characters in the  story, there’s also real-life art that’s critical to the story. That’s actually a challenge for a cover designer. Sometimes when you use fine art on a cover it can give the design a very quiet, even  static feel. Luckily for me, I don’t think anyone would call Death and the Maiden by Niklaus Manuel Deustch quiet or static.

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Cover Launch: Hull Zero Three by GREG BEAR

Welcome back to your Monday morning installment of Orbit Cover Launch. This week I’m very excited to launch the cover of a brand-new book by science fiction great Greg Bear. Orbit is really excited to start publishing Greg Bear and we’re even more excited about starting with Hull Zero Three. It’s a fast-paced space thriller and a real page-turner. It’s definitely of the ilk of Aliens and Event Horizon, and I could totally picture it as a film as I was reading. It’s also a great place to start if you’ve never read Greg Bear before.

This cover was a little tough because although it does happen in space we didn’t want to give it that space opera kind of feel – it’s smart, but also much more immediate and suspenseful than operatic. It’s a much more in your face page-turning thriller, so I kind of tried to design a hybrid of scifi and big thriller book. The texture is SO much better in person, but for now you’ll have to make due with just a screen image. (more…)

When Will You Rise?

www.theFEEDBOOK.com
FEED has arrived and with it all the zombie noshing, political savvy, and smart-assed badassery you can handle. This isn’t your parent’s zombie story, although we’re pretty sure Mira Grant knows where the bodies are hidden…

The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we had created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.

Now, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives– the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them.

Head on over to www.theFEEDBOOK.com where you can learn the history of The Wall, find out more about the bloggers who saved the world when the mainstream media fell apart, get a glimpse of the web circa 2040, and read the first chapter! Plus keep an eye on our Twitter feed @orbitbooks for chances to win a copy of the book all day.

After the jump, have a look at some zombieriffic ads from 2040! (more…)

THE POISON THRONE – ‘Story telling at its absolute best’

It sometimes feels like you have to wait SO long from when a book is acquired until you can share it with other readers (probably because this process does take, oh, around two years…). But I am now delighted to say The Poison Throne (UK I US) was released this month at a bookstore or via an online retailer near you — and you can get an advance peek via an extract here!

We knew the author Celine Kiernan was chock-full of talent, and here are just a couple of quotes from a mountain of early praise.

“Marvellous, vivid writing, and story telling at its absolute best … I was utterly engrossed” Roddy Doyle

“Told with great assurance and attention to detail, this is an exciting, fast-paced story” SFX

“Atmospheric, complex, and intense … this epic starts strong and doesn’t falter” Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Eloquent, sharp and lush…set to surprise a lot of readers” SFRevu.com

And Celine has of course visited the Orbit site already, with her really insightful (plus amusing) article on the perils and wonders inherent in being translated, and she’s discussed our covers and what she makes of them, always an interesting subject. We’ll have more Celine Kiernan news in the form of a new and exciting competition which is a bit of an Orbit first, but news to come next week!

Lend your voice to the cast of the Avery Cates series

Ever think you know exactly how a character in a novel should sound? Think you could put on a good performance of playing that character yourself?

Well Jeff Somers has set up a competition in which you have the chance to do just that. For the official website of his next novel, The Terminal State (UK/ US), Jeff is creating four mini video clips to represent four different characters from his series. He’s already provided some superb images to depict the nature of each character, and mini excerpts from the book have been supplied as scripts.

All that’s missing is you – the reading public – to put on your best acting voices and provide voiceovers for the videos. Whichever voice clip that Jeff feels best represents each character will be used on the final site. Visit this site to hear some examples that Jeff has provided himself, such as the one below. There, you’ll also find more information on how you can get creative and start sending in your own voiceover submissions. 

 

Cover Launch: THE LEGEND OF ELI MONPRESS

What? Three covers at once?! Yes, we’re doing another 3-in-3-months release starting this October, and the series is awesome. The Spirit Thief, The Spirit Rebellion, and The Spirit Eater are the first three books in the Legend of Eli Monpress series by Rachel Aaron, and be prepared, this story is seriously habit-forming. And we’re super excited to be giving you a big dose of Eli Monpress and his misfit crew all at once. (more…)

Winners! Spectrum Annual #17!

I know all of you are scifi/fantasy geeks (or else why are you here, really), but not all of you are art geeks as well, so you may not have heard of Spectrum, the annual competition for contemporary scifi/fantasy/horror art…but to those of us you might classify as “geek artists”, inclusion in the Spectrum annual is a big deal. So I am thrilled to announce that 3 of our books made the annual:

Black Ships by Jo Graham (painting by John Jude Palencar)

Tempest Rising by Nicole Peeler (digital illustration by Sharon Tancredi)

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin (digital illustration by Cliff Nielsen)

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Cover Launch: THE FALLEN BLADE

This lovely Monday we have an awesome cover for a book I really enjoyed reading and working on, The Fallen Blade, by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. The fabulous Larry Rostant provided the very atmospheric imagery, and I had obvious fun playing with the type. With both the image and the type, we wanted to clearly evoke renaissance Venice, but portray the strong main character and dark adventure of the story.

The Fallen Blade is the best of both worlds: an alternative historic fiction set in a renaissance Venice at the height of her power, populated by supernatural creatures and backstabbing political intrigue, AND a fast-moving fantasy adventure tale of vampires, werewolves, assassins, and pirates. Jon Courtenay Grimwood does such a fantastic job of describing Venice that you feel a really strong sense of geography and atmosphere. I was just in Venice in January and I was really impressed with how true the historical and geographical details felt, and it makes following the characters and story weaved around this framework all the more immediate. I can’t wait to see where the story is going to go in the next book.

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Mountains of books

THE EDGE OF THE WORLD by Kevin J. Anderson has been announced as a finalist in the Colorado Book Awards. The promotional poster (at left) clearly shows THE EDGE OF THE WORLD on top. Not only that, but the two big mountains in the background – we’re assured – are the Maroon Bells, and Kevin has climbed both of them. (Note that in real life these mountains are far taller than a pile of books.)

Congratulations to Kevin, and for everyone who enjoyed THE EDGE OF THE WORLD don’t miss the sequel, THE MAP OF ALL THINGS, coming in June.