WIN a copy of Star Wars Republic Commando: Order 66

Order 66 coverStar Wars Republic Commando: Order 66 is the exciting new title in the Republic Commando series written by the fantastic Karen Traviss. We have 10 copies to give away and all you have to do to enter is sign up to the Orbit UK e-newsletter this November.

The Orbit e-newsletter has tons of exciting information about new titles, including chapter downloads, first look covers and exclusive competitions.

You can sign up for it here.

Already receiving the newsletter? Don’t worry, we’ll be doing a special giveaway for everyone that’s already signed up!

Orbit Links for October 31st 2008

Hello and a very Happy Hallowe’en / All Hallows’ Eve / Stuff-Your-Face-With-Candy Night to you all. Here are a few online treats (no tricks, we promise!) featuring Orbit Authors or coverage of their books:

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…)

Space Rocks

Orphan's AllianceOver at SF Signal Robert Buettner joins a host of writers to answer the question: “Is Science Fiction Responsible for the Lack of Public Interest in Space Exploration?” Robert observes:

“The Apollo Generation stampeded out to a Solar System that promised dragons. But the Solar System delivered…rocks. Neat rocks, sure, but their frigid reality has left no room to believe in dragons next door.”

You can find the rest of Robert’s response — along with thoughts from David Brin, Alastair Reynolds, John Scalzi and more — here.

If you’re new to the series, you can find a review of book one, Orphanage, at Fandomania.com.

And be sure to watch for Orphan’s Alliance, (US / UK ) book four in Buettner’s Jason Wander series available in November in the US and January in the UK.

Orbit and Yen

As reported in Publishers Weekly, Hachette Book Group is creating a new publishing division that will include both Orbit and Yen Press (the company’s Graphic Novel and Manga imprint). VP and publisher of the new division Tim Holman explains:

“Orbit and Yen Press will continue to develop independently. However, as a single division, we’ll be able to combine our efforts in a number of key areas to great effect. Both Orbit and Yen Press are publishing in genres that can no longer be considered marginal. It is almost impossible to imagine popular culture today without them. Our challenge is to embrace this change, to be creative and forward-thinking, and to engage with the new audiences that we know are out there.”

Orbit Links for 24th October 2008

Welcome once again to our weekly round-up of links to various bits of Orbit Author-related online activity that we’ve spotted over the course of the past 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…)

In Their Own Words: Brent Weeks on THE WAY OF SHADOWS

Brent says:

The Way of ShadowsThe Way of Shadows is going to appeal to readers who love big fantasy stories but get bored the fifth time an author describes a six-course meal or the twenty slashes on a noblewoman’s dress. This story flies. There’s murder, betrayal, magic, and lots of ass-kicking.

But to be honest, a lot of authors can offer that. I think what’s going to keep readers coming back is the deep, surprising characters. Everyone has secrets. Everyone runs into hard choices, and not everyone makes the right choice. Heck, not everyone makes it, period. Cenaria is a city infamous for crime and brutality. It’s the kind of place that makes legendary assassins, so expect some tough stuff – but out of that, expect characters who are very human in how they’ve been touched by or participated in the darkness around them. Expect people looking for redemption and hope. Unusual for an assassin story? Definitely. Do I pull it off? I hope people check it out and judge for themselves.

The Way of Shadows (UK | US | AUS) is out now and you can find it at all good high street and online booksellers. Get an advance taste by reading an extract here.

We’re publishing the next two books, Shadow’s Edge and Beyond the Shadows, in the next two months so keep your eyes peeled for some more ITOW from Brent Weeks very soon . . .

Deals and Deliveries: Marjorie M. Liu acquisition

We are very excited to report that we’ve bought three sharp new urban fantasies by the talented Marjorie M. Liu. These feature an enticingly different slant on the supernatural and we’re starting off in Spring 2010 with The Iron Hunt …

During the day, Maxine’s tattoos are her armour and she is invincible. At night they peel from her skin to take on forms of their own, leaving her human and vulnerable and revealing themselves to be demons sleeping beneath her skin. But these demons are the best friends and bodyguards a woman could have. And Maxine needs bodyguards. She is the last in a line of woman with power in their blood, trained to keep the world safe from malignant beings who would do us harm. But ten thousand years after its creation, the prison dimension that kept the worst of these from us is failing, and all the Wardens save Maxine are dead. She must bear the burden of her bloodline and join the last wild hunt against the enemy.

So, watch this space for more information.

The Company in SFX

The CompanyK.J. Parker‘s fantastic new novel, The Company (UK/US) is out now and getting some great reviews. One of our favourites has been in this month’s SFX, on newsstands tomorrow, which describes it as:

‘Tightly written and hugely satisfying, it’s the equivalent of a four-course banquet packed into one book, and takes a long look at the kind of characters who populate your typical blood-and-thunder swordplay epic, unearthing some uncomfortable truths as a result.’

‘…A dark, bleak and fiercely intelligent portrait of the human condition, and the way that some soldiers never truly stop fighting their wars’

and

‘…Well-crafted, powerful and downright unmissable’

We couldn’t agree more.

Orbit Links for October 17th 2008

Welcome once again to our weekly round-up of links to various bits of Orbit Author-related online activity that we’ve spotted over the course of the past 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…)

Stan Nicholls on the David Gemmell Legend Award

If you’ve been reading the major blogs and genre fiction news sites recently then you’ve surely heard about the launch earlier this year of The David Gemmell Legend Award for Fantasy.

Here at Orbit we’re delighted that David Gemmell’s memory – and his truly massive contribution to the development of fantasy fiction before his tragic and untimely death in 2006 – is being honoured by the launch of this new award, which, in the words of the introduction on the award website “will be given to a work written in the ‘spirit’ of the late, great David Gemmell, a true Master of Heroic Fantasy.”

Stan Nicholls (author of Orcs, which we published recently in the US) is a member of the initial steering committee that came together to establish the award. So we thought he’d be an ideal person to tell us how the award came about, and how its unique processes and mechanism will hopefully result in a genuine, all-round winner of the very highest quality being named when the first award is presented, next June.

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