Author Archive

BEA Schwag!

If you’re going to BEA in Los Angeles, stop by the Orbit booth (number 1720) to pick up advance reading copies of Orcs by Stan Nicholls, and The Company, by K.J. Parker. And be sure to drop off a business card to sign up for our new bookseller enewsletter.

Lilith Saintcrow chats with Jennifer Rardin

Lilith Saintcrow visits Jennifer Rardin’s blog to talk about her upcoming urban fantasy series, Night Shift.

To be honest I never knew I was writing urban fantasy until my agent told me so. I was just writing this thing I liked–ordinary fantasy didn’t have enough guns OR fast cars, and I’m a big fan of morally and ethically ambiguous heroes and characters. (It’s the noir I read/watched at a very tender age. Scarred me for life.)

Visit jenniferrardin.com for more.

If You’re Going to Wiscon…

If you’re going to Wiscon, look out for Orbit author Pamela Freeman. She’ll be there talking about her new book, Blood Ties, and reading from her academic work (If you get a chance to chat, be sure to ask her about her thoughts on science in fantasy fiction.)

Pamela’s Wiscon Schedule (check the site for up-to-date details.)

Saturday, 10:00-11:15 A.M: Reading from Blood Ties.
Sunday, 11:30 P.M. to 12:45 A.M. Imagination as Resistance, panel.
Monday, 10:00-11:15 A.M: Kings. What a Good Idea: Monarchy in Epic Fantasy Fiction.

Jeff Somers, Rescued by Nerds

rescue me, nerd!The new blog (with the awesome name) Rescued By Nerds interviewed Jeff Somers about the star of his novels, Avery Cates:

I’ve created a character who kills people, who physically assaults people when annoyed, who has stepped over the bodies of friends in order to save himself—albeit, perhaps, regretfully. Then I went ahead and made him kind of fun and charming. It feels good on some primitive level to then smack Avery in the head with a lead pipe. It feels like the Literary Lead Pipe of Justice.

Visit the nerds for the full interview.

There’s also a new messageboard for any citizens of Old New York who aren’t feeling like themselves lately. You can find that here (at least until the SSF takes it down).

Where Do All Those Villains Come From?

Karen Miller - Empress (UK)Anyone who’s read EMPRESS – or any of the early reviews of the novel – will know that it’s a book with a very unsympathetic central character (and that there aren’t a lot of hugs to go around at the end.)

Over at Grasping for the Wind, John Ottinger talks to Karen about how the book upends the expectations of epic fantasy:

GFTW: Although Hekat is a sympathetic character at the beginning of the novel, we have come to dislike her very much by the end. How were you able to write a character that rather than having an upward spiral toward a “happily ever after” instead moved on a downward spiral filled with selfishness and hate?”


Read Karen’s responses here.

You can read the first chapter of EMPRESS here.