Author Archive

Brian Ruckley Interview

Brian Ruckley

Brain Ruckley talks with Aiden Moher at A Dribble of Ink. It’s a wide-ranging discussion, covering Winterbirth, Bloodheir (the second novel in the trilogy, out next spring from Orbit) as well as the trauma of seeing a favorite book adapted to the screen:

“When I saw that trailer it was a bit like someone kicking in the door of your house, making straight for the cupboard where you keep the best-loved toys of your early years and beating on them with a sledgehammer.”

Brian blogs at www.brianruckley.com, and you can read an excerpt of the book here.

Another Convert to the Electric Church

The Electrich Church CoverJohn at SFsignal posts a great review of The Electric Church by Jeff Somers, giving the book 4.5 out of 5 stars and writing in summary:

PROS: Excellent pacing; well-written action sequences; fun characters; dark setting.
CONS: There’s something remarkably unsettling about passionately rooting for the killers and thieves.
BOTTOM LINE: A first-rate piece of science fiction entertainment.

You can read the full review at SFsignal.com. The monks of the Electric Church will be in bookstores this September. In the meantime, keep an eye on the official site. It’s just a splash page now, but we hear they are building something in there…

A History of Vengeance

At her newly redesigned site, Lilith Saintcrow writes about the inspirations for the Dante Valentine series.

Originally she came from several piecemeal sources. I was watching a lot of the first Kill Bill movie and a wonderful Roman Polanski movie based on an Arturo Perez-Reverte novel, The Ninth Gate, not to mention watching a lot of Seven Samurai. (I’m a big Kurosawa fan.) Danny has a katana because, well, what else does a samurai have? Edged metal and honor. She’s my answer to Toshiro Mifune, I guess.

Other cinematic inspirations? Lady Vengeance, Lady Snowblood, and La Femme Nikita.

Click here to read the article on Lilith’s blog.

General Contact Unit “Recent Convert”

Looking forward to the publication of Matter by Iain M. Banks next year (from Orbit in both the UK and US) I’ve been surfing the huge and helpful body of websites on the Culture, and happened on this comprehensive Wikipedia entry listing the ships of the Culture. They include the General Contact Unit “Well I Was In The Neighbourhood”, the Offensive Unit “All Through With This Niceness And Negotiation Stuff” and, my favorite, the Demilitarized Rapid Offensive Unit “Resistance Is Character-Forming”.

Jeff Somers’ Fugue of Pain

Jeff Somers
Jeff Somers, author of The Electric Church (Orbit US and UK Sept. 07) has been blogging (reluctantly and hilariously) at Jeffreysomers.com/blather.

Before being ‘compelled’ to blog, Jeff was a long-time zine publisher, running the The Inner Swine since 1995. (The Inner Swine has the kind of cult following that posts videos of dogs eating the latest issue.)

In his latest posts, Jeff writes about the economics of zine publishing, the mixed blessing of telecommuting, and the lengths Orbit goes to encourage our authors to blog.

Orbit at BEA

orbit_team
Alex Lencicki, Jennifer Flax, Tim Holman, and Devi Pillai at BEA

Orbit launched in the US at Book Expo America in New York. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to say hello. We still have ten messenger bags left, so we’re giving one to the first ten people to email us at orbit at hbgusa.com with the words “gimme one of those bags!” in the subject line. (This offer is only available to US residents.)