There are an awful lot of words on the internet, and a number of them have been used in the brilliant reviews for SURFACE DETAIL – the new Culture novel from Iain M. Banks, out everywhere now. Thanks to worldle.net, we’ve been able to squish them together!
Connect the words to start building your very own Iain M. Banks review:
“lavish horror weapons” – yes!
“fast-paced glory novel” – you bet!
“vast reader fans Banks” … eh?
Wheel of Time time
The penultimate volume of this legendary fantasy series is finally here.
Let the Towers of Midnight reading begin!
Start now with chapter one, or get a quick catch up from Brandon Sanderson on the story so far.
N. K. Jemisin burst onto the scene this year with her much praised novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. For those that didn’t get a chance to read it, it’s now in mass market paperback. And with it, we are also releasing the second book in the Inhertiance Trilogy, The Broken Kingdoms.
It is the story of Oree Shoth, a blind artist who takes home a homeless man she finds in the rubbish heap. This one act of kindness will drag her in a nightmarish conspiracy. I found it to be a fabulous read and I hope you will too.
“The very best kind of sequel: as lush and evocative and true as the first, with all the same sense of mystery, giving us the world and characters we already love, and yet with a new story and a wonderfully new perspective on the whole dazzling world and pantheon the author has built.”
—Naomi Novik
“A decade after the events of March 2010’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, artist Oree, blind to reality but able to see magic, sells trinkets to tourists in Sky, a city filled with supernatural entities and happenings in a world slowly emerging from doctrinaire authoritarianism.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred)
“Told from Oree’s point of view, the narrative voice is authoritative and original — this is a book that readers won’t be able to put down.”
—Romantic Times
The cover art Daniel Dociu did for Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey is so cool that we wanted to make it a wallpaper immediately (for our own use!) so why not share, right? I love the movement and action in the piece and I think that it says a lot about what kind of epic space opera reading experience you’re in for with Leviathan Wakes.
Hopefully these wallpapers can tide you over until the release in June 2011! Enjoy the fabulous illustration by Daniel Dociu, type by Kirk Behshoff, wallpaper layouts by Wendy Chan.
Enjoy the art fullsize and all the usual downloadable sizes after the jump… (more…)
Leviathan Wakes is by James S.A. Corey, which is the pen name of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. This behemoth is hitting stores May 2011. What an awesome project. We’re talking space opera, big ships, interstellar travel, secrets, conspiracies, and high adventure. Once I got my hands on it the gears started turning full tilt.
Time Magazine named The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi as one of its ten best novels of the year. And the book has also won an extraordinary five of 2010’s major international SF awards: the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook Award and John W. Campbell Memorial Award.
To take advantage of the huge buzz for this book (read a free extract HERE), Orbit is taking the unusual step of releasing the ebook edition immediately, as the fastest way of getting this important work to a UK audience. The paperback print edition will be out later, from 2nd December. We are very excited to publish this in the UK, as the extraordinary word-of-mouth excitement for this work in the States has been tremendous and now UK fans will have access to this wonderful book. (more…)
Mira Grant recently dropped this pearl of wisdom in an interview with therealmcast.com:
“Phorid flies are native to South America, and the way they reproduce is gruesome and horrible in the extreme. See, they inject their eggs into fire ants, and when those eggs hatch, the larvae eat the ant’s brain and take over its body, driving it around like a new sort of economy car. When the larvae are ready to hatch, they chew off the ant’s head and crawl out of the hole. Ponder this for a moment. Nature makes zombies on a regular basis. Rabies changes your behavior. Parasites and parasitic insects are more than happy to take over your brain for fun and profit. I think some sort of zombie outbreak could definitely happen–the only question is how.
These are the thoughts that keep me up at night. And Mira is the one who gives them to me. So, if I look more tired than usual, blame the zombies…
Daniel Abraham recently put up a long and fascinating post regarding what defines a genre– any genre, from Westerns to Romance to Science fiction. And, frankly, he’s someone who knows a little something about what it means to work in a different genre since he is a wearer of many hats professionally. Daniel is the author of the critically acclaimed epic fantasy series The Long Price Quartet and the upcoming The Dragon’s Path as well as the urban fantasist MLN Hanover (author of The Black Sun’s Daughter series) and one half of James S.A. Corey, author of the upcoming space opera Leviathan Wakes. Like I said– he knows genre.
“I think that the successful genres of a particular period are reflections of the needs and thoughts and social struggles of that time. When you see a bunch of similar projects meeting with success, you’ve found a place in the social landscape where a particular story (or moral or scenario) speaks to readers. You’ve found a place where the things that stories offer are most needed.“
Check out the whole thing on his blog.
Two of our wonderful Orbit authors are over in the UK this week and will be doing a joint signing at Forbidden Planet in London this Saturday 30th October.
Karen Miller , author of The Innocent Mage and the recently released The Reluctant Mage, will be joined by N.K. Jemisin, author of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and the soon-to-be-released The Broken Kingdoms.
Pop down to the Forbidden Planet store on Shaftesbury Avenue between 4 – 5pm this Saturday to meet the authors and get your exclusive signed copies!
Has anyone else noticed that the raised eyebrow has truly become one of the staples of science fiction and fantasy entertainment?
The Spirit Thief (UK/US /ANZ) by Rachel Aaron is out this month – and since its protagonst is a scheming, devious and devastatingly charming rogue, we felt that only the most superb demonstration of singular suspension of the supercilium (yes, that’s ‘eyebrow’ in Latin) would do . . .
By being represented in this way, Eli Monpress is truly joining the ranks of heroes from science fiction and fantasy history who have excelled at exhibiting this particular brand of facial gymnastics. See the following examples for reference:
Exhibit A – Spock (though we must admit, he has a natural advantage over his human counterparts owing to his Vulcan genes)
Exhibit B – Wolverine (the classic ‘Don’t mess with me, even if my hair is a bit silly‘ eyebrow)
Exhibit C – David Tennant as Doctor Who (In fact, no one is allowed to play Doctor Who unless they can display an ability to get some impressive eyebrow height)
And Exhibit D – The Rock (only vaguely fantastical – for The Scorpion King perhaps? – but there was no way we weren’t including this picture) (more…)
