Archive for Orbit UK

Dancing On The Cutting Edge

It’s nice to be at the cutting edge. Well, of my own progress as an SF writer, at least. One of the great strengths of the SF field is the way concepts and tropes are in constant flux, being shared and tweaked, refurbed and upgraded, modded and galvanised, rivetted for the steampunk milieu, or even just given go-faster stripes. Of course, some carping cynics will say that this is also a major weakness since it encourages lazy writing and a lack of speculative rigour, and I have to say that there’s a lot to that.

For my own part I must admit culpability in employing certain well-known, off-the-shelf notions like AIs, FTL drives, colony worlds, ancient aliens and so forth. But I do like to think that I have contributed something new with my own take on hyperspace. This is where hyperspace (as well as being a contiguous plenum which permits FTL travel) consists of levels upon levels upon deeper levels, each one being the compacted remains of an entire universe, piled one on top of another, sedimentary layers of dead universes that descend into the primal depths of reality.
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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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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.

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

When Harlan Ellison was asked “Where do you get your ideas from?” he famously answered “Schenectady.” Ellison was commenting on the absurdity of pinning down a process as ephemeral, multi-dimensional and just plain murky as the origin of an idea. However, if the question had been modified to exclude the final word from the sentence then Ellison’s answer would work for me.

Author by Mohawk River in Schenectady

I’ve lived in Schenectady. It’s an industrial city on the Mohawk River in Upstate New York. It’s famous for being the site of the Schenectady Massacre of 1690, where French and Native American forces attacked the fledgling settlement at midnight, burning it to the ground and slaying sixty men, women and children who were still in their bedclothes, and also for being the place where Thomas Edison chose to headquarter his fledgling General Electric Company. Schenectady is built on land that was once the territory of the Mohawk nation, and its name comes from the Mohawk phrase, “over the pine plains.”

I wrote a great chunk of Watcher of the Dead within the city’s limits.  And as the answer to the question, “Where do you get your ideas?” is always “Where I was physically located at that moment the idea occurred to me,” then my ideas are officially from Schenectady. (more…)

Cover Launch: LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF SAUSAGES

Sorry folks, I know monday is usually cover launch day, but things are a little hectic in the Art Dept. and  this week wednesday is cover launch day. But never fear, I have a cover all ready for next monday too!)

Tom Holt is a funny guy. Orbit UK has been publishing him for a long time and I was thrilled to get to redesign his look with his US launch of Blonde Bombshell in June. I can’t wait to start applying the new look to the backlist titles waiting to roll out. But first we have another new book, one which wins for my favorite title of all time* Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sausages.

Tom Holt is all about funny, absurdist scifi/fantasy, and when I read my first Tom Holt book I was pleasantly surprised how like Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett it felt. and that’s high praise from me. I really like the humorous scifi/fantasy subgenre, and I think we’ve been packaging it well here at Orbit with the A. Lee Martinez books especially, and I’m really happy to add these books to the list.

I love a chance to hand-draw a cover, because most of the time everything happens solely on the computer. I especially enjoy hand-drawing type. I’ll have to try to work it in to more covers, even if it’s not as purposely rough-style like these covers. (more…)

Changeless becomes a New York Times Bestseller!

Changeless by Gail Carriger just hit the New York Times best seller list at #20!

Congratulations to Gail!

Whoo hoo!! We’re over the moon over here and hope you share in our excitement! I need to go find a football team so I can practice chest bumping!

You can check out the first chapter here or check out the video on how we made the cover for the upcoming Blameless here.

When is a dwarf not a dwarf? When he’s a garden gnome…

Read on for a great piece from the talented Sally-Ann Spencer on her experience of translating The Dwarves (UK/ US/ ANZ) and The War of the Dwarves (UK/ US / ANZ) from the original German:

Turning German ‘Zwerge’ into English-speaking dwarves isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. For one thing, the English word ‘dwarf’ has two possible plurals: ‘dwarfs’ and ‘dwarves’. Which should be used for the translation? The dwarves of Girdlegard bear a certain resemblance to their counterparts in Middle Earth, so I went with the version popularized by Tolkien. But hang on a minute, (more…)