Archive for Orbit UK

Calling all MMORGS

Halting State by Charles Stross
Welcome back! As we ring in 2008 it seems a good time to look to the (not-so-far) future with Halting State, Charles Stross’s near-future techno thriller, which is getting some great reviews.

Starbust is calling it a ‘highly effective thanks to some great twists and an entirely convincing paranoid overtone’ and this month’s DeathRay describing it as ‘a surprisingly buoyant thriller about the meat puppets: you and me…his writing is muscled and lively’.

Over in the blogosphere, The Book Swede, who reviewed it earlier last year, says ‘the story and characterisation is typical Stross, that is to say, brilliant’ and SF Reviews.net says:

‘Fans of Stross’s earlier technothrillers — this book reads in many ways like one of his Laundry stories played straight — will go nuts over Halting State. The zeitgeist-savvy incorporation of the gaming world as a central narrative motif is handled to perfection.’

Halting State will be hitting bookshelves later this month. Until then, be sure to check out The Jennifer Morgue, out now, which DeathRay calls ‘a wonderfully entertaining read.’

Podcasts with Karen Miller and Tim Holman

Karen Miller talked with The Dragon Page Radio about The Innocent Mage and The Awakened Mage, as well as her upcoming Godspeaker trilogy, which will launch this Spring with Empress. You can listen to the podcast here.

And Orbit Publishing Director Tim Holman had a long ranging interview with Rick Kleffel at the Agony Column podcast. They talk about the launch of Orbit US and the future of genre fiction publishing. If you’re interested in the strategy behind Orbit’s publishing program, or the future of the genre, don’t miss it! Link.

The Escapement Arrives

International Covers for The Escapement

K.J. Parker’s Engineer Trilogy continues to wow the critics. In the Locus review of Evil for Evil (US, UK) and The Escapement (US, UK) Faren Miller says of the trilogy:

“The whole thing is brilliant – disturbingly so, since these fantasies (without a whit of magic) explore the human condition and reveal it all, brain, heart, guts and bowels, with a startling precision.”

And over at Strange Horizons, Farah Mendlesohn has a fascinating review of the trilogy that gets at the heart of what makes these books so compelling:

“The trilogy format of Parker’s work is deceptive: it both does, and doesn’t conform to recognisable fantasy trajectories. Yes, in almost all of the books there is at least one person who rises to power or moves towards the centre of the action; there is always big landscape; there are wars and many nameless people die. But the stories which form the plot are interlocked through future, present and past. Parker writes stories in which individuals become enmeshed in the machine, and in which economics is the god on which all the principals are sacrificed. ”

Read the whole review here.

You can find the first chapter of Devices and Desires here. Book three, The Escapement, is out this month.

The Twelve Days of ChristmaSFF

With the Yuletide fast approaching, the Orbit team* thought it worth indulging in a spot of fantastical fun to help count down the days until Christmas.  In an act of inspired lunacy / luke-warm humour / gross irresponsibility (delete as appropriate), we’ve decided to post the Science Fiction and Fantasy Twelve Days of Christmas.  And because we are masters of space and time, we’ll be doing it over the next week and a bit**.  In order to give some sort of relevance to our tomfoolery, each line will be derived from a recognisable subgenre/movement within SFF. 

So, join with us as we warm up our vocal chords, apply our formidable knowledge of the field and kiss our credibility goodbye, with The Twelve Days of ChristmaSFF . . .

On the first day of Christmas my android gave to me . . .
. . . A monolith on a dead moon.

* Well, not allthe Orbit team. Despite the strong vein of geekery propagating through the office like the blast front of a giant nerd-bomb, some people have insisted on retaining their dignity (it’ll never catch on). These few, these happy few, are blameless for what we’re about to unleash on an unsuspecting world.
** Yes, we know. Not an inspired start, is it?