Over at BN.com, Paul Di Filippo writes about the history of SF dystopias, and says of The Electric Church:
Somers’ strategy of blending Invasion of the Body Snatchers with allusions to contemporary cults coats this profane, kickass thriller with a veneer of social commentary reminiscent of some Galaxy-era novel reinterpreted by Warren Ellis.
Jennifer Rardin talks about her urban fantasy debut Once Bitten, Twice Shy over at Scifichick.com (The scifichick.com review is here.)
And Jeff Somers appears as part of Largehearted Boy’s “Book Notes” series with a soundtrack to The Electric Church.
Iron Maiden, Two Minutes to Midnight
The greatest. Song. Ever. Bar none. You can write action sequences to this endless dual-lead-guitar gem until your hands fall off. Fun fact: Every movie fight sequence ever filmed can be synchronized to this song. Go ahead, try it. You might need to drink a little first. It seems to help.
Over at the Unfiction message board a team of players just solved the last puzzle on The Electric Church Website: unlocking the story hidden in the site, saving Ty’s old friend, and learning the secret ingredient in author Jeff Somers’ homemade moonshine. If you were one of the players at Unfiction, drop us a line at the email listed at the finish line, we’d love to hear from you. And thanks to everyone for playing!
If you haven’t poked around the site, you can still play the game – and if you get stuck, Unfiction provides a lively walkthrough.
This is our first attempt at building an ARG for a book promotion, and it was a lot of fun to put together. We’d love to know what you thought – what we did right, what we did wrong, and how we can improve next time.
For posterity, (and any players who need to find the penultimate password ) the blogad is here.
Scifichick has just posted a fabulous review for Once Bitten, Twice Shy, out from Orbit next month in the US and the UK.
“Blending some of my favorite elements: fantasy, espionage, mystery, action, and just a touch of romance, makes a recipe for one extremely entertaining story.” more…
The love for Jaz Parks doesn’t stop there, though. Be sure to check out Living Read Girl, who calls Jennifer Rardin “a new scream queen on the scene.”
And check out Jennifer’s blog at www.jenniferrardin.com
There was a terrific double review in The Telegraph over the weekend, looking at Charles Stross’ latest books, The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue. Charlie is described as “British science fiction’s hot new writer, having turned out half a dozen novels in what seems like the last five minutes . . . Tremendously good, geeky fun.”
Bookgasm digs The Electric Church in a big way. Reviewer Bruce Grossman calls the book “an action movie for the literary set”, but suggests that we got the blurb wrong on the galley.
Don’t believe the back-cover blurb that pegs Jeff Somers’ THE ELECTRIC CHURCH as “BLADE RUNNER meets KILL BILL.” They got one of the movies wrong, in my opinion. It should read “BLADE RUNNER meets THE DIRTY DOZEN, with a dash of Sergio Leone.
(Our crack researchers find that The Dirty Dozen’s Jim Brown appeared in Mars Attacks with Pam Grier, who starred in Jackie Brown which connects in about a dozen ways to Kill Bill, so we’re calling it square.)
But Bruce gets to the heart of what we all find so exciting about The Electric Church — it’s smart, fast-paced, SF that evokes Bladerunner plus your favorite action movie.
Over at Scifichick, Angela calls the book “ a dark, intense and suspenseful novel that had me on the edge of my seat.”
Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, chatted with Jeff about the book and the publishing process.
And if you haven’t visited the-electric-church.com yet, now’s a good time. Enterprising readers around the web have already started unraveling the mysteries of the site, so if you get stuck, some clever googling should yield some hints.
It is a great sadness to report the news that Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time series, passed away yesterday, 16 September. He will be greatly missed by his family, friends, and everyone who knew him personally and through his books. The news was first posted on his blog at www.dragonmount.com.
Over at Nethspace, Brian Ruckley responds gamely and hilariously to the “Haggis Question.”
“You do know every year in Scotland several tourists who are flippant about haggis get hunted down and slaughtered like curs by howling, kilt-clad, claymore-wielding mobs, don’t you? It’s virtually a national sport.”
Read the whole interview here.
Though the world of Winterbirth was partly inspired by Brian’s native Scottish Highlands, it is (so far, at least) haggis-free.
Over at Fantasy Book Critic US readers can enter for a chance to win a copy of Winterbirth, along with a set of Orbit US launch month titles.
Mike Carey, the author of the Felix Castor novels, recently came in to the Orbit offices, and we thought we’d take the opportunity to sit him down in front of a camera and ask him to talk about his new book, Dead Men’s Boots (which is attracting some really good early reviews — as you can see here).
Of course, having Mike talk about the third book was too good a chance to pass up, so we also recorded him talking about the two previous books in the series, The Devil You Know and Vicious Circle.
You can see the resulting videos by following the link below, and also on our YouTube page.
Things are fairly hectic at Orbit UK — we’re really looking forward to fantasy legend Terry Brooks touring the UK next week, so there’s a certain amount of dotting Is and crossing Ts going on — and it’s all too easy to miss things taking place around the blogosphere. So here’s a catch-up on what’s being happening with our books and authors:
Ian Irvine has written an essay on the books that are important to him for the distinguished academic Norman Geras’ blog.
Sean Williams is answering questions from readers on the Australian SpecFic in Focus forum — you’ve got until 15 September if you want to ask him something.
As a marketing hack, I was fascinated by this interesting analysis of how a reader decides what to buy in a bookshop, using Brian Ruckley’s Winterbirth as a case study, written by a genuine marketing expert, Roy Bayfield of Edge Hill University.
Jeff Somers’ The Electric Church is out later this month. It’s already picked up some great reviews. The Guardian called it “an exhilarating example of powerful and entertaining storytelling.” Meanwhile, blogger Graeme Flory rated it eight out of ten and wrote of it: “I read a couple of pages; then I read some more, the next thing I knew, it was Sunday night and I’d finished it. Great stuff, every single page tells you in no uncertain terms why this book has been chosen as part of Orbit’s opening salvo on the US market . . . an entertainingly bullet spattered read that hints at great things from Somers in the future.”
Graeme has also reviewed Mike Carey’s new book Dead Men’s Boots, which rates a mighty nine and a half out of ten, and the comment, “If you’ve already read the first two books then I guarantee you’re going to absolutely love this one. If you haven’t then I suggest you pick up The Devil You Know [Mike’s debut for Orbit] and get reading. You won’t regret it.” There’s also an interview with Mike on Graeme’s blog.
The final word on Dead Men’s Boots goes to the estimable John Berlyne, who says in his SFRevu review: “What Carey develops . . . is yet another extraordinarily gripping supernatural mystery . . . These Castor books are as fiendishly addictive as nicotine and are made all the more satisfying by Castor’s deadpan, ironic fatalism . . . The net result is another superb, highly involving novel from Mike Carey.” You can read the rest of the review here.
