Archive for Orbit US

Event Schedule for San Diego Comic-Con 2012

It’s time for the 2012 Comic-Con International convention in San Diego!

You’ll find Orbit Books at booth #1118.   Mira Grant, Gail Carriger and N.K. Jemisin will also be in attendance this year.  See below for a full list of their panels and signings.

In addition to these events, there will be giveaways at the booth throughout the weekend. So stop on by  to say hello and pick up some awesome buttons, posters, and books while supplies last.

THURSDAY

Panel: Witty Women of Steampunk with Gail Carriger
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM in Room 5AB

Panel: creating Spaces for Diverse Characters and Representations with N.K Jemisin
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM in Room 23ABC

Spotlight Panel: N.K. Jemisin
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM in Room 7AB

Panel: Not With A Bang, With A Bite with Mira Grant
1:15 PM – 2:15 PM in Room 6A

Signing: Mira Grant
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM in Autograph Area (AA09)

FRIDAY

Panel: Epic Fantasy War with N.K. Jemisin
3:30 PM – 4:30 PM in Room 6A

Signing:  Mira Grant
5:00 PM – 6:00 PM at the Orbit Booth, #1118
Complimentary Books While Supplies Last

SATURDAY

Panel: Urban Fantasy w/ Mira Grant (As Seanan McGuire)
10:30 AM – 11:30 in Room 5AB

Signing: N.K. Jemisin
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM at the Orbit Booth, #1118
Complimentary Books While Supplies Last

Spotlight Panel: Gail Carriger
1:30 – 2:30 pm in Room 5AB

Signing: Gail Carriger
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM in the Autograph Area

SUNDAY

Panel: Foes with Fur and Fangs with Gail Carriger
1:45 PM – 2:45 in Room 5AB

Signing: Gail Carriger
3:00 PM – 4:oo PM in Autograph Area AA19

 

 

New details emerge about Red Country

We’re super excited to publish RED COUNTRY  this fall. Our new on sale date is October 23, 2012 and we hope you love a sneak peak at this awesome description newly minted by Joe!

They burned her home.

They stole her brother and sister.

But vengeance is following.

Shy South hoped to bury her bloody past and ride away smiling, but she’ll have to sharpen up some bad old ways to get her family back, and she’s not a woman to flinch from what needs doing.  She sets off in pursuit with only a pair of oxen and her cowardly old step father Lamb for company.  But it turns out Lamb’s buried a bloody past of his own.  And out in the lawless Far Country the past never stays buried.

Their journey will take them across the barren plains to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feud, duel and massacre, high into the unmapped mountains to a reckoning with the Ghosts.  Even worse, it will force them into alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, and his feckless lawyer Temple, two men no one should ever have to trust . . .

Get To Know K.J. Parker

Sharps, a fantasy novel by K. J. Parker. Cover shows a fencer standing on cobbled streets, pooled with bloodEn garde! SHARPS (US | UK | AUS) is  a new novel by the K.J. Parker featuring a high-stakes competition that will topple kingdoms. You won’t see action like this in the summer Olympics that’s for sure.

Publishers Weekly described it as “a ripping good adventure yarn, laced with frequent barbed witticisms and ace sword fighting… Parker’s settings and characterizations never miss a beat, and the intricate political interplay of intrigue is suspenseful almost to the last page.”

Collected here are five spoiler-free interviews with K.J. Parker about SHARPS and some of Parker’s earlier novels.

Pornokitsch | Staffer’s Musings | Fantasy Book Cafe | Fantasy Book Critic | Book Worm Blues

 

Look inside the art for the Gail Carriger iPhone App!

You’d think I’d be happy (and quite busy enough) worrying over the Orbit bookcovers, but I’m one of those designers that wants to try her hand at everything. Websites, branding, invites, and now, apps! I love working with Orbit because I really do get a chance to be there for the beginning of a project and say “hey, I can totally design an author app” and they believe me! Of course, then I need to go back to my desk and figure out how to actually do it, but that’s the fun part. And let me tell you, I had a hell of a lot of fun with this one.

It certainly wasn’t cool enough to have an author app that was just about books and excerpts (which, of course, are awesome, and included), we wanted to make a cool functional app that the fans of The Parasol Protectorate series (and any steampunk fans, really) would love and use everyday. So after brainstorming a lot of ideas, we came up with the idea of doing a super intricate interactive clock app that has the functionality of the standard apple clock, but is way way cooler. A Steampunk clock app.

As you can see in the screenshots below, we’ve got 3 clock skins: A Mechanical Clock with cool brass cogs and gears (and rotating cephalopods), a  Steam-Powered Clock run by octopus power, and (my personal fave) a Tea Time Clock with drag-able teabags and spoons that develop your custom cup of tea, while letting you set a Tea Timer!

It’s free to and live now in the apple store, so go download and enjoy now!

 

Selkies, and the Authors Who Love Them

Tempest's Fury, the fifth book in Nicole Peeler's sexy, sassy and sizzlingly funny urban fantasy series, the Jane True novels
UK & ANZ cover

Nicole Peeler‘s Tempest Fury (UK | US | ANZ) is out now. It’s book five in her Jane True series (which starts with Tempest Rising – UK | US | ANZ) and to celebrate, here’s a guest post from Nicole on the inspiration for the series . . .

For me, it was a no brainer to make my protagonist, Jane, a selkie. Although it’s a relatively obscure mythology to some, and I only learned of it as a teenager, it’s the perfect inspiration for fiction.

For those of you who don’t know the selkie mythos, I blogged about it ages ago, with the help of a story from the Heritage of Orkney site. Basically, all the stories of selkie maidens are similar: man finds (or steals) a random seal skin left on the beach, woman shows up that night and they marry, many babies are born. Years pass, until the day one of the children finds the skin, and gives it to mom. Despite her love for her human family, the lure of the sea and her sea husband are stronger, and off she goes.

The US cover for Tempest's Fury, the fifth book in Nicole Peeler's sexy, sassy and sizzlingly funny urban fantasy series, the Jane True novels
US cover

Sometimes she takes her children with her, and sometimes she doesn’t.

As a teenager, so many aspects of this myth affected me: the idea of a woman who could be trapped so easily; the idea of a person torn between two worlds; the idea of having something so important that other loves are swept aside for that one thing. But it was the children that really struck my fancy. What about the ones taken to sea? Did they miss their human life? Even more intriguing, however, were the ones left behind. What happened to them, cut off as they were from the magic that was half their heritage?

The resonance of the selkie mythology stuck with me. So when it came to write my own story, and my first thought was to write an anti-heroine, my next thought was almost instantaneous – “and she can be half-selkie.” It was like my intellectual curiosity had come full circle – I’d always wondered what happened to those children, and now I got to explore the possibilities in my own writing. And that opportunity for exploration is what I try to bring to my fiction – I’m curious about the world I’ve created, and I try to convey that curiosity to my readers.

So if you’re an aspiring writer, try to do something similar. Write what you love, what you’re interested in, what’s always made you think. You’ll find so much passion for your subject, at the same time you get to scratch an intellectual itch. And everyone enjoys a good scratch.

Why you (yes, you!) should be reading K. J. Parker

Published this week, SHARPS (UK | US | ANZ) is the superb new fantasy from K. J. Parker in which a single fencing tournament could decide the fate of two warring kingdoms.

One of Parker’s most passionate fans is Jared Shurin, half of the team behind Pornokitsch and a judge/administrator for the Kitschies awards. Jared has given SHARPS a stellar review – “Sharps may be the book that fantasy fans are waiting for” – and has just conducted an in-depth interview with the enigmatic Parker.

When we asked Jared what it is about the books of K. J. Parker that he loves so much, and why you should be reading them, he was only too happy to tell us . . .

Jared: As a shamelessly vocal, frothing-at-the-mouth K. J. Parker fan, I may be exactly the wrong person to write a piece on “Reading K. J. Parker”. For me, it is a no-brainer. For fifteen years, Parker has been consistently writing some of the best books in fantasy. Clever, thoughtful, funny, dark, political – stories with empires and sieges and swords and gods and magic – everything I love about the genre.

However, taking a step back, I realise that not everyone’s been obsessively stalking Parker’s creative output. Sharps, as a stand-alone novel – and one of Parker’s best to date – is the perfect starting point for a new reader. But in aid of those who need a little more convincing, I’ve tried to break down the reasons I read Parker. On a long list, here are the top five:

1. Plain-spoken. Parker writes in a straight-forward, direct way. The prose is easy, which lets the reader concentrate on the story and not fuss about deciphering the text itself. There’s no mythic vocabulary, no chanting in italics, no poetry (whew) and not a whiff of Ancient Elvish. Parker proves that you can write about complex, big ideas in plain language. The books are deceptively simple and wonderfully quick to read.

2. Educational. This sounds like a joke, but Parker’s books will open your eyes to the fascinating world of button-making. Also: currency regulation, fletching arrows and, dare I say it, charcoal-burning. Each book has one or more central metaphor: a self-reflective device that’s used to structure the story. As the symbol that ties everything together, that charcoal becomes really important – and, thanks to Parker’s skill as a writer, surprisingly enjoyable.

Still, it isn’t all briquettes and buttons. If you’re nervous that lumber mills and drop hammers aren’t your thing, there’s plenty of excitement. Blue and Gold is about alchemy. Pattern brings in volcanoes (nothing boring there). The Escapement focuses on siege warfare. And Sharps? Sharps is about swords. Another reason that this book makes the ideal first Parker: what fantasy reader can resist a book about sword-fighting?

3. Proper badasses. I don’t want to give you the impression that Parker’s books are all bone-grinding and economic theory, because they aren’t. Some of fantasy’s hardest warriors lurk within these pages – Bardas Loredon, Suidas Deutzel and Poldarn among them. Deadly fighters from all walks of life: highly trained and extremely motivated. Parker’s books also contain some of the most compellingly vicious fight scenes. The sword-monks and raiders of the Scavenger trilogy, the mechanised warfare (and epic sieges) of the Engineer trilogy, the underground battles in The Proof House, and, of course, the swordplay of Sharps. From classic fencing to brawls, pitched battles to lethal duels, Sharps has a glut of action. As always, everything is exhaustively researched as well. (What else would you expect from an author that makes their own swords?) (more…)

July Events

Orbit will be at San Diego Comic-Con this year! Watch this space for details.

July 7
Rachel Aaron at Barnes & Noble, Forest Drive, Columbia, SC, 7:00 PM

July 12-15
James S.A. Corey (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) at ReaderCon, Burlington, MA

July 13
Kate Locke (with Eli August) at the Way Station, Brooklyn, NY

July 25-28
Nicole Peeler at RWA Annual Conference, Anaheim, CA

July 27-29
Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire) will be Guest of Honor at Confluence, Pittsburgh, PA
Robert Jackson Bennett at ArmadilloCon, Austin, TX

July 28
Kate Elliott (with Lynn Flewelling) at Mysterious Galaxy, Redondo Beach, CA, 2:30 PM

Cover Launch: THE HYDROGEN SONATA by Iain M. Banks

This October will bear witness to one of the biggest SF events of the year – the release of Iain M. Banks’s brilliant new Culture novel, THE HYDROGEN SONATA.

Here are the UK and US covers (click to enlarge), which subtly reflect both the new book’s title and the story within:

                                   

And here’s more on that story:

The Scavenger species are circling. It is, truly, the End Days for the Gzilt civilization.

An ancient people, organized on military principles and yet almost perversely peaceful, the Gzilt helped set up the Culture ten thousand years earlier and were very nearly one of its founding societies, deciding not to join only at the last moment. Now they’ve made the collective decision to follow the well-trodden path of millions of other civilizations; they are going to Sublime, elevating themselves to a new and almost infinitely more rich and complex existence.

Amid preparations though, the Regimental High Command is destroyed. Lieutenant Commander (reserve) Vyr Cossont appears to have been involved, and she is now wanted — dead, not alive. Aided only by an ancient, reconditioned android and a suspicious Culture avatar, Cossont must complete her last mission given to her by the High Command. She must find the oldest person in the Culture, a man over nine thousand years old, who might have some idea what really happened all that time ago. It seems that the final days of the Gzilt civilization are likely to prove its most perilous.

Orbit will be publishing THE HYDROGEN SONATA worldwide in print, ebook and audiobook editions this October.

James S. A. Corey’s CALIBAN’S WAR is out!

Please stand by for a tightbeam from Orbit Books:

For anyone who enjoyed last year’s Hugo-nominated barnburner LEVIATHAN WAKES  (US | UK | AUS) the next book in the Expanse series is a must-read.

Earth and Mars are rattling sabers following a grisly attack on the asteroid colony Ganymede, and heroes familiar and new are drawn into the fray. This reader would happily follow Captain James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante to the ends of the solar system, and may yet. But some new faces have joined the cast, including Bobbie Draper, gunnery sergeant in the Martian Marines (and her beyond-deadly combat suit), and Chrisjen Aravasala, an Earth politician as grandmotherly as she is shrewd, sharp-tongued, and determined to keep UN forces and Mars from all-out war.

CALIBAN’S WAR (US | UK | AUS) keeps up the faster-than-light pace set by LEVIATHAN WAKES, and raises the stakes, putting the fate of the entire solar system (and one missing little girl) in the balance. Says Kirkus Reviews: “Topnotch space opera … The characters, many familiar from before, grow as the story expands; tension mounts, action explodes and pages turn relentlessly.”

More Stories:

God Save the Queen, Tea & Duran Duran

God Save the Queen (US | UK | AUS) is about vampires, goblins, werewolves, humans and in-betweens. It’s about politics, power and loyalty, with a healthy dose of sex and blood tossed in for good measure. It’s set in a world where the Victorian Era never ended, and the Black Death ironically created an immortal aristocracy.

It also never would have been written without tea and Duran Duran.

When I was but a babe in the wilds of rural Nova Scotia, the first hot drink I remember having was not hot chocolate, but tea. Tea, it was understood, fixed everything, complimented all food groups, and had magical properties. We brewed it by the bag if we had to, but the norm was to toss a handful of leaves into a pot, add hot water and spend the rest of the day picking the bloody things out of your teeth. My mother read tea leaves. In fact, she was quite well known for it. She said the leaves in the bottom of my cup told her I was going to be a writer (she also told me they said I’d meet John Taylor, but more on him later). People came from all over to have her read their leaves. Some of them came back every freaking week, eager to hear what she saw in the bottom of their cup.

I wondered if perhaps she should buy stock in Red Rose.

My mum passed away a year and a half ago. She never did buy stock in Red Rose tea, but she passed on her knowledge of the leaves, and when I have a cuppa, I almost always think of her. I also think of her whenever I see Victorian clutter, pink Christmas tree ornaments, big hats and Grisly Adams (don’t ask). Anyway, tea remains an important part of my life and my career. I feel I must also acknowledge Mum’s love of the supernatural as well, because this apple certainly didn’t fall far when it comes to things that lurk in the shadows. My mother also made up bedtime stories for me, and sometimes we’d plot them together.

(more…)