Archive for Orbit US

Wallpapers for THE LEGEND OF ELI MONPRESS by Rachel Aaron

So things have been a little hectic wrapping up the Fall 2012/Winter 2013 season here in the Orbit Art Department, but expect to see a lot more action from us in the coming weeks. To start off with a bang is wallpapers for one of my favorite covers, and one of my favorite Orbit series, THE LEGEND OF ELI MONPRESS by Rachel Aaron. Actually this book is a trade paperback omnibus collecting the first three books in the series (Spirit Thief, Spirit Rebellion, and Spirit Eater) and to celebrate, we had the amazing artist Sam Weber take a crack at personifying Eli, the most famous thief in the world. If you want to see more behind the scenes on the cover, read this post.

And if you haven’t met Eli yet, then you’re missing out — the best comparison I an give is The Princess Bride by way of The Lies of Locke Lamora. And I don’t invoke Dread Pirate Roberts lightly, mind you. Honestly, when you have the artist calling wanting the next manuscript early for the next book, that’s a winner.

Stay tuned, because we’ll be launching more books in the series — with a video visit to Sam’s studio.

Here’s all the wallpaper download links…if anyone needs a specific dimension made, let us know!

 

1024 x 768 | 1280 x 800 | 1440 x 900 | 1680 x 1050 |1920 x 1200 | iPhone | iPad

 

Henry Marco can help you with that zombie problem

The situation is grim following the outbreak, and the United States has been split in two. Grieving families must not only deal the loss of their loved ones, but also the knowledge that those bodies may not be resting peacefully. Henry Macro is a man that brings peace…for a price.

It’s not easy to breathe life into undead, but in April we’re releasing a book in the US that does just that. Check out this new video for THE RETURN MAN, and take your first steps into the Evacuated States. (Just be sure to bring your shotgun!)

To find out more and connect with other zombie fans visit The Return Man on Facebook.

Praise for THE RETURN MAN

“Hands down one of the best zombie novels I’ve read in a long, long time. From first page to last, THE RETURN MAN is an astonishing read. With characters you genuinely give a damn about and a story that’ll keep you turning page after page, this is an outstanding debut.” — David Moody, author of Autumn

“Thrilling, melancholy, and stomach-churningly gory… This is a sturdy and crowd-pleasing novel that squarely hits its target.” — Publishers Weekly

“A hair-raising quest … Zito expertly piles on thrills, cliffhangers and numerous twists …”  — The Guardian (UK)

THE RETURN MAN will be available in stores April 1, 2012.

Heroes Who Inspired Me

I guess it’s not a big surprise, since I write about heroic adventures, that I get asked which fictional heroes within the sci-fi/fantasy genre inspired me.

I’ve  actually got a rather long list, but let me talk about some of my favorites.

I still remember the first time I saw Star Trek (the original series).  James T. Kirk captured my imagination.  From Jim Kirk, I learned that a good leader never asks from followers what he isn’t willing to do himself. That a leader takes risks and sacrifices for his people. That some decisions are a choice between two undesirable outcomes, and that innocent actions can have unintended consequences.

Sam Gamgee is another of my favorite heroes.  Everyone thinks of Aragorn or Frodo as the hero, but to me, Sam’s the real hero of the piece, the unremarkable person who is in over his head and carries the day because of loyalty and never-say-die determination.

Emma Peel from The Avengers is definitely high on the list, not only for her wardrobe.  There were very few women in action roles when I was a kid and even fewer who kicked butt.  Emma Peel could hold her own (and even rescue Mr. Steed on more than one occasion) long before today’s cadre of demon hunters, and she was way ahead of her time on the leather jumpsuits and high heels.  In 2009 when I was a writer Guest of Honour at FantasyCon in Nottingham, England, I had the pleasure of meeting Brian Clemens, the media Guest of Honour, who helped originate The Avengers.  It was terrific to have the chance to tell him how much the show meant to me.

Vanyel Ashkevron broke my heart.  Vanyel is the tragic hero of Mercedes Lackey’s The Last Herald Mage series, and a character who felt so real to me that I grieved when the books ended.  He enabled me to see the world very differently, and for that, I’ll always be grateful.  I stayed up until the wee hours one night at Lunacon for the chance to thank Mercedes Lackey personally.

Then there was Karl Cullinane in the Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg.  As a high school D&D player, I loved his through-the-looking-glass universe, and could identify with the characters who struggled to live up to the heroic qualities of their role playing alter-egos when real life took an abrupt and dangerous turn.

More recently, John Sheridan from Babylon 5 and Mal Reynolds from Firefly made my heroes list.  In Sheridan, I saw someone who had the capacity to grow and adapt when he came to realize that his certainty about the dividing line between enemies and friends could be badly mistaken.  Mal Reynolds saw everything he believed in go down in flames, something that happens to everyone sooner or later.  He hadn’t made his peace with that, but he found a reason to keep on going–“You can’t take the sky from me.”

I’ll name a few more: Alaric Morgan from Katherine Kurtz’s Camber of Culdi series,  Han Solo, Kate Connor (Carpe Demon—gotta love a mom who hunts hellspawn and has to be done in time for the carpool line), Sarah Connor (Terminator—hell hath no fury like a mom with a mission), and a current fictional favorite from outside the genre, China Bayles from Susan Wittig Alberts’ mystery series, who reflects the unexpected growths and losses of a certain point in life.

There are so many more, I think this discussion will need to continue on my Facebook page, so join me there, and I’d love to hear YOUR favorite genre heroes!

Where I’ll be in March-April

– Guest Author at the Arizona Renaissance Festival March 23-24
– Signing at Books a Million, Carolina Mall, Concord, NC 3/30
– Signing at Park Road Books, Charlotte NC 4/27

Urban fantasy unleashed: Kate Griffin’s The Minority Council out now in the UK

The Minority Council by Kate GriffinEveryone’s favourite resurrected sorceror, Matthew Swift, is back in Kate Griffin’s latest tale of urban magic, THE MINORITY COUNCIL [UK | US | ANZ] — out now in the UK and in the US on May 1. As usual, London is in dire need of his help.

Matthew Swift, the Midnight Mayor, is in charge. He hopes. And London is having some issues.

The new drug on the market is fairy dust and it turns humans into walking drug labs. Teenage vandals are being hunted by a mystical creature and ordinary criminals are dying by magical means.

If Swift is going to save London from a rising tide of blood, he will have to learn – and fast – what it really means to be Midnight Mayor.

Check out a sample of THE MINORITY COUNCIL!

Praise for Kate’s Matthew Swift series:

A fascinating sojourn into the mind of a thoroughly unique protagonist, written in an evocative, searingly poetic style . . . We aren’t just reading about the city and its magic – we hear it, we smell it, we taste it” – ROB WILL REVIEW

“Neverwhere for the digital age . . . The best novelists transcend genre and Griffin’s excellent Matthew Swift sequence , which tells of an eldritch and fantastical London, proves this point” – SFX

“Few can claim to share the same level of creativity and individual style as Griffin” – SCIFI NOW

For more on Kate Griffin and her Matthew Swift series, be sure to stop by her website. Kate is an active blogger and regularly writes on a variety of topics, from real-life London to the changing nature of superhero powers , via the dangers of martial arts . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

T.C. McCarthy: On Screenplays

I’m reading an email; Orbit wants me to write screenplays – four of them – and my reaction is to write back “not just yes, but HELL yes.” Then I hit send. It’s only later, while I’m scraping ice and snow off the car that I realize what’s happened and that within a few months Jeremy Tolbert and Levi Thornton will have made four short films and that all will be based on what I write. Me. The concept is Jeremy’s idea but the scripts will be mine, and every word from the actors’ mouths will have come from my keyboard.  I can’t call up Christopher Markus to ask for help and what would I ask anyway? “Hey, dude, would you mind critiquing my screenplays instead of working on the next Captain America script? I know you’re busy but, come on. Can’t that McFeely guy get around to it?”

Right.

***

It’s snowing again. If we get caught in Vermont, in the snow, there’s no way to tell how long we’ll be stuck. This makes me sad because it means an early departure. The kids are crying and my daughter wants to go skiing with me one last time, but everyone is exhausted and before I know it the house is quiet because all the kids have passed out barely making it to their beds. Now I can write. Now I can take the hours to read about how to format a screen play – because they have their own rules, their own look, their own way of conveying information to the actors and the audience. “(Beat)” means pause, for example, and script dialogue has to go in a certain place on the page. Jeremy is counting on me to hand in something incredible, something that will make it all worthwhile — thoughts that bring me to a terrorized state where it occurs to me: I can’t do it. They asked the wrong guy.

But now it’s too late to quit.

***

“Balmy?” I hear the neighbor say, “what the hell is ‘balmy?'”,  but it must be the right word because the dogs are panting and I’m in my shorts despite the fact that it’s January in South Carolina and even we aren’t supposed to wear shorts in January. There’s no more patch. There’s no more patch. Quitting chewing tobacco leaves me with phantom pains, and now there are four scripts on my computer laughing at me because they know all I want is nicotine — something to take the edge off that voice, the one telling me that my work isn’t good enough.Maybe it isn’t. But there’s nothing left for it except to keep revising, to go over the words until I can’t see them anymore, and a few hours later my wife shakes me because I’ve fallen asleep in my chair.

***

The scripts are finished and I handed them in a few weeks earlier; it’s hard to say if they’re any good. Then I get an email while working on my next book, and it’s from the filmmaker with a link to a rough cut of the videos and everything becomes clear: why writing screenplays is so much fun. The actors give life to the words; the director has his/her own interpretation of the script and adds, music, lighting, camera angles — everything. Are these my scripts? What the hell is going on? The movies are so spooky that I start chewing my nails and wondering what will happen next, even though I know what will happen next. You might love these video-trailers too. You might not. If you haven’t read Germline or Exogene, you might get the sense that whatever my books are about, they’re not typical, futuristic military science fiction novels, and maybe they’re not. Maybe they’re books about the reality – the insanity – of the present and of the truth, a reflection of dark spots on my brain.

March Events

On either side of the pond, there are plenty of places to run into Orbit authors in March.

Thursday, March 1
Gail Carriger at Mysterious Galaxy, San Diego, CA, 7 PM

March 2-4
Kristen Painter at Fantasy on the Bayou, New Orleans, LA
Mira Grant at Consonance, San Francisco, CA

Friday, March 2
Gail Carriger at Murder by the Book, Houston, TX, 6:30 PM

Saturday, March 3
Gail Carriger at Book People, Austin, TX, 7 PM

Thursday, March 8
Jon Courtenay Grimwood at A Gothic Evening at Blackwell’s, Blackwell’s Charing Cross, London

Saturday, March 10
A. Lee Martinez at B&N at North East Mall, Hurst, TX, 2 PM

Wednesday, March 14
Amanda Downum at Dragon’s Lair Comics, Austin, TX, 6 PM

Saturday, March 17
Robert Jackson Bennett at Murder by the Book, Houston, TX, 1 PM

Wednesday, March 21
Ken MacLeod at Pulp Fiction Books, Edinburgh

Thursday, March 22
Amanda Downum at Pandemonium Books, Cambridge, MA, 7 PM

March 23-25
Mira Grant at AggieCon, Austin, TX

March 30
Gail Z. Martin at Books-a-Million Carolina Mall, Concord, NC

March 30-April 1
Mira Grant at Emerald City Comic Con, Seattle, WA

Read an Excerpt from EXOGENE

In GERMLINE journalist Oscar Wendell introduced us to a new breed of special forces and the surprising humanity these elite and deadly soldiers are capable of. Now read the first chapter of EXOGENE (US | UK| AZ) – a story of war from the perspective of one of these genetically engineered soldiers.

Live forever. The thought lingered like an annoying dog, to which I had handed a few scraps.

I felt Megan’s fingers against my skin, and smelled the paste—breathed the fumes gratefully for it reminded me that I wouldn’t have to wear my helmet. Soon, but not now. The lessons taught this, described the first symptom of spoiling: When the helmet no longer felt safe, a sign of claustrophobia. As my troop train rumbled northward, I couldn’t tell if I shook from eagerness or from the railcar’s jolting, and gave up trying to distinguish between the two possibilities. It was not an either‑or day; it was a day of simultaneity.

Deliver me from myself, I prayed, and help me to accept tomorrow’s end.

Click to read more

Also check out The Subterrene War Clips – an in-world introduction to the destruction and political intrigue tearing the front-lines apart. Welcome to hell. Welcome to Kazakhstan.

A Day With Nico

One of the best fantasy books around - The Legend of Eli Monpress by Rachel Aaron (an omnibus of The Spirit Thief, The Spirit Rebellion and The Spirit Eater)Author’s Note: If you haven’t read my books yet, you should totally try the new omnibus. For one, the price is fantastic, but also, the omnibus contains the first three Eli books, ending with The Spirit Eater. You can try the first few chapters of The Spirit Thief for free on my site.  And if you’ve already finished the first three, I’ve got a big chunk of the fourth book, The Spirit War, up on my site just for you, complete with more Nico!  There are, of course, spoilers for the first three, so read at your own peril.

One of the things I love as a writer is when people send me messages talking about their favorite characters. Eli is, of course, very popular (Eli: of course. Rachel: Shut up). Josef and Miranda are also up there, as is Slorn. But what never ceases to amaze me is how many people write to say how much they love Nico.

For those of you who haven’t read my books, Nico is the only girl in the Eli thief trio. She’s also a demonseed who is excessively dangerous and who has had a very hard life. She came in with Josef, my serious swordsman, and sticks by him though everything, an aspect which has always delighted me. Eli might be the leader, but Josef is the glue that holds the Monpress thieves together. Ahhh, group dynamics. Anyway, I’m always a bit surprised how many people really seem to like Nico. Not because she’s not worth liking, but because in the whole series, she was the hardest character for me to write. (more…)

The Final Alexia Tarabotti Adventure!

Sadly, it is that time. It is Alexia’s last—and latest—madcap adventure. Alexia began her adventures with SOULLESS (US/UK/ANZ) and now finishes her adventures with TIMELESS (US/UK/ANZ). More about her adventure below.

Alexia Tarabotti, Lady Maccon, has settled into domestic bliss. Of course, being Alexia, such bliss involves integrating werewolves into London High society, living in a vampire’s second best closet, and coping with a precocious toddler who is prone to turning supernatural willy-nilly. Even Ivy Tunstell’s acting troupe’s latest play, disastrous to say the least, cannot put a damper on Alexia’s enjoyment of her new London lifestyle.

Until, that is, she receives a summons from Alexandria that cannot be ignored. With husband, child, and Tunstells in tow, Alexia boards a steamer to cross the Mediterranean. But Egypt may hold more mysteries than even the indomitable Lady Maccon can handle. What does the vampire Queen of the Alexandria Hive really want from her? Why is the God-Breaker Plague suddenly expanding? And how has Ivy Tunstell suddenly become the most popular actress in all the British Empire?

If you want more of Alexia — please do check out SOULLESS, THE MANGA, VOL 1 (US/UK/ANZ), which is also out now!

Check out the whole series of novels below:

 

The cover for the steampunk romance urban fantasy, SOULLESS by Gail CarrigerThe cover for the steampunk romance urban fantasy Changeless by Gail Carriger

The cover for the steampunk urban fantasy romance BLAMELESS by Gail Carriger