Archive for Orbit US

2312 and INTRUSION on the Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist!

                            2312      Intrusion

The finalists for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2013 have been announced, and we’re delighted to see 2312 (UK | US | ANZ) by Kim Stanley Robinson and INTRUSION (UK | ANZ) by Ken MacLeod both on the shortlist. Here’s the full list of nominees:

Nod by Adrian Barnes (Bluemoose)

Dark Eden by Chris Beckett (Corvus)

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway (William Heinemann)

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller (Headline)

Intrusion by Ken MacLeod (Orbit)

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)

All of us at Orbit offer our congratulations to Stan and Ken, and to the other authors on the shortlist. The winner will be announced at a ceremony at the Royal Society in London on 1 May 2013.

Praise for 2312:

Robinson blends mystery and suspense with lyrical evocation of a complex future” – SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

“Polymathic, visionary brilliance” – FINANCIAL TIMES

“A challenging, compelling masterpiece of science fiction” – PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY (STARRED REVIEW)

Praise for INTRUSION:

A disturbingly real socialist dystopia” – GUARDIAN

“Intrusion is a finely-tuned, in-your-face argument of a novel” – SFX

“A twistedly clever, frighteningly plausible dystopian glimpse” – Iain M. Banks

 

A personal statement from Iain Banks

I am officially Very Poorly.

After a couple of surgical procedures, I am gradually recovering from jaundice caused by a blocked bile duct, but that – it turns out – is the least of my problems.

I first thought something might be wrong when I developed a sore back in late January, but put this down to the fact I’d started writing at the beginning of the month and so was crouched over a keyboard all day.  When it hadn’t gone away by mid-February, I went to my GP, who spotted that I had jaundice.  Blood tests, an ultrasound scan and then a CT scan revealed the full extent of the grisly truth by the start of March.

I have cancer.  It started in my gall bladder, has infected both lobes of my liver and probably also my pancreas and some lymph nodes, plus one tumour is massed around a group of major blood vessels in the same volume, effectively ruling out any chance of surgery to remove the tumours either in the short or long term.

The bottom line, now, I’m afraid, is that as a late stage gall bladder cancer patient, I’m expected to live for ‘several months’ and it’s extremely unlikely I’ll live beyond a year.  So it looks like my latest novel, The Quarry, will be my last.

As a result, I’ve withdrawn from all planned public engagements and I’ve asked my partner Adele if she will do me the honour of becoming my widow (sorry – but we find ghoulish humour helps).  By the time this goes out we’ll be married and on a short honeymoon.  We intend to spend however much quality time I have left seeing friends and relations and visiting places that have meant a lot to us.  Meanwhile my heroic publishers are doing all they can to bring the publication date of my new novel forward by as much as four months, to give me a better chance of being around when it hits the shelves.

There is a possibility that it might be worth undergoing a course of chemotherapy to extend the amount of time available.  However that is still something we’re balancing the pros and cons of, and anyway it is out of the question until my jaundice has further and significantly, reduced.

Lastly, I’d like to add that from my GP onwards, the professionalism of the medics involved – and the speed with which the resources of the NHS in Scotland have been deployed – has been exemplary, and the standard of care deeply impressive.   We’re all just sorry the outcome hasn’t been more cheerful.

A website is being set up where friends, family and fans can leave messages for me and check on my progress.  It should be up and running during this week and a link to it will be on my official website at friends.banksophilia.com.

Iain Banks

Hugo Awards 2013

The nominees for the 2013 Hugo Awards were announced over the weekend; you can find the full list here. Congratulations to all the nominees!

We’re especially thrilled to have several Orbit authors among them. Nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel are Mira Grant’s BLACKOUT (US | UK | ANZ) and Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312 (US | UK | ANZ). Nominated for Best Novella is Mira Grant’s San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats, published by Orbit Short Fiction.

2312 cover BLACKOUT cover SAN DIEGO 2014 cover

Mira Grant was also nominated, as Seanan McGuire, for three other Hugo Awards in the Best Novelette and Best Fancast categories. She breaks a record as the first person to appear on the ballot five times in a single year!

THE SHAMBLING GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY cover

In addition, Mur Lafferty was nominated this year for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, for the second year running. We’ll be publishing Mur’s novel THE SHAMBLING GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY (US | UK | ANZ) next month.

“Shakespeare Stole Othello” – the Assassini Trilogy and the Shakespeare Connection

THE EXILED BLADEFans of Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s Assassini trilogy can’t have failed to notice the numerous quotes from Shakespeare that preface each act. With the release of THE EXILED BLADE [UK | US | ANZ] – the final novel in this wonderfully dark historical fantasy – we thought it was the perfect opportunity to ask Jon to explain this Shakespearan link.

The quotations at the start of novels exist to…

Do what exactly? Provide a fig leaf of respectability? Prove the writer’s heard of Camus or Kierkegaard? Flatter the reader that this is a worthwhile book? I think (I hope), that if used properly they exist like clues in a noir and raise a wry smile from the reader when she puts down the books, and thinks, ‘Ahh. So that’s how it fitted…’ In the course of Tycho’s story I used the following quotes in the following order. There are two per book, for parts one and two. All from Shakespeare and all (but the first) from the plays referenced* in the story…

‘…What a hell of witchcraft lies

In the small orb of one particular tear…’

A Lover’s Complaint

‘May the winds blow till they have waken’d death!’

Othello

‘These violent delights have violent ends…’ Romeo & Juliet

‘Now could I drink hot blood, and do such bitter business, as the day would quake to look on it…’

Hamlet

‘There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now ’tis not to come , if it be not to come, it will be now…’

Hamlet

‘This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine…’

Tempest

Individually they echo what is about to happen in that section, Together they mirror the story arc within The Fallen Blade, The Outcast Blade and The Exiled Blade, as Tycho learns what it means to be human, and those around him discover what it’s like to let a dazzling darkness into their midst. His is a story of redemption, because everything I writes is, in some sense, a story of redemption. It’s also a story about responsibility, and prices we pay to become or remain human.

Shakespeare stole Othello’s story from Giovanni Cinthio, just as he stole Hamlet from Saxo Grammaticus, and Romeo and Juliet from Arthur Brooke or William Painter, who both used it before him. He also happily pillaged much of Boccaccio’s back catalogue. So I have no regret in stealing in my turn. In The Fallen Blade and The Outcast Blade, Lord Atilo is Othello, the Moor of Venice, and Desdaio is the ill-fated Desdemona. And while I agree with the occasional reviewer who felt Desdaio got a raw deal . . . Precedent rather fixed her fate.

Lady Giulietta, who spans all three books, is obviously Juliet from Romeo and . . . While Tycho, mistaken for a Romaioi (Byzantine) noble is her star-crossed lover. Duchess Alexa combines elements of The Tempest’s Prospero; the island (Venice) is hers and A’rial (Arial) is her pet witch. She’s also Queen Gertrude from Hamlet, with steelier nerves and a straighter spine; which casts Prince Alonzo as Hamlet’s step father, and means poor mad Duke Marco is Hamlet himself.

The three tragedies are divided over the three novels; with Romeo and Juliet being the big arc; and Othello and Hamlet being smaller spans sitting inside and swapping half way through the second book. At some point, I hope, the three will be bound as one (as happened with the Arabesks), and the whole arc with its progression from dark into light will be clear. Although stealing from the master has a certain joy. The less joyful part is that his characters fates are predetermined (pace poor Desdaio). And though a writer can afford to play fast and loose with the occasional outcome it has to be occasional.

Obviously enough, the Assassini novels form a love story in which half the characters are insane and their love is unwise (which sounds like life to me). The emotional template is the tragedies and the sensibility broodingly Jacobean – at least I hope so! But I’ve allowed myself and the characters hope. As Prospero says at the end of the Tempest, ‘The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance.’

Tycho is allowed a choice.

* Referenced: fancy word for wholesale stealing of characters, plots, and motifs.

WOLFHOUND CENTURY Rises

Higgins_WolfhoundCentury-TPWOLFHOUND CENTURY released today in the US in hardcover, ebook, and audio formats. This brilliant debut by Peter Higgins is definitely one to check out so we’ve gone ahead and posted the first two chapters for you to read.

This alternate Russia shares similarities to the world we knew at the time of Stallin’s rise to power, but wild and mysterious magic has warped and changed the world in new and fantastic ways. “Sentient water, censored artists, mechanical constructs, old-fashioned detective work, and the secret police are all woven together in this rich and fascinating tapestry,” wrote Publishers Weekly in their starred review of the novel and that is only the tip of the iceberg. I encourage you to read this interview with Peter to find out more.

Praise for WOLFHOUND CENTURY:

“It has the suspense of classic spy thrillers, mixed with the strange and the bizarre found in any number of critically-acclaimed fantasists.” – Civilian Reader

“An alternate history that will grab you by the lapels and snap you to attention.” – io9.com

“Very dark, very gritty and very atmospheric. Wolfhound Century is also a book free of genre constraints, allowing for a great original and entertaining read. Top Notch stuff by Peter Higgins.” – The Founding Fields

How I Wrote Rebellion

Rebellion
The war is lost. The stone mage wakes. One slave will defy him . . .

The second book in a trilogy is always tricky to write. Unless the author is very careful it can be the weakest of the three books, because it’s neither the beginning of the beginning nor the end of the end.

The way I solve this critical problem is to give each book its own driving storyline, with a powerful beginning and an even stronger ending, both of which dovetail neatly into the overarching story of the trilogy. It’s easy to say that, of course, but not so easy to do, and it takes a lot of planning and rewriting to get right.

What’s Rebellion about?

REBELLION (US | UK | AUS), book 2 of my epic fantasy trilogy The Tainted Realm, is set in an isolated island nation, once Cython but now called Hightspall, which is forever tainted by the brutal way it was colonised two thousand years ago. But now the conquered land is fighting back with one natural disaster after another, the Cythonians’ long-dead alchymist-king Lyf is rising again, and they know it’s time to take back their country.

Only one person can prevent Hightspall from running with blood – Tali, a slave in Cython who, as an eight-year-old girl, saw her mother murdered for the magical ebony pearl secretly cultured inside her head. Tali, now 18, is determined to bring the killers to justice, but discovers that she too bears an ebony pearl – the master pearl, in fact. And every villain in the land wants to hack it out of her head, including the killers.

In Book 1, VENGEANCE, Tali pursued the killers, and was hunted by them, through a land at war. To avenge her murdered mother she, a timid slave, had to take on the wizard-king, Lyf, who first died two thousand years ago.

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Exclusive Interview with THE CURVE OF THE EARTH Hero Samuil Petrovitch (Part 2)

The Curve of the Earth, a new Samuil Petrovitch near-future science fiction novel from Philip K. Dick award-winner Simon Morden - perfect for fans of Richard Morgan To celebrate publication of THE CURVE OF THE EARTH ( UK|US|ANZ), Orbit was lucky enough to be treated to a rare interview with one of the post-apocalyptic world’s most brilliant minds: Doctor Samuil Petrovitch.

In part two of this interview, we try to get to the heart of Petrovitch’s relationship with Reconstructionist America, ask him a few more personal questions about the type of music he likes,and find out what  projects he’s got on the burner right now.

(NB: the below does contain some foreign swearing, as is typical of Petrovitch’s blend of old-school Russian and English. For translations, please see our Russian swearing glossary. You can also read part one of our interview with Samuil Petrovitch here.)

I want to ask you about your attitude towards Reconstruction.

SP: What did you want to ask that isn’t already a matter of public record?

What is the relationship like between the Freezone and the USA?

SP: Is there one?

I’m asking if there is.

SP: We’re two mutually exclusive ideologies. Reconstruction America is actively seeking to destroy the Freezone, however they can, and I have to assume that at some point it’s going to come down to whether they think they can get away with annihilating us, including Michael. For the Freezone’s part, and I’m not the Freezone’s spokesman on this or anything else, we have absolutely no intention of getting into a shooting match with the Yanks. All our projections show that Reconstruction will collapse within a hundred years, so we’re happy to play the long game. All their base will belong to us. Eventually.

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Infographic: The Decidedly Delectable DOUGHNUT

Doughnut

We’ve all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Whether that is true or not, clearly the doughnut is the superior choice over all other breakfast options. Don’t feed me any of that nonsense about muffins or bagels being better: the doughnut is the clear winner.

Through the process of publishing Tom Holt’s new novel, DOUGHNUT (US |UK |AUS), we’ve become experts on the subject –  unlocking the many mysteries of the delectable doughnut. What secrets lie beneath that glazed exterior?

Click to find out more than you ever thought possible about mankind’s greatest contribution to breakfast.

Doughnut Infogrpahic

Exclusive Interview with THE CURVE OF THE EARTH Hero Samuil Petrovitch (Part 1)

The Curve of the Earth, a new Samuil Petrovitch near-future science fiction novel from Philip K. Dick award-winner Simon Morden - perfect for fans of Richard Morgan To celebrate the publication of THE CURVE OF THE EARTH ( UK|US|ANZ), Orbit was lucky enough to be treated to a rare interview with one of the post-apocalyptic world’s most brilliant minds: Doctor Samuil Petrovitch.

Over the course of his life, Doctor Petrovitch has been called a lot of things: hero; cyborg; menace; traitor; father; a**hole.

Now, for the first time, you can meet the man behind the metal (and the myth) in this two part interview. Find out some of his favourite things (cat videos?), discover more about his AI companion Michael, hear more on the Freezone that arose from the ashes of post-Armageddon London – and get to the heart of his strained relationship with Reconstructionist America.

(NB: the below does contain some foreign swearing, as is typical of Petrovitch’s blend of old-school Russian and English. For translations, please see our Russian swearing glossary.)

 

Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Dr Petrovitch.

SP: Yeah, okay. I’ve been told this would be a good idea, something I very much doubt. I’ll apologise in advance for punching you in the face.

I suppose I should be grateful you’re not shooting me in the face.

SP: Yes. Yes, you should. Are you going to ask me the first yebani question or do I just walk out now?

You’ve been called many things, Dr Petrovitch, and opinions about you are sharply divided. Some see you as some sort of digital saviour, others as the Antichrist himself.

SP: There isn’t actually a question there. Try again.

I’m asking you how you see yourself.

SP: In a mirror. Or I can just pop out one of my eyeballs and turn it around. Seriously, that’s a really dangerous thing to ask me. I could, if I wanted, give you my unshielded ego for the next half hour, but no one really wants to see that, not even me. I have a very strong sense of self, but I’m not so far up my own zhopu as to think that matters at all. What matters is what I do, not how I think of myself as doing. Ask me another, better question.

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