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Job Opportunity: Laundry Field Agent. Do You Have What It Takes?

You: you’re a civil servant, working in an administrative or support role, within SOE X Division, commonly known as the Laundry. You have signed the Official Secrets Act. You know the score. You know that when you carry out certain computation operations, it has echoes in the Platonic realm of pure mathematics – echoes audible to beings from other universes, who can be bound to act at our command. Magic is a branch of applied mathematics, and there are agents out there working ceaselessly to protect the realm from esoteric alien threats. You aren’t one of them – yet.

You believe you can contribute more to the organisation by taking a proactive role. You’re a dynamic self-starter and a team player, flexible and able to plan and execute on your feet while remaining within official guidelines. And you want to get out from behind your desk.

Do you have what it takes to handle an active service assignment?

We’re looking for the next Laundry field agent to assist our rising star employee, Bob Howard. Bob has seen service. He’s dealt with nameless horrors you could only dream of, and with only limited . . . mishaps.

Starting today, we will be releasing clues that will allow you access to the Laundry Vault.
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Captain America, Bitter Seeds and Nazis in fiction

Promotional poster for Paramount's CAPTAIN AMERICA, a superhero movie based on a Marvel comic of the same name - and its link to Bitter Seeds“I want you to know,” said John, “that you completely ruined Captain America for me.”

This was last summer at our local SF convention, Bubonicon. (Which, yes, is named after the bubonic plague.  But that’s another story.) John and I belong to the same writing community here in New Mexico, so we chat from time to time. But we didn’t see this movie together, or even in the same city. Which made his complaint a bit confusing to me. 

“Oh, about 20 minutes in,” he said, “my wife leaned over and said, ‘Hey!  He looks like Ian!’ So all through the rest of the movie I kept picturing you up there fighting Nazis.”

Steve Stirling overheard our conversation. He joined us, nodding. “Yeah. Me, too.”

And so it became a running joke at last year’s convention. (A joke at my expense, naturally. But I refuse to carry a shield.) Fast forward 10 months to last weekend, when I shared this story with a visiting friend. Corry said, without missing a beat, “We saw it on video recently. I told my husband, ‘That’s what Ian looks like.'” 

The cover for Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis - an alternate history novel featuring superhuman Nazis fighting British WarlocksNow, if you ask me, these people are quite mad. There isn’t the slightest resemblance. But when I object, they’re always quick to clarify: No, we didn’t mean the strong, square-jawed, charismatic Captain America. We mean the early version of Steve Rogers. The pre-super-soldier-serum, pre-Vita-Ray Steve Rogers. Of course you don’t resemble the superhero, Ian. We meant the scrawny runt.

Well, obviously.   

Aside from my desperate need for a solid dose of serum and Vita-Rays, I share little in common with young Rogers, much less his superheroic alter ego. I’ve never punched Hitler. Not even once.  (I’m not saying I wouldn’t, but I’ve never had a chance.) I have, however, used Nazis and superpowers in my novels, which meant I was firmly embedded in the target audience for Captain America.

And Steve Rogers and I would surely agree on one thing: Nazis are a pain in the neck. For him, fighting them. For me, writing them.

I expended a fair bit of time and energy ruminating on the fictional superpowered agents of the Third Reich in Bitter Seeds (UK | ANZ). I wanted to tell myself an entertaining adventure story; something chewy and fun, like a good comic book. But I also wanted to tell a story that could be molded around the nooks and crannies of history. So I had to think carefully about the grim realities of the Third Reich, which forced me to consider carefully the portrayal of Nazis in my novel. And I did. I thought long and very hard about how to approach these books before I started.

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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.

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Hawthorn Moon Sneak Peek Event with Gail Z. Martin

Gail Z. Martin, author of The Fallen Kings Cycle series (THE SWORN and THE DREAD), unveils her sneak peek of ICE FORGED  Book One in The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, coming from Orbit Books in 2013.

Gail’s giving everyone a first look at the cover art for ICE FORGED, as well as book excerpts, author Q&As and more as part of her Hawthorn Moon Online Sneak Peek Event.  She’s got exclusive goodies spread out across more than a dozen partner sites, and you can find out about it all on Gail’s site, www.AscendantKingdoms.com.

Here is the cover. Gail also answers some questions about ICE FORGED and about her writing life.

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Q:  Tell us a little about  how you came to write ICE FORGED.

A: I’d been playing with the idea of what if magic broke (as it nearly did in the Chronicles books), and what if we had a post-apocalyptic medieval world, and what if a world sent its convicts to the northern rim (instead of, in our world, Georgia or Australia)….and I had an idea of where I wanted to go.

I like stories that test the mettle of a character and reveal what he/she is made of.  In Ice Forged, the main characters have lost everything when they were disgraced and sentenced to a harsh prison colony.  When the magic dies and the Continent is destroyed in the war and the resulting apocalypse, the life they’ve made for themselves as colonists is jeopardized.  The discovery that Blaine is the only one who can restore the magic set him and his friends on a dangerous journey that will pit them against powerful immortal enemies.  The fate of their world rests in the hands of a group of convicts.  Succeed, and they win not only their freedom, but the ability to shape the future of the world.  Fail, and face the wrath of the gods knowing you have condemned your world to darkness.

Q:  What is your Hawthorn Moon Sneak Peek Event?

A:  I started doing the Hawthorn Moon Sneak Peek Event back in 2008, and it’s become something my readers have come to expect.  The solstice (aka the Hawthorn Moon) was an important event in my first book, The Summoner, and the name and timing just stuck.  It’s my online unveiling of the cover art for the new book, along with excerpts, interviews, all-new guest blog posts and lots of fun stuff spread out over a dozen or so sites.  To find out all the goodies and all the partner sites, please visit www.AscendantKingdoms.com.

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Trailer for EXISTENCE by David Brin

Released today is EXISTENCE (UK | ANZ) – the phenomenal new science fiction novel from the multi-award winning David Brin. A book that io9 said will “make you think about the future in a whole new way.”

Truly a tour-de-force of storytelling, it’s his first novel to be released in ten years, and in the words of the Guardian: ‘It’s been well worth the wait’.

To mark this fantastic event we have released a first edition of the book with a limited-edition 3D cover. Watch the trailer below to see what lies ahead . . .

 

Behind the Cover Video: THE SPIRIT WAR by Rachel Aaron

Here in the Art Department, we work over a year in advance on our book covers, so it’s a thrill to finally be able to go back and share these process posts with you. Today we have a special treat, because last year when the fabulous illustrator Sam Weber was working on the Eli Monpress series for us, he invited us into his studio in Brooklyn to take a peek at THE SPIRIT WAR in progress.
I have really enjoyed working with Sam on this series because not only does he paint such gorgeous covers for us, he’s also a gigantic geek and loves to read the books as well. It really makes a difference in a cover when your artist really gets into the story and characters…especially in the case of Eli, master thief and scoundrel extraordinaire.

In the video below, Sam walks us through his process from thumbnails to final art. Even seeing him work up close, I still can’t believe he gets the amazing textures and luminosity he creates out of the watercolors. Let me tell you, if you are not an artist or have never tried painting in any medium, never mind watercolors, you have no idea how unforgiving a medium it can be.

I know the sketches and stages he shows go by pretty quickly in the video, so I’ll post a bunch of the cover stages so you can see what he’s describing up close. Enjoy! And look forward to part two, when we move past the process of physically creating the cover, and reveal how big of a geek Mr. Weber really is.

After the jump, see the process images up close and personal…
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BITTER SEEDS: Blood magic, sociopaths and “good people doing bad things”

The World War II alternate history fantasy novel Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregellis, where the Nazis have superhumans and the British use dark magicsIan Tregillis’s debut fantasy novel BITTER SEEDS (UK | ANZ) is a sinister reimagining of World War II events. In this supernatural alternate history, British forces use dark magics to hold back an invading army of Nazi superhumans. Orbit’s James Long put some questions to Ian on where he got his ideas from . . .

The premise of Bitter Seeds – Nazi super soldiers versus occult powers conjured up by British Warlocks – is unusual, to say the least! What was the original inspiration behind the story?

A number of years ago, around 2002 or 2003, I read a magazine article about a little-known Allied secret project during the Second World War called Project Habakkuk. Habakkuk was conceived during the height of the Battle of the Atlantic, when German wolf packs were destroying Allied shipping convoys. The idea – and this is one of those wonderful places where truth is so much stranger than fiction – was to build ships out of ice. It sounds mad but it’s actually a rather clever idea! Alas, for various reasons the project never made it past the prototype stage (Maybe because it is just a little bit mad.)

But I couldn’t get that image out of my head, of vast bergships plying the North Atlantic and changing the course of the war. So I began to wonder how the Axis might have responded if Habakkuk had been a success. A few days later, as I was driving to work, the answer hit me out of the blue: obviously, Ian, the Germans would have sent a pyrokinetic spy to sabotage the shipyards . . .

The ice ship never made it into Bitter Seeds, but the pyrokinetic SS agent did. (more…)