Archive for All posts

Cover Launch: ANGEL TOWN (Jill Kismet #6) by Lilith Saintcrow

Here’s a bittersweet cover launch for you – sweet, because it’s another great cover by Calvin Chu, showing one of my favorite Lilith Saintcrow heroines, Jill Kismet. Bitter because it’s the finale of the Jill Kismet series! I love the graphic feel of these covers, it’s been a really fresh take on the urban fantasy style, and both Jill Kismet & Dante Valentine were well-characterized by the illustrations. In this book we really wanted to refer back to the first cover (Night Shift) and bring the series full-circle with a close-up shot. After the jump, see the whole series together, and a teaser…

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Put THE BUSINESS OF DEATH on your to-do list

The Business of Death (ANZ | UK | US) is out this month and a fun-packed, fast-paced basket of grim it is too! Trent Jamieson’s fantastic Death Works trilogy is a lively, urban fantasy read featuring a hard-pressed hero whose job is to ease the passing of spirits from one world to the other. But as Steven de Selby’s life goes rapidly to hell in a handcart, he finds there’s more rather more at stake than the job description indicated:

Steven de Selby has a hangover. Bright lights, loud noise, and exercise are the last thing he wants. But that’s what he gets when someone starts shooting at him. Steven is no stranger to Death – Mr. D’s his boss after all – but it’s still a shock when a dead girl saves him from sharing her fate. It’s a bigger shock when he finds his friends, family and colleagues have also been targeted. His job is to guide the restless dead to the underworld, but he didn’t expect to find his loved ones among his ‘clients’.

With Mr. D missing and no one in charge, the living are being hunted, the dead start rising and the whole city is headed for a regional apocalypse. Steven must shake his hangover, not fall for the dead girl, and find out just what’s going on – or there’ll be hell to pay.”

The Business of Death is a three-book omnibus (you can get a sample chapter here) so no need to wait for next instalments. And terrific quotes for this series include the following:

Jamieson writes a fast-paced story studded with action-movie beats”
Financial Times

 “An intriguing evolution of the undead genre”
The Telegraph

“Refreshingly original and enjoyable”
TheBookBag.co.uk

“There is a lot to like … Combine this with the corporate version of Death, the subtle blend of humour and dry wit and you get a well-thought-out rewarding story. I heartily recommend.”
SFBook.com

Cover Launch: SILVER-TONGUED DEVIL (Sabina Kane #4) by Jaye Wells

Having a long series of books (aka more than a trilogy) is a lot of fun, because over time, just as the reader does, you get a better feel for the character, and it definitely comes out in the cover art. Craig White has been really hitting his stride with Sabina Kane, I feel like each cover has more and more personality. The great photo shoots by Shirley Green with Toni Busker as our model certainly help. Toni is a veteran of many geek projects, and she is super fun to work with as she is always game for climbing about and playing with all kinds of weapons…Actually you may recognize her as a mermaid in the recent Pirates of the Caribbean #4. If that’s not geek cred for a cover model, I don’t know what is.

So, back to the cover at hand – as you can see, Sabina is back and prowling in NYC, and after the jump you can get a little teaser, along with the covers in order…

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COLD FIRE has roared into September

The wonderful drama that is Kate Elliott’s Cold Fire (US | UK | ANZ) is at last out and ready for reading! This follows up last month’s mass market paperback publication of Cold Magic (US | UK | ANZ) and moves on that story with high tension and style. You can get a free extract here and here’s a bit more on this wonderful, stirring tale of two girls finding their path in a world of magic, deceit and complex politics:

Cat and her cousin Bee are key players in a drama of dragons and politics. Warring factions want to use or destroy their growing powers, and they’re closing in. The Cold Mages are conspiring to take them prisoner and the warlord Camjiata thinks it’s their destiny to help him conquer Europa – whether they want to or not. And the man Cat was forced to marry is back, as arrogant and annoyingly handsome as ever. Worse still, as Hallows Night approaches, powers hidden deep within the spirit world are rising. Cat must seek allies against these threats, for if she makes the wrong choices, she’ll lose everything.

 Only one thing is certain. When Hallows’ Night comes the Wild Hunt will ride – and it feeds on mortal blood.”

Also, if you’re still here (not dashing around already trying to get hold of the book …) here are a few of the great things that have been said already:

Elliott skillfully blends intrigue and romance in this lively series about strong women caught among powerful and deadly forces’
Publishers Weekly

‘Something pretty unique. Add to this the author’s usual authoritative writing voice, a cracking love story and wrap it all up in politics, machinations alongside double dealing and the result is a very tired but sated reader after a marathon night time session … the result is something that makes this for me Kate’s best series to date. Great stuff’
Gareth Wilson, Faltaca Times

The Measure of the Magic & A Very Special Auction

Released 01/09/2011

This week Terry Brooks’ The Measure of the Magic (UK /ANZ) is released. It’s the striking conclusion to his Legends of Shannara duology, which began with Bearers of the Black Staff  (UK / ANZ) and explores the pre-history of Terry’s beloved Shannara world. You can read a sample chapter here.

To mark the occasion, we’d like to draw your attention to a special auction that is happening for a very good cause.

Stuart Finnie, who lives in Scotland and is undoubtedly one of Terry Brooks’ biggest ever fans, has been collecting Terry Brooks books and memorabilia of all kinds since age 11. From manuscripts, proof copies and first editions, to a spectacular sword and stunning maps, the collection is extremely extensive and wide-ranging, with almost all of the items included signed by Terry or the artists involved. The estimated value of Stuart’s entire collection, which he calls his “whole life”, is £30,000.

And Stuart has now decided to auction this whole collection off, with proceeds going to the cancer charity Macmillan. Having suffered from cancer himself, Stuart now wants to give back to the people who have helped him. We and Terry think this is a fantastically generous idea and wish Stuart all the best with the auction. You can read more about it in this article from the Evening Times.

Anyone who is interested in buying the collection or would like further information please contact April Andrews at Macmillan on 0141 952 0085 or e-mail westofscotland@macmillan.org.uk

THE FOURTH WALL cover launch

The enigmatic Dagmar Shaw returns in Walter Jon Williams’ THE FOURTH WALL, an exhilarating near-future thriller due for release in February 2012.

This striking cover art visual, from our designer Sean Garrehy, perfectly encapsulates the tension and sense of paranoia that the novel invokes.

If you’ve not yet been exposed to the frenetic action of a Walter Jon Williams thriller, then you’ve got time to see what you’ve been missing before THE FOURTH WALL is released. THIS IS NOT A GAME (UK | US | ANZ) and DEEP STATE (UK | US | ANZ) are both available in paperback.

Walter Jon Williams is a New York Times bestselling author and has been nominated multiple times for the Hugo and Nebula awards.

Here’s some praise for his Dagmar Shaw novels:

Powerful ideas, brilliantly executed . . . you should take this as a recommendation” – Charles Stross

“An eerily prophetic thriller” – SFX

“With admirable topicality, DEEP STATE concerns the fomenting of revolution against an repressive regime using modern networked communications” – Telegraph

The Black Prism Book Trailer

THE BLACK PRISM by Brent Weeks is available now in paperback in the US (it will be out in the UK and AUS in September!) To celebrate, Orbit teamed up with up-and-coming filmmaker Leo Kei Angelos to create a book trailer that’s chock-full of wild stunts, explosive action, flintlock guns, and glowy magic. Enjoy the trailer below!

Musings on Military SF

There are authors who chest thump about military experience (the same way guys buff their muscle-cars) and then claim this experience is why their military science fiction is better than the other guy’s (or girl’s). Me? I drive an old Toyota pickup, which hasn’t been washed in donkey’s years, that’s missing one hubcap, and which shimmies at sixty because one rim is bad. It’s a great car, though. Much more useful than a Camaro, that truck carried me across the country twice, hauled just about everything in the world, and is so beaten up that people just laugh when they open the door and look inside – if they don’t throw up.

Germline is my debut novel and it’s military science fiction. But it’s also my response to what I see as a subgenre that’s losing its way, a middle finger to books in which the importance of military jargon overshadows that of sympathetic characters, believable tactics, at least some glimpse of strategy, and a decent ending. Don’t get me wrong: the books I’m flipping-off have a place. They entertain, and a large segment of science fiction readership buys and enjoys them. It’s just that the last time I picked up a military science fiction book and then dropped my jaw at its awesomeness was when I finished The Forever War (in 1983) so when 2008 rolled around it became put-up-or-shut-up time – time to write the book I’d want to read. (more…)

COUNTDOWN to the Rising

The 2010 Hugo awards will be given out this weekend at the 2011 World Science Fiction Convention in Reno, Nevada. On the list for best novel is our very own Mira Grant’s Feed. In advance of the award announcement, we are releasing a novella set in the world of Feed that tells the story of the early days of the Rising.

Countdown originally ran as a series of posts on Mira’s website, but we’ve compiled them into a single edition as an ebook. If you want to know more about the coming zombie apocalypse, if you want to know more about Dr. Kellis, Amanda Amberlee herself, and George and Shaun’s older brother, Philip Mason, then check out Countdown. And, if you haven’t had a chance to read Feed, Countdown is a great introduction to the world of 2041…

Find out more at the Orbit Short Fiction site where you can read an excerpt, discuss the story, and find more short fiction from your favorite Orbit authors.

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Nicole Peeler’s Jane True makes a splash in the UK

Released this month in the UK, Australia and NZ are Tempest Rising (UK│ANZ) and Tracking the Tempest (UK│ANZ) – with a spangly new cover style. They’re books one and two in Nicole Peeler‘s sexy storm of a series, the Jane True novels. Books three and four, Tempest’s Legacy (UK│ANZ) and Eye of the Tempest (UK│ANZ), will follow hot on their heels this September and October respectively. So not long to wait to get your urban-fantasy-grabbing mitts on them!

 

Two weeks ago we ran a Twitter competition for UK readers to vote for their favourite of the above four covers. The result was Tempest Rising – good news as it’s the perfect place to dive into the world of supernatural halfling Jane True. You’ll see her coming to grips with her new-found powers over water (not to mention coming to grips with the rather dashing members of the supernatural community she meets for the first time…). The winner of the competition was Julie Fallon – congrats! Copies of the first four books will be winging (or more appropriately: swimming?) their way to you soon.