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How To Make Brain Cupcakes

So you’re preparing your ultimate zombie-themed dinner party, and you’re stuck for a dessert. Or you’re entertaining a zombie who’s recently gone vegetarian, and is jonesing for those good old days of gray matter and the delicious taste of human brains. Whatever your reasons, you need a brainy treat that puts the “sweet” back into “sweetmeats.”

Luckily, I’m here for you.

These delicious desserts were created by Jennifer at Cups and Cakes Bakery, in San Francisco, California, and she was kind enough to let us come in and record the entire process. Here’s how you, too, can create delicious bite-sized brains for you and your victi…er, guests. First up, a quick instructional video, followed by a detailed recipe.

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They Came From Orbit – NEW POSTER!

They Came From Orbit poster
2010 Orbit Promotional Poster

Check out our fabulous new Orbit poster, which will be in Australian bookshops from July onwards.  We’ve re-worked the classic Orbit UK poster from many moons ago (1998), so it now showcases the current bestselling stars on our list, for example – Iain M. Banks, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Jordan, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Moon, Brent Weeks, Pamela Freeman and lots more…

Original Orbit promo poster
Orignal Orbit Promo poster

The writing/acting connection

I’ve always been interested in acting, and theatre, and film and tv. Basically in entertaining. I remember putting on puppet shows in my neighbourhood as a kid, and making puppets and stuff like that when I was a tiddler at Lindfield Demonstration School. I was in every primary and high school play I could manage and in 4th class primary school I wrote and directed a play about medieval monks. At one point I was seriously considering auditioning for acting school, but realised just in time that on the whole I wasn’t entirely comfortable being the stark focus of attention on stage. Mind you, that didn’t stop me doing some more acting in local Sydney theatre – Harvey and Charlie’s Aunt at the Pymble Players, a David Williamson play and Bazaar and Rummage at the Pavilion, then after a long break The Odd Couple there as well. A murder mystery at Dural, and one of the main nuns in Nunsense there as well — which is where I learned that as much as I love singing, I really wasn’t comfortable having an entire showstopping number resting on my shoulders! So from there I moved into directing, and have now directed 4 major productions as well as a one-act play of my own.

And now, ahead of tackling the biggest directing challenge of my life so far (more on that when I can say) I’ll be back on stage again later this year at the Pavilion as Mrs Rogers in Agatha Christie’s classic And Then There Were None. (more…)

EARTH ABIDES: A WELL-ORDERED APOCALYPSE

No discussion of great post-apocalyptic books would be complete without mention of George R. Stewart’s 1949 classic, EARTH ABIDES. It’s been reported that it was Stephen King’s inspiration for THE STAND, and worthy inspiration it is. This book is part Robinson Crusoe, part brilliant speculative anthropology, and part Moby Dick, all laid out in scenes of decay like the ones depicted in The History Channel’s LIFE AFTER PEOPLE. This book portrays what it would be like to lose our technology, nearly everything from the bow and arrow onward, and start anew in our tribes.

But EARTH ABIDES doesn’t begin with loincloths and venison roasting on the spit. It begins with young Isherwood Williams alone in the Northern California wilderness, performing research for his graduate thesis. The tension begins immediately. He’s bitten by a snake and then he contracts a nasty virus, but he recovers from both. He then tries to end his lonely and quite nearly life-ending sojourn by driving into the nearest town—only to discover that the people are gone. He drives further into the town, blaring his car horn, but there’s no response. He gets out. Finally he reads the last edition of The San Francisco Chronicle, a single folded sheet carrying the headline: CRISIS ACUTE. (more…)

New Iain M. Banks Culture Novel

Tweet it from the rooftops, a new Culture novel by Iain M. Banks will be released in October.

The title is SURFACE DETAIL, which refers to a number of things, not least one of the principal characters, who is covered, externally and internally, with congenitally administered tattoos.

Here’s the cover:

Here’s the blurb:

It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters.

It begins with a murder.

And it will not end until the Culture has gone to war with death itself.

Lededje Y’breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit. Prepared to
risk everything for her freedom, her release, when it comes, is at a price, and to put things right she will need the help of the Culture.

Benevolent, enlightened and almost infinitely resourceful though it may be, the Culture can only do so much for any individual. With the assistance of one of its most powerful – and arguably deranged – warships, Lededje finds herself heading into a combat zone not even sure which side the Culture is really on. A war – brutal, far-reaching – is already raging within the digital realms that store the souls of the dead, and it’s about
to erupt into reality.

It started in the realm of the Real and that is where it will end. It will touch countless lives and affect entire civilizations, but at the centre of it all is a young woman whose need for revenge masks another motive altogether.

Orbit will be publishing SURFACE DETAIL worldwide in print and e-book editions this October.

I AM LEGEND: THE DARKEST POST-APOCALYPTIC BOOK EVER WRITTEN?

Some may prefer to think of an M-16-packing Will Smith as the protagonist of Richard Matheson’s I AM LEGEND. Some may picture OMEGA MAN’s Charleton Heston driving a convertible Mustang through darkening streets, his submachine gun slung on the seat beside him. But when others read LEGEND, they see a dusty man in baggy clothes. There’s nothing glamorous about him, not a hint of the jaw-clenching confidence of a Hollywood star. He’s thin. His eyes are red-rimmed and he appears to be as mad as Don Quixote alone a hundred years into purgatory, tilting at corpses.

What is it about early postwar sci-fi that makes its worlds seem so dark and realistically shabby? Proximity to nuclear annihilation? The poorly forgotten horrors of World War Two? The rote mediocrity of peace after the time of global death and flame ended, the famished beginning of the age of mass consumption? Or is it only that we’ve been conditioned by the black-and-white movies of that time? (more…)

The Sworn – cover launch and extract

I’m delighted to announce, after much careful tweaking, amending and perfecting, that we now have artwork for Gail Z. Martin’s The Sworn, book 1 in the Fallen Kings cycle (US I UK I ANZ). This is a new series but has many familiar faces from Gail’s Necromancer series, so will be great for new readers and Gail Martin fans.

We wanted something that would draw you into Gail’s world, that would hint at the action and pure thrill of her writing and I think Steve Stone has delivered something wonderfully atmospheric with this visual. Here be swords, brigands, dark magics and other forms of mayhem aplenty, so those seeking adventure between the pages need look no further.

In addition to saying something about this new book, we were also keen to produce something that would be in sympathy with the cover style of the Necromancer Chronicles, as this book is set in the same world as that series. But at the same time, we had to balance this against not wanting to reproduce the previous style exactly as this book is of course the start of something new. And to find out for yourself just how much excitement is in store, have a look at our first sneak preview of The Sworn with this early extract here.

You can also expect more from Gail Z. Martin all this week, as she will be talking about this new book as part of her Hawthorn Moon online book event. This has been a great success for several years now, so look out for interviews, giveaways, twitter-only extras, podcasts and much else!

An extract of THE FOLDING KNIFE by K. J. Parker – dangerously good writing

This extraordinary book was released in the UK this month, and is a powerful tale of politics and war …

“Basso the Magnificent. Basso the Great. Basso the Wise. The First Citizen of the Vesani Republic is an extraordinary man. He is ruthless, cunning and, above all, lucky. He brings wealth, power and prestige to his people. But with power comes unwanted attention, and Basso must defend his nation and himself from threats foreign and domestic. In a lifetime of crucial decisions, he’s only ever made one mistake. One mistake, though, can be enough.”

You can read a free extract of it here and it’s also available in the States and will be out soon in Australia.

K. J. Parker has attracted huge amounts of critical praise throughout a long career (UK I US), and here’s just a selection of it, below:

  • ‘I have reviewed books before that I thought might someday be found to have achieved greatness . . . K.J. Parker is writing work after work that demands to be placed in this category’ Orson Scott Card 
  • ‘Impressive . . . there’s a mordant wit to the workings of Parker’s mind’ TIME OUT
  • ‘I was hooked from the very first scene’ LOCUS
  • ‘Parker raises the bar for realistic fantasy war craft’ PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
  • ‘Has a complexity and ambiguity that’s lacking in much fantasy fiction’ DEATHRAY
  • ‘One of fantasy’s premier voices’ SFX
  • ‘Stunning’ BOOKBAG.CO.UK

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Blast from the Past: A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ

Summer is a great time for science fiction fans to indulge their inner Eeyores. After reading Mira Grant’s latest, what could be better than stretching out under all that depressing sunshine with a classic book of the post-apocalyptic genre?

A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ covers a large swath of time as the human race attempts to put itself back together after a no-hold-barred nuclear war. It begins many hundreds of years after the game of fun with fusion was played, but the setting is still deliciously scorched and barren and humankind is poor and superstitious and still a wee bit mistrustful of science. There are ruins. There are atomic mutants hiding in desolate places. There are autocrats and barbarians. There’s a hermit cursed to live the centuries from one nuke war until what seems to be the beginning of the next. It’s what people in the film industry would call “high concept,” right? But this book is also admirable for its fine storytelling. The characters are as human as any you’re likely to meet, and easy to befriend. (more…)