Here’s some pretty cool news. Mark Zuckerberg has selected THE PLAYER OF GAMES (US | UK | AUS) for his bookclub!
If you’d like to join the conversation then head on over to Facebook and join the discussion on Zuckerberg’s page or on the official “Year of Books” fan page.
We pre-empted a manuscript a few months ago that we read and loved instantly. The reads were unanimous — it was perfect!! It reminded us of Brent Weeks’s original Night Angel Trilogy, mixed with a drop of Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora and the brilliant characterizations of Brandon Sanderson. But to be honest, we just fell in love with the characters, HOPE & RED. Red is a thief — and Hope is a trained warrior. Their meeting — and their adventures will become a legend. . .
So we are over the moon to introduce you to a new author in the adult world, Jon Skovron and his novel, HOPE & RED, which we will be publishing in the summer of 2016.
In a fracturing empire spread across savage seas, two young people from different cultures find common purpose.
A nameless girl is the lone survivor when her village is massacred by biomancers, mystical servants of the emperor. Named after her lost village, Bleak Hope is secretly trained by a master Vinchen warrior as an instrument of vengeance.
A boy becomes an orphan on the squalid streets of New Laven after drugs and disease take the lives of his bohemian parents. He is adopted by one of the most notorious women of the criminal underworld, given the name Red, and trained as a thief and con artist.
When a ganglord named Deadface Drem strikes a bargain with the biomancers to consolidate and rule all the slums of New Laven, the worlds of Hope and Red come crashing together, and their unlikely alliance takes them further than either could have dreamed possible.
Fans of Mur Lafferty! Fans of Firefly, Sunshine, Leviathan Wakes! Fans of awesome sf with a cool hook! Come hither! (Or was that yon? Or hither and yon? Its hard to tell on the intrawebs…)
When we first got the proposal for Mur’s new novel, SIX WAKES, the whole team fell in love with the hook: The whole crew is murdered — but when their clones wake up, they know that one of them is the killer. How cool is that? I will answer that question for you — SO COOL!
It was not common to awaken in a cloning vat streaked with drying blood.
At least, Marie Shea iv had never experienced it. She had no memory of how she died. That was also new; before, when she had awakened as a new clone, her first memory was of how she died: from illness once and from injury once…
Maria’s vat was in the front of six vats, each one holding the clone of a crew member of the starship Pituitary, each clone waiting for its previous incarnation to die so it could awaken. Apparently Maria wasn’t the only one to die recently…
Mur Lafferty should be a familiar name to most. She is a writer, podcast producer, gamer, geek, and martial artist. She is the host of the award winning podcast I Should Be Writing, and the host of the Angry Robot Books Podcast. She is the winner of the 2013 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. And she is also a writer who has a million awesome ideas ready to leap out of her brain. We are excited that this is her next big project with Orbit and I can’t wait to see what she does next.
We’ll be publishing in trade paperback next Fall.
The first round of voting for the David Gemmell Awards for Fantasy is done and dusted. The Orbit team is delighted to announce that THE BROKEN EYE by Brent Weeks (UK | US | AUS) is on the short list for the Gemmell Legend Award for best novel and AGE OF IRON by Angus Watson (UK | US | AUS) is up for the Morningstar Award for Best Debut Novel.
Winners will be announced at the Nine Worlds Geekfest in August and you can cast your vote here until Friday 17th July. Congratulations and good luck to all the shortlistees!
SNAKEWOOD tells the story of the Twenty, a band of mercenaries being hunted down one-by-one by an unknown killer. We’re so excited to have acquired this debut epic fantasy tale from British author Adrian Selby, coming in 2016 – almost twenty years after he first put pen to paper! Which, if you think about it, is one year for every dead mercenary. Or is it? Who’s killing them anyway, and why? You’ll have to wait until early next year to find out . . .
Adrian says: “SNAKEWOOD is set in a world where magic is in the plant-life, concoctions of which, known as ‘fightbrews’, radically transform the capabilities and appearance of warriors at a terrible cost. In conceiving of this all those years ago, I knew the story I wanted to tell was focused on these soldiers and the price they pay for their brews and their sins. I can’t describe how delighted I am to have my debut published by Orbit. Their passion and their support for SNAKEWOOD make me very excited about sharing the world that’s been in my head for twenty odd years with this other world I live in the rest of the time.”
And no, you won’t have to wait twenty years for the next one!
Today marks the publication of the first three parts of K. J. Parker’s brand new fantasy epic, THE TWO OF SWORDS – a war story on a grand scale, told through the eyes of soldiers, politicians, victims and heroes. A new instalment will be released every month.
To celebrate the launch of this new serial novel – and after keeping his identity a closely-guarded secret for 17 years – K. J. Parker has finally cast off his Cloak of Invisibility and revealed his true identity. Jared Shurin has all the details . . .
Following on from the successes of Glenda Larke and Trudi Canavan in two important Australian fantasy awards, we’ve also had fantastic news regarding two UK SF awards.
Today, the shortlist for this year’s Arthur C. Clarke awards has been announced. Both THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS (UK | US | ANZ) by M. R. Carey and THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST (UK | US | ANZ) by Claire North are amongst the six titles nominated for this prestigious prize. The winner will be announced at the awards ceremony on 6th May 2015.
On the weekend, ANCILLARY SWORD (US | UK | ANZ) by Ann Leckie also won the BSFA award for Best Novel, voted on by members of the British Science Fiction Association and Eastercon. Ann Leckie’s first novel ANCILLARY JUSTICE (US | UK | AUS) also won this award last year, (along with every other major SF award in 2014!). Here are both of Ann’s raygun-tastic awards looking all nice and shiny together . . .
Congrats to Ann Leckie, Claire North, M. R. Carey and all the other shortlisted authors!
We’re thrilled to announce that Gail Carriger’s PRUDENCE, hit the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list at #19!* Congratulations Gail Carriger!
This marks Gail’s sixth appearance on the New York Times bestseller list for Orbit, following her 5-book Parasol Protectorate series (SOULLESS, et al.). Gail’s Finishing School series for LBYR also hit the children’s list.
If you have not picked up the first book of Gail’s charming new series, get yourself to a bookstore forthwith! Prudence is a delightful read, and one that you’ll have a hard time putting down once you crack open its pages. Start by reading an excerpt now.
*Goes live on Sunday the 5th!
More about the story:
Introducing the Custard Protocol series, in which Alexia Maccon’s daughter Prudence travels to India on behalf of Queen, country…and the perfect pot of tea.
When Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama (“Rue” to her friends) is bequeathed an unexpected dirigible, she does what any sensible female under similar circumstances would do — she christens it the Spotted Custard and floats off to India.
Soon, she stumbles upon a plot involving local dissidents, a kidnapped brigadier’s wife, and some awfully familiar Scottish werewolves. Faced with a dire crisis (and an embarrassing lack of bloomers), Rue must rely on her good breeding — and her metanatural abilities — to get to the bottom of it all…
We’re delighted to share some news on the upcoming film adaptation of THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS by M. R . Carey. The film is to star Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine and Glenn Close, and is to be directed by Colm McCarthy – best known for his work on Sherlock, Peaky Blinders and Doctor Who.
Here is a press release which has gone out today from Altitude Film Entertainment:
ALTITUDE BOARDS ‘SHE WHO BRINGS GIFTS’ TO BE DIRECTED BY COLM MCCARTHY AND STARRING GEMMA ARTERTON, PADDY CONSIDINE AND GLENN CLOSE
Feature from bestselling Mike Carey novel marks highly anticipated feature debut by director Colm McCarthy
LONDON – Monday 23 March 2015. Altitude Film Sales has boarded SHE WHO BRINGS GIFTS, one of last year’s Brit List selected screenplays, adapted by acclaimed novelist M. R. Carey from his bestselling novel The Girl with all the Gifts.
Director Colm McCarthy lauded helmer of hit British TV shows including Peaky Blinders starring Cillian Murphy and Tom Hardy, Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, Doctor Who, Endeavour and The Tudors, will direct his first major feature. The cast includes Gemma Arterton (Tamara Drewe, The Disappearance of Alice Creed) who is currently starring in Marjane Satrapi’s The Voices following her West End musical stage debut in Made in Dagenham; Paddy Considine from BAFTA-winning British hit Pride, a BAFTA award-winning director for Tyrannosaur and soon to be seen in Macbeth with Michael Fassbender; and the multi-award-winning and six-time Oscar® nominated actress Glenn Close, soon to be seen in Tim Blake Nelson’s Anesthesia, Bjorn Runge’s The Wife, last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy and a just-completed starring run on Broadway in A Delicate Balance.
Mike Carey first came to prominence within the world of comic books, writing the Lucifer series at DC Vertigo, Hellblazer for DC, X-Men, Fantastic Four and adapting Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Shadow for Marvel amongst other titles. He also wrote The Unwritten which has made the New York Times graphic novel bestseller list and was awarded Comic Con’s Inkpot Award in 2012. More recently, Carey has moved into prose fiction with thrillers such as The Dead Sea Deception (under the pseudonym of Adam Blake), fantasy novels The City of Silk and Steel and The House of War and Witness and the Felix Castor novels. The Girl with all the Gifts is his most recent novel, published in 2014 to critical acclaim and attracting multitudes of fans including writer-director Joss Whedon who proclaimed it to be: “Heartfelt, remorseless and painfully human . . . as fresh as it is terrifying. A jewel.”
SHE WHO BRINGS GIFTS is due to shoot in the UK in May 2015 and is produced by Camille Gatin, co-producer of James Marsh’s Shadow Dancer and Ricky Gervais’s Special Correspondents co-starring Eric Bana, and Angus Lamont, producer of the Berlin Competition Jury award-winning ’71 directed by Yann Demange. The feature has been developed with the support of the BFI Film Fund.
SHE WHO BRINGS GIFTS is the story of Melanie, a girl who is full of questions about the world. Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into a wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite. But they don’t laugh.
Melanie is a very special girl.
Camille Gatin says, “It’s hugely exciting to combine Mike Carey’s truly original script and Colm McCarthy’s dynamic yet sensitive style, with such a terrific cast.” (more…)
“The Pax Arcana books are seriously good reads. Action, humor, and heart with unexpected twists and turns. If you are (like me) waiting for the next Butcher or Hearne — pick up Elliot James. Then you can bite your nails waiting for the next James, too.” — Patricia Briggs, New York Times #1 bestselling author of the Mercy Thompson series
If you, like Patricia Briggs, have been hoping for more from Elliott James’s Pax Arcana series, then rest assured! We have just acquired two more books following the adventures of John Charming. FEARLESS (US | UK | AUS), the sequel to DARING (US | UK | AUS), is out in August, with the new books to follow in 2016 and beyond.
But if your nails are too short from all the biting, there will be new short stories from Elliott James this spring! Bulls Rush In is out April 28 and Talking Dirty on May 19.
New to the series? Read an excerpt from the first book!
