Archive for Contents

The Shadow Saga omnibus and Ender’s Game film update

Exciting news for fans of award-winning SF author Orson Scott Card: his bestselling Shadow Saga is now available in a single volume!

THE SHADOW SAGA [UK | ANZ] omnibus contains the novels ENDER’S SHADOW, SHADOW OF THE HEGEMON, SHADOW PUPPETS and SHADOW OF THE GIANT.

The first novel, ENDER’S SHADOW, runs parallel to Card’s classic novel ENDER’S GAME [UK | ANZ], while the subsequent three books all explore the roles of various Battle School recruits following the end of the intergalactic war, as various factions struggle for world domination.

ENDER’S GAME  is currently being developed into a major Hollywood film, featuring Harrison Ford, Asa Butterfield and Ben Kingsley. The movie will also include elements and events from ENDER’S SHADOW.

Orson Scott Card himself recently visited the movie set and was hugely impressed with what he saw from the actors – “It was wonderful to see how Ford and Butterfield responded to each other’s timing. It was such a delicate dance – and they worked perfectly together.”

Card talks at length about his trip – and also gives his thoughts on The Avengers, Harry Potter and the work of Joss Whedon – in this recent article.

The film of ENDER’S GAME is set for release in November 2013.

Get To Know K.J. Parker

Sharps, a fantasy novel by K. J. Parker. Cover shows a fencer standing on cobbled streets, pooled with bloodEn garde! SHARPS (US | UK | AUS) is  a new novel by the K.J. Parker featuring a high-stakes competition that will topple kingdoms. You won’t see action like this in the summer Olympics that’s for sure.

Publishers Weekly described it as “a ripping good adventure yarn, laced with frequent barbed witticisms and ace sword fighting… Parker’s settings and characterizations never miss a beat, and the intricate political interplay of intrigue is suspenseful almost to the last page.”

Collected here are five spoiler-free interviews with K.J. Parker about SHARPS and some of Parker’s earlier novels.

Pornokitsch | Staffer’s Musings | Fantasy Book Cafe | Fantasy Book Critic | Book Worm Blues

 

Look inside the art for the Gail Carriger iPhone App!

You’d think I’d be happy (and quite busy enough) worrying over the Orbit bookcovers, but I’m one of those designers that wants to try her hand at everything. Websites, branding, invites, and now, apps! I love working with Orbit because I really do get a chance to be there for the beginning of a project and say “hey, I can totally design an author app” and they believe me! Of course, then I need to go back to my desk and figure out how to actually do it, but that’s the fun part. And let me tell you, I had a hell of a lot of fun with this one.

It certainly wasn’t cool enough to have an author app that was just about books and excerpts (which, of course, are awesome, and included), we wanted to make a cool functional app that the fans of The Parasol Protectorate series (and any steampunk fans, really) would love and use everyday. So after brainstorming a lot of ideas, we came up with the idea of doing a super intricate interactive clock app that has the functionality of the standard apple clock, but is way way cooler. A Steampunk clock app.

As you can see in the screenshots below, we’ve got 3 clock skins: A Mechanical Clock with cool brass cogs and gears (and rotating cephalopods), a  Steam-Powered Clock run by octopus power, and (my personal fave) a Tea Time Clock with drag-able teabags and spoons that develop your custom cup of tea, while letting you set a Tea Timer!

It’s free to and live now in the apple store, so go download and enjoy now!

 

How to become a superhero

Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillia, an alternative history of World War II featuring superhuman Nazis and British WarlocksHow does one create a superhero? Movies such as The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man make it look straightforward, if not exactly easy. Hollywood would have us believe superpowers aren’t all that unusual. Perhaps I’m a skeptic, but I sometimes wonder if the difficulties in become superhuman aren’t underestimated just a bit.

After all, you can’t plan for a freak accident. You can’t plan on being bitten by a special arachnid, as was Spider-Man. You can’t plan to accidentally survive a massive dose of gamma radiation, like the Hulk. You can’t plan to be born of Asgard, like Thor. Most of us will never have the opportunity to volunteer for an experimental super-soldier program, as did Captain America.

But what about the self-made superheroes? Those who deliberately transcend their limitations, using technology and (frankly) vast piles of money? Well, as much as I’d like to become Iron Man, I’m not a supergenius billionaire industrialist with massive technological resources at my disposal. What about Batman? I’m out of luck there, too, because I’m not a reclusive borderline-sociopath multi-millionaire with the peak physical conditioning of a dozen Olympic athletes combined. It’s safe to say these paths are closed off to most people.

So what to do if you’re cash-strapped but can’t rely upon serendipity to do the hard work? (more…)

Cover Launch: TAKEN by Benedict Jacka

Everyone’s favourite Probability Mage, Alex Verus, returns in September with the publication of TAKEN [UK | ANZ] – his most dangerous adventure yet.  A wonderful buzz has been building around this series, which began in March with FATED [UK | ANZ] and continued last month with CURSED [UK | ANZ]. Perfect for fans of Jim Butcher and Ben Aaronovitch, TAKEN will cement Benedict Jacka’s status as a rising star of urban fantasy.

Here’s the cover, courtesy of our talented designers Nick Castle and Sian Wilson.

TAKEN is out in paperback and ebook on 6 September 2012.

Why you (yes, you!) should be reading K. J. Parker

Published this week, SHARPS (UK | US | ANZ) is the superb new fantasy from K. J. Parker in which a single fencing tournament could decide the fate of two warring kingdoms.

One of Parker’s most passionate fans is Jared Shurin, half of the team behind Pornokitsch and a judge/administrator for the Kitschies awards. Jared has given SHARPS a stellar review – “Sharps may be the book that fantasy fans are waiting for” – and has just conducted an in-depth interview with the enigmatic Parker.

When we asked Jared what it is about the books of K. J. Parker that he loves so much, and why you should be reading them, he was only too happy to tell us . . .

Jared: As a shamelessly vocal, frothing-at-the-mouth K. J. Parker fan, I may be exactly the wrong person to write a piece on “Reading K. J. Parker”. For me, it is a no-brainer. For fifteen years, Parker has been consistently writing some of the best books in fantasy. Clever, thoughtful, funny, dark, political – stories with empires and sieges and swords and gods and magic – everything I love about the genre.

However, taking a step back, I realise that not everyone’s been obsessively stalking Parker’s creative output. Sharps, as a stand-alone novel – and one of Parker’s best to date – is the perfect starting point for a new reader. But in aid of those who need a little more convincing, I’ve tried to break down the reasons I read Parker. On a long list, here are the top five:

1. Plain-spoken. Parker writes in a straight-forward, direct way. The prose is easy, which lets the reader concentrate on the story and not fuss about deciphering the text itself. There’s no mythic vocabulary, no chanting in italics, no poetry (whew) and not a whiff of Ancient Elvish. Parker proves that you can write about complex, big ideas in plain language. The books are deceptively simple and wonderfully quick to read.

2. Educational. This sounds like a joke, but Parker’s books will open your eyes to the fascinating world of button-making. Also: currency regulation, fletching arrows and, dare I say it, charcoal-burning. Each book has one or more central metaphor: a self-reflective device that’s used to structure the story. As the symbol that ties everything together, that charcoal becomes really important – and, thanks to Parker’s skill as a writer, surprisingly enjoyable.

Still, it isn’t all briquettes and buttons. If you’re nervous that lumber mills and drop hammers aren’t your thing, there’s plenty of excitement. Blue and Gold is about alchemy. Pattern brings in volcanoes (nothing boring there). The Escapement focuses on siege warfare. And Sharps? Sharps is about swords. Another reason that this book makes the ideal first Parker: what fantasy reader can resist a book about sword-fighting?

3. Proper badasses. I don’t want to give you the impression that Parker’s books are all bone-grinding and economic theory, because they aren’t. Some of fantasy’s hardest warriors lurk within these pages – Bardas Loredon, Suidas Deutzel and Poldarn among them. Deadly fighters from all walks of life: highly trained and extremely motivated. Parker’s books also contain some of the most compellingly vicious fight scenes. The sword-monks and raiders of the Scavenger trilogy, the mechanised warfare (and epic sieges) of the Engineer trilogy, the underground battles in The Proof House, and, of course, the swordplay of Sharps. From classic fencing to brawls, pitched battles to lethal duels, Sharps has a glut of action. As always, everything is exhaustively researched as well. (What else would you expect from an author that makes their own swords?) (more…)

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.
(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.