Archive for Contents

Cover Launch: TIMELESS

It is with a mix of joy and sadness that I launch the cover for TIMELESS by Gail Carriger. Joy, because I have loved working on these covers so much, and I happen to be a nerd about things ancient Egyptian, so Alexia Tarabotti + Pyramids = Squee. However, it is sad because this is the final book in the adventures of Alexia Tarabotti!

Of course, that doesn’t mean the end of our Lady Maccon. Did you hear about the Yen Press manga Soulless adaptation being created as we speak? The artwork is amazing! I’ve seen the cover and first chapter, I just can’t wait to see more…Trust me, even if you’ve never thought manga was your thing, you have to keep tabs on this book as it develops. Stunning work, and bravo to our Yen Press brethren.

As usual, we have a fabulous image of The Lady Maccon, portrayed by Donna Ricci, the captain of the steamship we call ClockworkCouture.com. Alexia in her explorer’s gear was shot by Pixie Vision Productions, who was also responsible for documenting the awesome Afternoon Tea that Gail and Donna co-hosted recently in L.A. (There’s a great fan writeup of the event here). I so love collaborating with people active in the world of Steampunk when we’re doing steampunk and victorian titles (hmm, foreshadowing alert for next season perhaps?). Everyone already knows the lingo, they always catch my chronological aberrations, and even better, they always add things to the books that I would never have thought of on my own.

So without further ado, here’s a teaser for Timeless…

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Trudi Canavan takes London by storm!

The lovely Trudi Canavan arrived in London this week, and her UK tour kicked off yesterday in style with a welcome glass of bubbly at the Little, Brown office, where she was ambushed by a flurry of inhouse fans eager for her to sign their copies of her newly published hardback The Rogue (which she did, very graciously) followed by a jampacked signing at Forbidden Planet in London. Here’s how the evening went in photos:

Pre-mayhem pose in Forbidden Planet, just before we let in the hordes:

 Hope your arm doesn’t fall off, Trudi – the queue doesn’t look like going down any time soon . . .

And here’s your first fan:

We’ve never had a request for an author to sign a Kindle before, but last night not one but two superfans were delighted when Trudi agreed to do just that – in permanent silver marker!

A close-up of the freshly autographed Kindle:

Finally, here’s a posh arty pic of Trudi signing a non-digital book:

All in all it was a great evening – over 200 books signed for the extremely happy fans, Trudi was touched and delighted to see everyone, and it was the best possible start to her first major UK and European tour. Trudi is off to Ireland today for some events in Dublin, then back to England next week where she will be meeting fans at Costa Coffee in The Peacock’s Centre, Woking on Monday 9th May at 7pm – tickets are still available from Waterstone’s Woking.  She will also be on twitter for a Waterstone’s ‘twinterview’ at 4pm on Tuesday 10th May.  Just tweet your questions using #tcav and there are signed copies of The Rogue for the best questions!

For a list of all Trudi’s other UK events, just click here or click the link on the right hand side of this page to find the one nearest you.

Interview with Paolo Bacigalupi – Part 2

In Part 1 of our interview, Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi discussed the background to his stunning debut novel THE WINDUP GIRL and his concerns for a future where fossil fuels have run dry.

In this second instalment, Paolo talks about the practicalities of writing, why he became an author and what the future may hold in terms of his own work.

Perhaps unusually, you share your workspace with another writer – how do you use each other as sounding boards and for help with all the issues that crop up during the writing of a novel?

I think we alternately inspire each other, and get on each other’s nerves, but one of the benefits of having another writer around is that when you get stymied, you can go out for a walk together, and talk over the book, and sometimes that process of talking out loud gets you through the confusion.  I was just recently down in Mexico with another group of writers on a sort of writer’s retreat, and it was quite inspiring. Just being surrounded by a bunch of other people who are cranking out their books and who aggressively focused on building something out of nothing is hugely inspiring. Over two weeks I wrote an astounding number of words, and part of it at least had to do with being around so many other people who were working on books, and for whom there was no question that they were going to make up a story, and that their stories would be read, and that they weren’t crazy to be doing it.  It’s hard for me to have faith in my stories as I work on them. Hard to believe they should be written. Hard to believe that they’re worthwhile. Hard to believe that they aren’t stupid.  Being surrounded by other writers ameliorates that, for me, at least.

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STORM FRONT by Jim Butcher: a Dresden Files reread

Mark Yon has been a reviewer and web administrator at SFFWorld, one of the world’s biggest genre forum sites, for nearly ten years. He has also been on the David Gemmell Awards organisation committee for the last two years. In this series of rereads, Mark will guide us below through the whole of Jim Butcher’s fabulous Dresden Files series as we count down to the new hardback at the end of July.
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And here’s where we commence the series.

Storm Front starts in typical film noir mode. With the sentence ‘I heard the mailman approach my office door, half an hour earlier than usual’, we are introduced to Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. And he’s the only person in Chicago’s director enquiries listed under ‘Wizard’.

However, this Harry is not the ‘Potter’ type. As we see from his advertisement, his stock in trade is: ‘Lost items found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Reasonable rates. No love potions, endless purses or other entertainment’. Harry is more of your paranormal dealing, insoluble crime-solving type of guy, and the only wizard used as a consultant by the Chicago Police Special Investigations Department. They need him when dealing with the demons and ghouls that live in the strange other-world of the Nevernever.

Harry is in his typically seedy office when a phone call from Chicago’s SI chief, Lieutenant Karrin Murphy, involves him in a double murder investigation. The male victim is a bodyguard for the local mobster, Johnny Marcone. The other victim is Jennifer Stanton, an escort from the Velvet Room, a gentleman’s club run by one of Chicago’s vampire families.

Things get really interesting when Harry discovers that the murders involve black magic, and a black mage is behind them. And more worryingly, though Harry doesn’t know who it is, the black mage knows him. And is out to get him.

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Interview with Paolo Bacigalupi – Part 1

Paolo Bacigalupi is an author that needs no introduction: his debut novel THE WINDUP GIRL won a host of awards, including a Hugo and a Nebula. His second book – a young adult novel called SHIP BREAKER – will be published in paperback in July by Orbit’s sister imprint, Atom.

Paolo kindly took some time out from his busy schedule to answer a few questions about his writing.

In this first part, Paolo discusses the inspiration behind THE WINDUP GIRL and the concern he feels about a possible future where fossil fuels have run out.

What was the original inspiration for THE WINDUP GIRL? What was the spark that made you think I have to tell this story?

Honestly, it wasn’t just one thing. I originally wrote a short story that was set in Bangkok but it was so hairy and convoluted that it didn’t work.  A friend of mine commented that if felt so packed with ideas that is was a bit of a dwarf star, and she suggested that I was actually working on a novel. At the time, I was horrified, because I’d had four novels rejected previously, and was pretty determined to only write short stories, ever after.  So I took the most interesting aspect of the world and wrote a different story (one that really was a short story) called “The Calorie Man.” That story utilized some of the ideas about peak oil and agribusiness and GMOs that I was interested in, and that was that. Later, I was looking to write another story, and I’d always found the character of Tan Hock Seng interesting from that original short story, and so I went and wrote  a piece of his back story, and that became “Yellow Card Man.” (more…)

How-To Video: Equations of Life Poster

So I have written before about how I love the Simon Morden trilogy that has started hitting shelves. Samuil Petrovitch is my favorite kind of snarling sarcastic anti-hero, and a genius rocket scientist to boot. My kind of guy. And I especially love Orbit for letting me be a bit daring with the cover design and rock these really graphic optical illusion covers.

So what you don’t know is that the initial design was even crazier. I wanted to hide the cover text IN the optical illusions. Slight legibility problem, I admit, for a teeny book cover…but FABULOUS for a poster. And since I know you guys love these how-to videos, I screen-captured my process so you too can make your own Editable-Text Optical Illusion Poster…and melt the retinas of all your friends. After the jump you can even download the Illustrator file I used, and add your own text. (more…)

Coming Soon: Perfect Shadow, by Brent Weeks

Brent Weeks burst onto the fantasy scene in 2008 with the launch of his internationally bestselling Night Angel Trilogy, which has sold over 1 million copies worldwide.  Now, he’s returning to the world of The Night Angel Trilogy with Perfect Shadow, a novella that tells the origin story of the legendary assassin Durzo Blint.

The ebook edition of Perfect Shadow will be available in the US and the UK in June, 2011. It will be simultaneously released as an unabridged audiobook for digital download, online where books and music are sold.

In the official press release, Brent explains: “When I wrote Perfect Shadow, I was afraid it was going to fall into a publishing no-man’s land: too short to be distributed as a novel, too long to be sold as a short story. Orbit’s digital publishing has given me a way to get this story out. More than that, it’s given me the artistic freedom to write a story exactly as long as it needs to be.”
We’re glad he did! You can find the novella’s description after the jump. (more…)

“An Unapologetic Embrace of Sentiment”

In the April 11 issue of Publishers Weekly, out this week, there is an interview with Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who talk about their first collaborative novel, LEVIATHAN WAKES (called “a riveting interplanetary thriller” by PW in its starred review).

“We put two very recognizable characters in an almost nostalgic science fiction world, so respecting the internal lives of the characters was important. That real unapologetic embrace of sentiment is what makes the book work.”

Only part of the interview appears in the magazine. The rest (as informative, as entertaining) appears courtesy of Rose Fox at Genreville, where among other things Daniel & Ty discuss how to manage the joint writing of such an enormous project.

LEVIATHAN WAKES (called “relentlessly entertaining” by Kirkus) goes on sale June 17.