Posts Tagged ‘Trudi Canavan’

October Events

October 1: Kate Locke at New York Review of Science Fiction, New York, NY, 7 PM

October 3: Ann Leckie at Subterranean Books, St. Louis, MO, 6 PM

October 4-6: Mur Lafferty at VCon, Vancouver, British Columbia

October 11-13: Kate Elliott at Sirens, Portland, OR

October 12: Brian McClellan at Books by the Banks, Cincinnati, OH
Marlene Perez at Los Angeles Teen Book Fest, Los Angeles, CA

October 12-13: Michael J. Sullivan at Capclave, Gaithersburg, MD

And, New York Comic Con is October 10-13! Orbit will be there, in booth # 2218; our authors N.K. Jemisin, Michael J. Sullivan, and Kate Locke will also be appearing at the con.

October 20: Trudi Canavan at Forbidden Planet, London UK – 1pm

And World Fantasy Con is in Brighton, UK this year!  October 31-November 3.  Lots of Orbit authors will be there, including Trudi Canavan, Mike Carey, Charles Stross, Francis Knight, Tim Lebbon and Jon Courtenay Grimwood among others.  Check out the full programme and attending members list on the website.

First Looks: Spring/Summer 2014 US Covers

Screen Shot 2013-09-04 at 5.17.04 PM

Another summer has come and gone, and here at Orbit, we’re already hard at work on next year’s exciting line-up! Here are some of the jackets we have ready so far with more to follow over the next few months.

Click on the images below to see a larger version and appreciate each cover in its full glory.  Pin, tweet, and comment away with reckless abandon. Let us know which books have already piqued your interest!

Martin_ReignofAsh-TP   œF�   Dalglish_ADanceOfShadows_TP  Carey_GirlWithAllTheGifts-HC   Corey_CibolaBurn_HC   Sapkowski_BaptismofFire-TP   Miller_PathToPower_HC   Irvine_Justice-TP   Weeks-BrokenEye-HC   Saintcrow_RipperAffair-TP   Wells_CursedMoon-TP   Jemisin_FifthSeason-TP   Abraham_WidowsHouse_TP

Art Credits: Reign of Ash: Illustration by Larry Rostant; Heaven’s Queen: Design by Kirk Benshoff; Dance of Shadows: Photo Illustration by Gene Mollica & Michael Frost, Design by Kirk Benshoff; The Girl With All The Gifts: Design by Duncan Spilling; Cibola Burn: Illustration by Daniel Dociu, Design by Kirk Benshoff; Baptism of Fire: Illustration by BARTŁOMIEJ GAWEŁ, PAWEŁ MIELNICZUK, MARCIN BŁASZCZAK, ARKADIUSZ MATYSZEWSKI,MARIAN CHOMIAK , Design by Lauren Panepinto; Path to Power: Illustration by Raphael Lacoste, Design by Kirk Benshoff; Justice: Design by Wendy Chan; Broken Eye: Photo by Shirley Green, Illustration by Silas Manhood, Design by Lauren Panepinto; The Ripper Affair: Photo by Shirley Green, Illustration by Craig White, Design by Lauren Panepinto; Cursed Moon: Photo by Shirley Green, Illustration by Don Sipley, Design by Lauren Panepinto; The Fifth Season: Design by Lauren Panepinto; The Widow’s House: Design by Kirk Benshoff

Trudi Canavan answers your questions

Canavan_Traitor Queen-MMTo celebrate paperback release of the final book in the Traitor Spy trilogy, THE TRAITOR QUEEN (UK | US | AUS ), we asked fans of the Trudi Canavan Facebook page what questions they’d ask Trudi about her writing if given the chance. There was a fantastic selection, which were then voted down to a final four for Trudi Canavan to answer. Find out about who Trudi would cast in the Black Magician trilogy films, and more about her new series, the Millennium’s Rule trilogy.

 

Q. If the Black Magician trilogy were made into a film, who would you like to portray the main characters?

A. My original casting wish list betrays my age! I wanted Natalie Portman as Sonea and Daniel Day Lewis as Akkarin, and Matthew Broderick as Cery. But those choices were just the first building blocks and my visual picture of the characters changed as I wrote the Black Magician Trilogy. You see, in developing the world my approach was to try to make the ecology and cultures seem less like this world’s past transplanted onto another, but a truly new world. My rule was ‘inspired by not based on’. I applied that rule to the people as well, who aren’t based on any particular race or culture of this world but have small similarities to some. I realised later that the small similarities were inspired mainly by the wonderful mix of people in Australia, created by our proximity to Asia and Polynesia, and the waves of immigration over the last century.

I’ve put together a Pinterest page called Casting Wishlist, but since film and TV isn’t based in multicultural Australia, I found it hard to find actors to play all of the characters – and even Bollywood hasn’t made finding someone to play Faren easy.

 

Q. I simply loved your books. ALL of them. Especially the ones in the Black Magician universe. Will we ever see any adventures set in these lands again?

A. Maybe. When I finished the Black Magician trilogy I didn’t think I’d write a sequel as I didn’t have enough ideas. But as I wrote the Age of the Five the few ideas I had began to develop and attract others, so by the time that trilogy was done I was ready to write not just a sequel, but a prequel as well. Once again, I don’t have enough ideas for more books, but I’m hoping the ones I have will mature into something worth writing while I’m writing the Millennium’s Rule trilogy. All I can say is, I like the idea of jumping another twenty years forward and putting Lorkin in the position of the worried parent, introducing new technology and forcing more class-leveling challenges on the Guild.

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Trudi Canavan’s Recipe for a Delicious Sequel

THE TRAITOR QUEEN (UK | US | AUS) has gone straight into the Sunday Times fiction chart at number one in the UK, showing that her fans have been desperate for the final instalment in this fantastic series. To mark the publication, we asked her to tell us how she feels about reaching the end of such a beloved series, here’s what she said:


Sequels. Prequels. Love them or hate them, you can’t escape the fact that every author who has a book published will be asked if there will be more. When the last page was proofed of the last book in the Black Magician trilogy I had been working on it for over seven years and I have to admit it, I was tired of the world and (gasp!) even sick of the characters I had lived and loved and cried with for so long. So my answer then was ‘no’.

I’ve learned since then to never give such definite answers to these kinds of questions.

You see, even as I wound up the story in The High Lord, there were little ideas twitching in the corner of my vision whispering, ‘This could be fun to develop.’ Then it occurred to me that the story of the Sachakan War, the impetus for the formation of the Magicians’ Guild of Kyralia, might fill a book. Still, I ignored these ideas, knowing they weren’t substantial enough. Yet.

By the time I had written the Age of Five trilogy, those ideas had grown up, met, had a few parties, married and bred new bold little ideas, all demanding to be written. Enough time had passed that I was ready to venture into the world of Sonea and the magicians of the Guild again.

So first came The Magician’s Apprentice (I am still amazed that nobody had yet written a book by that title), set around six hundred years before the events in the Black Magician trilogy. (It turns out it’s impossible to make it clear in the narrative that a book is a prequel. You can’t have characters thinking that it’s six hundred years before an event that hasn’t happened yet. It really did my head in.) Then came the Traitor Spy trilogy, set twenty years after the Black Magician trilogy. I learned that writing a sequel has its own challenges and rewards. Thinking about this recently, this recipe popped into my head:

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Cover Reveal: The Traitor Queen by Trudi Canavan

Trudi Canavan’s Traitor Spy trilogy – so far comprising the Sunday Times bestsellers THE AMBASSADOR’S MISSION [UK | US | ANZ] and THE ROGUE [UK | US | ANZ] – will finally be completed in August, with the release of THE TRAITOR QUEEN.

We’ll reveal a little more about this thrilling conclusion to the trilogy closer to the time, along with an excerpt, but for the time being here’s the final front cover – courtesy of our wonderful designer Peter Cotton and the talented illustrator Steve Stone.

A robed woman in blue, holding a staff

If you’ve not yet joined the legions of fans that have been captivated by the Traitor Spy books, now’s the perfect time to start as both THE AMBASSADOR’S MISSION (sample) and THE ROGUE (sample) are available in paperback.

Trudi Canavan can be found online at both her website and on twitter.

Get hooked on The Traitor Spy Trilogy

This week sees Trudi Canavan’s superb book THE ROGUE (US | UK | ANZ) come out in paperback. Some of us were lucky enough to meet Trudi during her European tour last year when the hardback came out (see her signing Kindles and all sorts in the London and Dublin highlights), but for those Canafans who missed her, do hop over to Trudi’s blog to catch up on the latest news and gossip from the Queen of Fantasy herself.

For those of you who haven’t read THE ROGUE yet – grab a copy quick and catch up before the final book comes out this summer! It’s another pageturning adventure in Kyralia, picking up where THE AMBASSADOR’S MISSION ended. Lorkin is living among the Sachakan rebels, the Traitors, doing his best to learn about them and their unique magic and trying not to give away all the Guild’s secrets in return. Meanwhile in Kyralia’s capital, Imardin, Sonea searches for the rogue who has been hunting her friend Cery – but the rogue’s influence over the city’s underworld is stronger than she feared. And in the University, two young novices remind the Guild that sometimes their greatest enemy is found within… It’s a cracking second book in the Traitor Spy trilogy, so if you enjoyed THE AMBASSADOR’S MISSION you’ll love this one!

If you haven’t yet read the previous book, there is no better time to start reading this wonderful fantasy series. Read on for an excerpt from the first novel, THE AMBASSADOR’S MISSION. (US | UK | ANZ)

The most successful and quoted piece by the poet Rewin, greatest of the rabble to come out of the New City, was called Citysong. It captured what was heard at night in Imardin, if you took the time to stop and listen: an unending muffled and distant combination of sounds. Voices. Singing. A laugh. A groan. A gasp. A scream.
In the darkness of Imardin’s new Quarter a man remembered the poem. He stopped to listen, but instead of absorbing the city’s song he concentrated on one discordant echo. A sound that didn’t belong. A sound that didn’t repeat. He snorted quietly and continued on.

A few steps later a figure emerged from the shadows before him. The figure was male and loomed over him menacingly. Light caught the edge of a blade.

“Yer money,” a rough voice said, hard with determination.

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