Posts Tagged: Orbit Books

News

Cover Art and Details about The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

By Aidan Moher September 9th, 2013
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Several months ago, N.K. Jemisin, much-loved (and totally awesome and smart) author of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (REVIEW) and The Killing Moon (REVIEW), announced that her next novel was going to be, “a postapocalyptic epic fantasy trilogy, set in a world of seismic magic users and enigmatic nonhumans called stone-eaters.”

That novel has been revealed, along with the gorgeous cover, by The Mary Sue, as The Fifth Season. Jemisin describes The Fifth Season:

The Fifth Season is set in a world which has suffered frequent, repeated Extinction Level Events for millions of years, and all life (and magic) in this world has adapted to it. Hundreds of years might pass between these events — easy, plentiful years in which great cities rise, and people have the leisure for art and science and rapid advancement — but then, again and again, the cities fall. The world is littered with the detritus of these times of plenty, and this cover hints at them: past ages of decadence, now decaying; stone that endures beneath flaking gilt.

The Fifth Season is set for release by Orbit Books in August 2014, which, right now, feels like an eternity to wait for what will, if her other books are any indication, be one of 2014’s best fantasies.

Art

In Discussion: Lauren Panepinto on the Hooded Man ® and The Broken Eye by Brent Weeks

By Aidan Moher August 19th, 2013
The Broken Eye by Brent WeeksThe Broken Eye by Brent WeeksThe Broken Eye by Brent WeeksThe Broken Eye by Brent Weeks

Some part of Weeks’ original (and screamingly fast) success is the result of the bold and unique (at the time, one must remember) covers for his original trilogy. Generally, a publisher is able to bring this sort of branding along with an author, but the hooded man (and the minimalist cover style) became so popular that Weeks brand was essentially stolen by the genre at large. Seriously, blame him for the hooded man, for he unleashed that demon on the world. Orbit has done a great job of evolving the look of the series to feel unique and impactfully branded, despite incorporating one of the most (nay, the most) overused tropes in Fantasy covers. The hooded man is prevalent, but the bold (and series-appropriate) splashes of colour, contrasted sharply against the black background, is striking and immediately recognizable as a Weeks book. Read More »

Review

Review of Love Minus Eighty by Will McIntosh

By Justin Landon July 16th, 2013

Love Minus Eighty by Will McIntosh

Publisher: Orbit Books - Pages: 419 - Buy: Book/eBook
Love Minus Eighty by Will McIntosh

Based on Will McIntosh’s Hugo Award winning short story, ‘Bridesicles,’ Love Minus Eighty is set years in the future where cryogenics and life extension technology have reached the point that the only thing standing in the way of death is money. For the particularly beautiful and female, dying young means ending up in cryogenic dating farms where the creepiest rich men briefly resurrect them to determine how depraved they’ll be in exchange for another chance at life. It’s a horrific idea driven home by the character of Mira, who throughout the novel is killed and awakened untold times by curious ‘Johns’ (for lack of a better words). McIntosh calls these trapped souls bridesicles. Read More »

Cover Art

Gimme, Gimme: The Girl with All the Gifts by M.J. Carey

By Aidan Moher June 14th, 2013

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.J. CareyYesterday, Orbit Books released the cover and first blurb for The Girl with All the Gifts by M.J. Carey. Early impressions (mostly from within Orbit, it seems, and those who’ve read unbound galleys) are extremely positive. Given how far release is, this sort of hype and raised expectations is expected, but, golly, that cover and early teaser blurb are mighty enticing. I generally associate Orbit with their more traditional fantasy and science fiction releases, like Brent Weeks, N.K. Jemisin and Daniel Abraham, but I’m always pleased to see them go out of their way to find quirky, off-the-beaten path genre novels.

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her ‘our little genius’.

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children’s cells. She tells her favourite teacher all the things she’ll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn’t know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

The first thing to come to mind when reading the blurb for The Girl with All the Gifts is Irrational Games’ Bioshock Infinite, released earlier this year for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, which features a similarly confined girl, manipulated and educated by her captor in an effort to gain access to whatever secret power lies within her. Most intriguingly, the blurb doesn’t call on any outwardly SFF elements, but there’s just enough of a hint in the final paragraph, and the obvious efforts at guarding Melanie, that, though she might not realize it, and the blurb doesn’t say so, uncovering Melanie’s origins and the threat of her power, even in the body of a young child, will be central to the plot.

M.J. Carey is a pen name for Mike Carey, best known for his work in comic books, including 2011’s crossover series, Age of X , and the Felix Castor novels, which begin with The Devil You Know (buy: book/eBook).

Yesterday won’t be soon enough to get my hands on this book. The Girl with All the Gifts is set for a worldwide release in 2014 from Orbit Books.