Schedule Watch: Orbit and Tor UK
I've just received the latest update to the publication schedule for Orbit Books, and I've been hanging on to a schedule that Tor UK sent through a few weeks back.
Personal highlights for me look like they'll be:
Orbit
- Mike Carey's third Felix Castor novel, Dead Men's Boots [Amazon] is almost upon us: publication date September 6th. (Amazon seem to have the wrong artwork there...)
- I've been promising myself that I'll put aside some time to dive into something by Charles Stross and I might just start with The Jennifer Morgue [Amazon], which is also out early next month, in paperback, and follow that up with Halting State [Amazon], which is due in January.
- The third part of K.J. Parker's Engineer Trilogy - The Escapement [Amazon] - will be published in December. Hopefully it'll improve on the rather slow pacing of the second volume (memo to self: pull finger out and post about that one, you finished it weeks ago...)
- I've already read Debatable Space [Amazon], the debut novel by Philip Palmer, which is due to be published in January. Space opera with an acid twist, well worth trying out.
- Jim Butcher's next Dresden Files novel, White Night [Amazon] is another January title. One for the must-read shelf.
- And who isn't looking forward to Matter [Amazon], the new Iain M Banks Culture novel? Due February.
That'll do for Orbit for now. I'll pick a few more from 2008 next time.
Tor UK
- The Waking [Amazon] by T.M. Jenkins looks like an intriguing sf / thriller amalgam. One for the old pool-side, read-til-I-drop holiday later in the year, maybe...
- That man Stross again... Tor are publishing the UK edition of the first part of his Merchant Princes series, The Family Trade [Amazon] will be out in November.
Time to start planning a bit of a to-be-read list re-organisation... :)
New client website goes live: philippalmer.net
Philip Palmer is a new British science fiction author whose debut novel, Debatable Space is being published by Orbit Books in the UK and the US in January 2008. I've read it, and it's an anarchic, mind-bending space opera about revenge. And love, and hate, and killer robots, and sex, and all sorts of other stuff. But mostly revenge. You can read an extract on the site, of course.
I've set up Philip's site - www.philippalmer.net - on a full Wordpress-based blog, because both Philip and the guys at Orbit really get the whole blogging concept. Philip is really interested in the immediacy of the blogging process and the opportunity that it will give him for instant feedback, especially once Debatable Space is out in January.
And it's not like he'll be short of a thing or two to write about in the meantime, either; he may be a debut novelist, but he's also a radio- and screen-writer of numerous years' experience. There are a few posts on the blog already (Philip prepped and posted a few as the design process went along) that talk about subjects as diverse as Spooks, Captain Jack Sparrow and his recent involvement in the production of a 15-minute radio play about the political situation in Gaza.
Here's a screen-shot of the site:
And yes, for those of you keeping score, that's two new websites launched in one day (and another - a bit of a biggie - on the way as well). So now you know why I haven't been blogging much this past fortnight or so... :)




