For no reason other than that I was idly thinking about it just now (terrible thing, the way the mind wanders when you're supposed to be writing ...), in no particular order and without comment, my favourites amongst the books I've read so far this year:

Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny

River of Gods, Ian McDonald

Britain BC, Francis Pryor

The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch

The Civil War Vol. 2, Shelby Foote

Winter Tales, George Mackay Brown

And look: Orbit (my very nice publishers) have a spiffy new website covering both the UK and US bits of their increasingly globe-spanning empire. It's got a corporate blog and future publishing schedules (as pdf files) for anyone who's curious about what's in their pipeline for the next year or so.

Labels: Books, Orbit

Orbit's new USA imprint is showing its first signs of life: orbitbooks.net. And the first book displayed on their publishing schedule is ... Winterbirth. It's scheduled for release in September. This is a good and exciting thing.

Labels: Covers, Orbit, Winterbirth

Just before I get to the point of this post, since it has an American theme: people keep saying George W. Bush is now a lame duck, so what might a lame duck President find to do with his time? Answer here.

So, to our main story. A bit slow out of the blocks with this news, since it's been agreed for a little while now, but: I'm delighted to say a deal's been done for Winterbirth to be published in the USA. Getting published in the UK and various European countries would, to be honest, have been enough to keep me happy for a long time - adding the US to the list is a fantastic thick crust of icing on the cake.

The US edition will be one of the first books to appear from Orbit in the USA, making it part of one of the more ambitious undertakings seen in sf/f publishing for a while. Orbit's turning itself into a globe-spanning genre empire, with a foot in each of the three biggest English-speaking markets (which I suppose makes it a tripod - a form with a noble sf heritage).

Same continent, different country, and look: I'm being given away for free. (EDIT to update: that competition's finished now, so the freebies are no more, I'm afraid)

And here, one more time, is the info on how to buy a signed copy of the UK edition, in case anyone's still toying with that idea.

Labels: Orbit, Signing