want to win every orbit book released next year? then enter the orbit quest

One of the biggest publishers of science fiction and fantasy novels, Orbit, has just announced an amazing competition for lovers of this genre.

The Australian branch is offering a competition which will see the winner receiving “every new release title from Orbit books for 2011 – around 70 books.

To enter the competition, readers have complete 12 tasks, each one of which gets a point. The person with the most points at the end of the event becomes the “Orbit Champion” for 2011. The more tasks you complete, the more points you get.

So far, 11 tasks have been announced:

• Task 1: Register your interest
• Task 2: Discuss your favourite moment
• Task 3: Post a fan picture of your bookshelf
• Task 4: Favourite Old Tongue word
• Task 5: Design a cover
• Task 6: Trivia Challenge
• Task 7: Review
• Task 8: Cool Crossovers
• Task 9: Suggest an alternative title
• Task 10: Confess your nerdiest moment
• Task 11: Dress up as your favourite character / post a picture
• Task 12: To be announced on the morning of October 30, 2010

The competition closes on November 30 at midnight, EST. For more details go to the Orbit Australia Facebook page or email: orbit@hachette.com.au

classic high fantasy from kevin j anderson's the map of all things, book 2 in the terra incognita series

Kevin J Anderson returns to the world of Terra Incognita with the second book in the series, The Map of All Things. Like his book, The Edge of the World, this is classic fantasy – a created world with warring kingdoms, opposed religions, heroes and heroines, more characters than you can poke a stick at, ancient foundation myths and even sea monsters.

The empires of Tierra and Uraba are polar opposites – the were originally descended from two brothers, sons of a god-like character, but now they are at war as each nation attempts to prove that their brother is the better of the two.
In the first book you have the set-up, you are introduced to both sides equally with neither being painted good or evil, each empire has redeeming features and each has it's atrocities. Things come to a head, however, as the one central place of worship – a small strip of land that separates the two continents – is destroyed, mostly by accident, but with each side blaming the other.
So, it is war. As the violence escalates readers see, again, that neither side is all good, nor all bad, and the sheer futility of their behaviour becomes more and more apparent in The Map of All Things.
The parallelles with our own world – Israel anyone? – are so obvious that one feels as though Anderson is hitting you in the face with his massive tome. 

Even the culture and weather match up – Tierrans are white northerners (Christian Europeans), while the Urabans are swarthy southerners (Muslim Middle Easterners). 

Yes, yes, we get it. Religious wars are stupid.
Unfortunately, as in the real world, so in fantasy. Neither side appears at all interested in ending the bloodshed. Sometimes for political reason – they fear the toppling of their power – sometimes for personal reasons – the death of a beloved – and so, the war slogs on.
There is one race, however, that is removed from total involvement in the religious war. The Saedran people believe themselves to be descendants of the original god, Ondun, and so are not caught up in the war between the Tierran Aidenists – followers of Aiden – and the Uraban Urecari – followers of Urec.
The Saedrans are the map-makers, chartists, scientists and doctors of Anderson's world, and it is they who are behind the attempt to create the 'map of all things' of the book's title.
As the war drags on, the leaders of each empire decide, independently, to send out voyages of discovery in search of their original homeland, Tierravitae.
Each group has a supposed 'map' to this mythical place and the belief that if they get there first, they'll prove that their religion was the 'right' one and all others are false.
This is just a very simple outline of the plot. The Map of All Things is a finely crafted, high-detailed read; Anderson's world is beautifully imagined and his plots are intricate.
One cannot read The Map of All Things without first having read The Edge of the World, but it's well worth doing so. This is high fantasy for lovers of adventure and character-driven plots; well worth getting your teeth into.

The Map of All Things by Kevin J Anderson is published by Orbit Books and is available from good book stores and online.

avery cates returns in jeff somers' dystopian world of the eternal prison

Avery Cates, the eternal assassin of Somers' dystopian future world, is back and this time he's locked up. Well, he's been locked up again, but it won't stop him getting out and getting revenge.

Lovers of apocalyptic science fiction were introduced to Cates in Somers first two books – The Electric Church and The Digital Plague – alongside a motley crew of cloned world leaders, humans with their brains replaced by a computer consciousness and the dregs of a world slowly back-sliding into the Dark Ages.
Somers' work has been raved about by critics, pundits, reviewers and readers alike, his ability to portray a world we all shy from, but can clearly identify with, gives one the shivers.
The Daily Telegraph newspaper describes his writing as 'An action movie in print', and it's a remarkably astute description. Somers' books are fast-paced, tightly written, believable (in their own way) and peopled with characters that we know – or at least have read about in the news.
The world of these books is one that's been taken over by a variety of never-ending wars and skirmishes, by global corporations controlling the world's food supply, by an underclass of criminals from Russia and Asia and a police force that's more thug than 'Bobby' on the beat.
There is widespread poverty, disease and death. People 'augment' themselves with mechanical and genetic additions or take gene-therapy drugs to stop man-made diseases. Everyone is out for themselves and almost no one cares what the world has come to.
Avery Cates is a street killer, a man who is consistently amazed that he's managed to survive as long as he has in the broken down streets of New York, a crumbling city in an America that's long lost it's ability to care for its people. Sound familiar?
Technology continues to exist for those with the money and the connections, and it's developed into something truly awful – people can now be 'downloaded' into a massive server and then 'uploaded' into a robot form. Only sometimes, not all of them comes back.
As The Eternal Prison opens, Cates is being rounded up with other unsavoury types to be shipped off to the worst prison in what is already a hideously brutal prison system. Only, for some reason, he really doesn't care.
Cates has switched off; he kind of wishes he was dead already, and is really just waiting for someone to kill him. Thankfully – for his fans – his doesn't happen and Cates gets mixed up in a prison break, an attempt to assassinate the globe's nominal ruler and something odd with weird, little old man.
The Eternal Prison has a couple of disjointed sections that are a bit odd in the first third of the novel – it appears as though you're reading a flashback, with Cates doing something completely different from the previous chapter.
However, this is just a teaser to the twist in the plot that comes along towards the end – from there on, it all makes sense and seems so terribly obvious.
Once again, Somers has succeeded in delivering a fantastic sci-fi, action thriller with enough resonance to current times that you'll have no trouble believing in his dark future.
While it's best if you've read the first two books, there's enough back story to allow readers to know what's going on; but really, get the other two first, you'll enjoy the nuances of The Eternal Prison much more.

The Eternal Prison by Jeff Somers is published by Orbit Books and is available from good book stores and online.

the world of the black magician trilogy returns in trudi canavan's the ambassador's mission

One of Australia's best-known and most popular fantasy authors, Trudi Canavan is back with her latest novel The Ambassador's Mission, the first book in her new Traitor Spy trilogy.

Canavan's Black Magician trilogy – made up of The Magician's Guild, The Novice and The High Lord – was an international best-seller that established her as a fantasy author to watch.
In The Ambassador's Mission, Canavan returns to the world she created in the Black Magician books.
It's a number of years later, and the son of Black Magician Sonea – the heroine of the original tale – is all grown up. Lorkin has set out on his first mission as an adult magician with Ambassador Dannyl, also returning from the first series.
Despite the damage done to the city of Imardin during the brief war with the Sachakan magicians years early, the two lands have an uneasy truce, although trade has restarted and Dannyl is about to become an official representative.
Lorkin's father, Akkarin, died during the battle but left behind him a legend that could possibly cause the young man some problems in the new land. Still, he decides to take up Dannyl's offer and heads off, much to his mother's disquiet.
Before long Lorkin is caught up in Sachakan politics, gets himself kidnapped – or possibly saved – and leads Dannyl and a bunch of Sachaka magicians on a merry chase across the countryside.
Once again Canavan has set up a likely group of characters in her well-established world, allowing for an easy fantasy adventure.
Central characters from the first series return – Cery the Thief is back and trying to work out why certain other thieves are going missing. Sonea is still restricted by the rulings of the Magician's Guild regarding the isolation of a Black Magician's powers and various other players arrive and depart moving the story along.
The addition of political machinations in Sachaka adds an extra dimension to the story, but all in all, none of this is ground-breaking fantasy.
Canavan writes solid, comfortable traditional fantasy. What makes her work stand out from the rest is her ability to infuse a sense of humanity and, odd though it sounds, reality, into her books.
Lorkin's chafing at his mother's over-protectiveness, Dannyl's continued issues with being homosexual in an anti-gay society and Sonea's sadness and loneliness after the death of her lover, all read as being very “real”.
The Ambassador's Mission is a great first book, in what will certainly turn out to be a series as successful as Canavan's first.

The Ambassador's Mission by Trudi Canavan is published by Orbit Books and is available from good book stores and online.