Included in this compilation of samples from our upcoming titles for Winter/Spring 2011 is a wide array of Science Fiction and Fantasy titles for every reader.
All types of mythical beasties and villains abound-including vampire assassins stalking the canals of Venice in Jon Courtenay Grimwood's The Fallen Blade, zombie infestations everywhere in Jesse Petersen's Flip this Zombie, and, of course, a mysterious, if somewhat confused, pig in Tom Holt's hilarious Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sausages.
Also, Gail Z. Martin returns to the world of The Summoner in a new series starting with The Sworn. Joe Abercrombie takes us down into the dirt and blood of a battlefield and shows us all the true face of heroism in The Heroes.
And, finally, the urban fantasists are back with the new Matthew Swift book from Kate Griffin, The Neon Court, the next entry in Trent Jamieson's Death Works series with Managing Death, Sabina Kane's return in Green-Eyed Demon by Jaye Wells and, a special treat, the entire Dante Valentine series in one volume from Lilith Saintcrow!
Joe Abercrombie was educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School and Manchester University, where he studied psychology. He moved into television production before taking up a career as a freelance film editor. During a break between jobs he began writing The Blade Itself in 2002, completing it in 2004. It was published by Gollancz in 2006 and was followed by two other books in The First Law trilogy, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings. He currently lives and works in London with his wife and daughter. In early 2008 Joe Abercrombie was one of the contributors to the BBC Worlds of Fantasy series, alongside other contributors such as Michael Moorcock, Terry Pratchett and China Mieville.
Useful because almost all the previews of the books were worthwhile. I had never heard of the authors and found most of them quite appealing :) Fantasy has always been a favorite of mine and I never bore of the "overplayed" zombie attacks or mystical creatures.
As for it being bothersome, it is not due to anything in the book but the fact that the actual books cost at least ten dollars. Maybe one day I might stumble upon the title again and in a fit of blind joy I will buy them, but for now I will silently curse the money-tree and flip through the previews I have.
This book is just a sampler of the scifi/fantasy books that Orbit released January-March 2011. The samples range anywhere from 12 pages to about 115. I like to grab books like this every once in a while when I'm looking for a new author or just need a break from the book I was reading.
The samples in this book were all pretty good. There is a sample from Heroes by Joe Abercrombie which I have already read and is a very good book. There are a few books in there that I intend to put in my queue and read in the future.
The Hammer by K.J. Parker and The Sworn both look very interesting with The Sworn having the more interesting concept of the two.
Flip this Zombie by Jesse Peterson looks like is a very humorous account of a married couple that have turned into post-apocolyptic zombie exterminators. My understanding is that it's actually the second book in a series however.
Kate Griffin has two books in the sampler: The Midnight Mayor and The Neon Court. The stories look to be very interesting, but Griffin's writing style instantly grabbed me and pulled me into the books. I'm not sure that I have every read a story in the style that she uses. It is incredibly absorbing and makes you feel like a character from the book. Her books will go very close to the top of my queue.
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sausages by Tom Holt appears to be an absolutely hilarious satire in the spirit of Douglas Adams. I will definitely it read as well.
There are many more books in the sampler. They all seemed fine, but they weren't really my style. I'm not really into the female vampire hunter/bounty hunter series, and there were a few of those. I am glad that I read through this sampler though. I found a lot of promising books and authors.
I don't want to rate this so low because I love the idea of novel samplers. Nothing in this sampler appealed to me. Some were interesting, but not interesting enough for me to add to my reading list. It was "just okay" which is why I gave it two stars instead of an "i like/enjoy it" three stars.
This was a good preview collection. While I didn't care for everything, I do have a few more books on my to-read list because of it, which is probably the best such a collection can really hope for.
unfortunately this sampler now seems largely unavailable - Amazon.com has it (but I'm in the UK so can't access it) or via Google-search as a DRMed .PDF or .epub