Tuesday 29 May 2012

Place your vote on the next exciting twist for Pax Britannia: Time's Arrow!

WHAT WILL COME OF OUR DASHING HERO NEXT?

Have you ever read a book and wished you could change the story?

Have you ever wanted to shout a warning to the hero, or advise him on how best to proceed?

Now's your chance to directly influence the events of this thrilling saga and be in with a chance to win the paperback omnibus edition of Time’s Arrow!

In the third and final thrilling installment of Time's Arrow, White Noise, Paris faces utter destruction, and our hero is faced with a deadly dilemma. And what of the enigmatic Cadence Bettencourt, if she even survived the destruction of the Opera House? Is she to be trusted or not? You must decide: 

A) Is Cadence the friend she appears to be, helping a stranger in need out of native kindness? 

or

B) Does Cadence have a hidden agenda, in service to those Ulysses is determined to stop?

To cast your vote, e-mail your choice to Abaddon Books at abaddonsolaris@rebellion.co.uk now and you could win a copy of the finished paperback later this year!

The first installment, Red-Handed, is available to buy now as an ebook and you can pre-order the finished book, due for publication in November right here!



Happy US publication day to Harmony, Toxicity, and The Devil's Nebula!



Every day's a party day at Solaris and Abaddon Towers, especially a day when we have three (count 'em, THREE) books hitting shelves in North America! We have a cake and balloons, so it's time to welcome our babies into the world:

Harmony
by Keith Brooke

$8.99/$10.99 (US & CAN) ISBN 978-1-78108-001-6


The aliens are here, all around us. They always have been. And now, one by one, they’re destroying our cities.


Toxicity
by Andy Remic

$8.99/$10.99 (US & CAN) ISBN 978-1-78108-004-7


Andy Remic returns to the world of the Anarchy with another brash, no-holds-barred action!


Weirdspace: The Devil’s Nebula
by Eric Brown

$7.99/$10.99 (US & CAN) ISBN 978-1-78108-023-8


When an evil race threatens not only the Expansion, but the Vetch too - an evil from another dimension which infests humans and Vetch alike and bends individuals to do their hideous bidding, only cooperation between them means the difference between a chance of survival and no chance at all.


Toxicity and Harmony are both published in the UK on 7th June, with The Devil's Nebula arriving on the 21st.

Tuesday 22 May 2012

Words for free: download the first chapter of the Shadowmage Trilogy

"Shouts for his blood echoed off the walls of the narrow alley, the worn buildings bouncing the sound so it seemed as though he were surrounded. Casting an anxious glance over his shoulder, he saw nothing through the shadowy gloom and guessed they were still on the street behind."

And so begins the first of the three novels contained within The Shadowmage Trilogy by Matthew Sprange, which is available now in the UK and Ireland, and in North America.

This stunning fantasy features a never before seen final part of the Shadowmage Trilogy, completing the saga of Lucius Kane. And we're giving away the first chapter for free! Click on the link to download now and enjoy right this minute!

Forced onto the streets of Turnitia after the army destroys his home and murders his parents, Lucius Kane becomes an excellent thief, gaining notoriety in his new profession. Soon drawn into a war between rival thieves guilds, Kane fights for friends and profit but finds himself pulled into the darker and more mysterious world of the Shadowmage. Mercenary practitioners who combine stealth with magic, Shadowmages make the best scouts, infiltrators, spies ... and assassins!



Wednesday 16 May 2012

Out this week: The Shadowmage Trilogy


The Shadowmage Trilogy
by Matthew Sprange


OUT THIS WEEK!


Forced onto the streets of Turnitia after the army destroys his home and murders his parents, Lucius Kane becomes an excellent thief, gaining notoriety in his new profession. Soon drawn into a war between rival thieves guilds, Kane fights for friends and profit but finds himself pulled into the darker and more mysterious world of the Shadowmage. Mercenary practitioners who combine stealth with magic, Shadowmages make the best scouts, infiltrators, spies ... and assassins!

This stunning fantasy features a never before seen final part of the Shadowmage Trilogy, completing the saga of Lucius Kane.

Mr Sprange has a solid history in roleplaying design as well as writing over two dozen gaming books, including the Babylon 5, Judge Dredd, and Starship Troopers games, and has won two Origins Awards for his work in miniature wargames.

We asked him about fantasy worlds, finding time to write, and reading books on wildlife...

* Tell us a bit about The Shadowmage Trilogy and why people should buy it.

The Shadowmage Trilogy charts the return of one of Kerberos' 'legacy' characters to the free city of Turnitia, Lucias Kane. He is a rogue, a mercenary, really he is a bum with a sword. However, he is also a Shadowmage, someone who combines magic with stealth. He gets drawn first into one of the thieves' guilds of the city, and then the small group of Shadowmages who are beginning to return after being persecuted some years before.

The first book concentrates on the Thieves' War as rival guilds clash, but the backstory shows Lucius developing his Shadowmage skills. As the trilogy unfolds, his thieves' guild finds itself up against the Vos Empire, a tyrannical state that invades Turnitia, while lucius himself finds his loyalties split between the thieves and the Shadowmages.

* With three books set in the same world, how did things evolve over time?

Well, the first book really sets the scene, putting Lucius at the centre of several struggles between thieves, Shadowmages and two two rival empires of the world (Vos and Pontaine). After that, it was really just a case of thinking 'how can I make life more difficult for Lucius?' So, one of his fellow Shadowmages really goes off the deep end (and ends up destroying a fair portion of the city), a preacher from one of the empires makes it his personal mission to finish Lucius off and, to top it all, there is a rogue artefact from the time of the Older Races that Lucius wants no part of and yet cannot ignore.

* What are the elements that make a fantasy series work well?

Honestly, I think they are the same things that make any story, of any genre work well - conflict, drama, the ordinary man doing extraordinary things, or the extraordinary man affected by ordinary things. With fantasy, however, you have a much bigger canvas to work on.

* Tell us a bit about your writing routine.

I wish I had one! I try to set aside 'writing blocks' of 4-5 hours at a time, during which I will try to complete a whole chapter. That does not always work for long chapters, of course, so sometimes it gets split. As for when I schedule this writing time - whenever 4-5 free hours pop up!

* What are your five favourite novels?

Oh, now you are asking... In no particular order, I would have to say Starship Troopers, Frank Herbert's Dune sequence, and Bernard Cornwell's Arthur books. And I am going to hope you don't spot that is actually 10 books!

* What advice would you give to new writers hoping to break into the field?

Read. A lot. And don't confine yourself to your favourite genre. If you want to write science-fiction, read action thrillers, courtroom dramas, epic verse. Read non-fiction, and don't confine yourself to science-fiction related topics - read histories, biographies, books on wildlife, astronomy, engineering. You can use ALL of it. And once you get into the habit of constant reading, don't forget to write. Sounds obvious, but it is very easy to get caught up in the 'real world' and forget that you always wanted to be a writer.



The Shadowmage Trilogy is available now in the UK and Ireland, and in North America.

Wednesday 9 May 2012

JOB OPPORTUNITY: Rebellion looking for junior graphic designer


JUNIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER, £16-18,000 p.a.      


REBELLION, OXFORD.


Rebellion publishes two fiction imprints, Solaris and Abaddon Books, along with 2000 AD, encompassing the weekly comic 2000 AD, the monthly Judge Dredd Megazine and 2000 AD Graphic Novels. 


We are seeking a full-time junior graphic designer to join our busy publishing department in Oxford.  The successful candidate will have a graphic design qualification, a good knowledge of Adobe InDesign and Photoshop and familiarity with Quark and Adobe Illustrator.


Duties will include: flowing in text and laying out interior pages for novels; prepping comic strip pages for print; scanning/colour correction and basic image manipulation; making corrections and final pdfs; designing advertisements; assembling the files for graphic novels. The successful candidate will be required to develop a broad knowledge of our archive to source and choose images for external licensees and others. Experience of design for websites and the internet will be useful.


There will be scope to develop this design role, however this position is not a platform for submitting or producing artwork for Rebellion-published comics and graphic novels.


To apply please send your CV and any available graphic design work portfolio link or hobby work to vacancies@rebellion.co.uk


Rebellion can only consider applicants who can legally work in the UK.

Revealing the astonishing sequel to Chuck Wendig's Double Dead!


Double Dead:
Bad Blood
by Chuck Wendig

OUT NOW!

£2.99 (UK) $3.99 (US & CAN) 

An exclusive ebook novella

San Francisco after the zombie apocalypse. The vampire turned shepherd-with-a-shotgun Coburn is back and keen to settle some bad blood.


But just out in the Bay in the abandoned fortress prison of Alcatraz, a ketamine-snorting cult of New age weirdoes who eat the flesh of the zombie as some kind of grotesque communion bring a new threat to Coburn’s continuing existence – super zombies!


After his rip-roaring debut novel, Double Dead, the inimitable Wendig has returned to his world turned upside by the zombie apocalypse, in which a lone vampire finds himself protecting a terrified remnant of mankind. Or ‘lunch’, as he prefers to think of them.


Irreverent, bloody, and darkly humorous, Bad Blood goes for the throat from the first sentence and is another exclusive ebook novella from Abaddon Books.


“…not the standard zombie fare; the human and vampire elements really make this one worth seeking out.”
– British Fantasy Society on Double Dead

Bad Blood is available now in the UK and North America.

Tuesday 8 May 2012

Top computer game changes history with exclusive tie-in ebook release


As major computer game Sniper Elite V2 tops the video games charts, Abaddon Books is rewriting history with an exclusive tie-in ebook that asks the questions – what if the allies managed to get a top sniper into Berlin before the city fell?


What if he had only one target, but an army between him and it?


Sniper Elite V2: Target Hitler is an exclusive ebook novella from Rebellion’s publishing imprint Abaddon Books that ties in to the third-person World War Two shooter that launched today from Rebellion and 505 Games.


Written by novelist and the Sniper Elite V2 game writer Scott K. Andrews, the thrilling book ties into the game’s pre-order downloadable content offer, in which players have one chance to kill the leader of the Third Reich before he escapes the ruins of Berlin.


The title is being published 4th May and will be available for Kindle in the UK and North America, Nook, Kobo, and through all major e-retailers, as well as the Rebellion online store.


Re-writing the past in fiction is one of the most popular sub-genres of recent years, with every corner of history explored with a cutting ‘what if?’. Target: Hitler focuses on one of the great debates of modern times - should the Allies have assassinated Adolf Hitler?


Everyone knows the story of Adolf Hitler’s final days – cornered, insane, killing himself in despair as Berlin burned above him.


But this story is based solely on the eyewitness accounts of the people who shared the bunker with him – the people most loyal to the Führer; the people most likely to lie to protect him. The world’s foremost Nazi hunter has never believed the official account; he has spent his life chasing a phantom, convinced that Hitler escaped the bunker.

Now, as he lies on his deathbed, he receives a mysterious visitor; a man who claims to know the true story of Hitler’s death; a man named Karl Fairburn. Is he just another conspiracy fantasist, or could his tale possibly be true…?


Scott K. Andrews has written three novels for Abaddon – soon to be collected as the School’s Out Forever omnibus in September – as well as episode guides, magazine articles, film and book reviews, comics, and audio plays for Big Finish.


For more information on the #1 selling game, go to www.sniperelitev2.com

Thursday 3 May 2012

Latest installment of the book where readers choose the plot!

Time’s Arrow:
Black Swan
by Jonathan Green

Available from Amazon Kindle Store and iTunes from Monday 7th May
 
An exclusive ebook release and an intriguing publishing experiment
 
The caper is afoot, but where it leads only YOU decide! The latest installment of the exciting new novel from Abaddon, Pax Britannia: Time’s Arrow, is coming!
 
In a unique publishing experiment, readers themselves get to decide on the fate of our hero Ulysses and where the Time’s Arrow story will take them.
 
Our hero Ulysses Quicksilver – wanted by the French Police for murder – battles his way across Paris, from the Louvre to Notre Dame, in order to prove his innocence. Readers have been voting online on where they want the story to go and they overwhelmingly voted for Ulysses to go in search of the mysterious "M. Lumière”.
 
Time’s Arrow puts the reader in charge and merges the best of print and online. Each instalment is published as an ebook with readers able to vote on where THEY want the story to go at the end of each episode. The first installment, Red Handed, was published in October and once all three instalments have been published, they will be bound together into a print edition.
 
“Lashings of derring-do, sprinkled with just the right amount of plot development to keep a reader hungry for more.”
– The Eloquent Page on Time’s Arrow: Red Handed

The first installment of Time's Arrow, Red Handed is available to download at the US and the UK Kindle Stores, and the US and the UK iTunes Stores.