Black Gate

Orbit Books has published some of the most acclaimed SF and fantasy of the past few years — including Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, Peter Higgins’s Wolfhound Century, John R. Fultz’s Books of the Shaper trilogy, N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, Mur Lafferty’s The Shambling Guide to New York City, M.R. Carey’s debut The Girl With All the Gifts, Ian Tregillis’s Alchemy Wars, and many, many others. Now comes word that Orbit’s success has been great enough that they are planning to grow their publishing schedule by 50% next year. The Orbit Team posted this announcement on their website on Friday:

Orbit, the SF and Fantasy imprint of Hachette Book Group, announces a major expansion plan starting from Fall 2016. The imprint will increase the number of titles it publishes by 50% to approximately 90 titles each year. Additional staff, including editorial, marketing, and design, will be recruited to support the expansion.

Tim Holman, Orbit Publisher and Hachette Book Group SVP, said: “There is a huge and diverse audience for SF and Fantasy out there, and it’s the perfect time to be expanding the list. Orbit is currently the fastest growing SF and Fantasy imprint in the U.S. with an increasing number of New York Times bestsellers – most recently Ann Leckie, whose debut Ancillary Justice was also the first novel to win every major SF award. Since our launch in 2008, we have been committed to publishing the most exciting authors in the field and looking for creative ways to connect with new readers. We’re very much looking forward to building on the success we’ve had, expanding the publishing team, and welcoming more authors to the list.”

This is great news for readers — and writers, time to polish those NaNoWriMo manuscripts! See the complete announcement here.

Last month I made some noise here at Black Gate about The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak — the long-awaited multi-volume project from Open Road Media. Six volumes have been announced so far, and three were released on October 20.

Over at Locus Online, Paul Di Filippo asks if this is finally the beginning of the Simak Renaissance.

Much as I loved Heinlein’s work, I loved Simak’s more, in what was perhaps a different fashion. If you can imagine both men as uncles, then Heinlein was the loudly dressed, blustering uncle who blew into town once a year from Manhattan, trailing clouds of glory from his exotic exploits and dazzling you with his cosmopolitan ways; whereas Simak was your local bachelor uncle who lived modestly in a cabin and who could always be counted on to fix your bike or take you fishing or console you when your dog died. And he never mentioned that he had a Purple Heart medal tucked away in his sock drawer.

But precisely by having this unassuming nature, in both his personality and on the page, Simak did not generate as many headlines or partisans as did Heinlein. And since his death, it seems to me that his star has unjustifiably faded a bit. There was a laudable attempt a decade ago to get all his stories into print. But the project fell apart after only two (now highly collectible) volumes: Physician to the Universe and Eternity Lost & Other Stories.

Now comes Open Road Media with the stated intention of issuing all of his short fiction in fourteen books. Hooray! Maybe the Simak Renaissance is finally here!

See Paul’s complete article here.