Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Orbus Blurb (cover copy).

I've written up three blurbs for the book for the editor at Macmillan to mix and match so what appears below might not be what appears on the book. Here you go:

Now in charge of a cargo spaceship, the Old Captain Orbus, flees a violent and sadistic past, but he doesn’t know that the lethal war drone, Sniper, is a stowaway, and that past is rapidly catching up with him. His old enemy the Prador Vrell, mutated by the Spatterjay virus into something powerful and dangerous, has seized control of a Prador dreadnought, killing its entire crew, and now seeks to exact vengeance on those who tried to have him killed.


Their courses inexorably converge in the Graveyard, the border realm lying between the Polity and the Prador Kingdom, a place filled with the ruins left by past genocides and interplanetary war. Secure in that same place the Golgoloth, a monster to a race of monsters, is recruited by the terrifying King of the Prador into the long cold war between his kind and the humans. It is imperative that Vrell be hunted down and killed, for what he knows and what he might do.


Meanwhile, something that has annihilated civilizations is stirring from a slumber of five million years, and the cold war is heating up, fast.


11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looking forward to it! Sounds excellent. The Spatterjay books are my favourite of everything you've done.

Is there a 'ballpark' release date yet?

Anonymous said...

Superb, more murder and mayhem with The Prador, and Sniper, my favourite war drone, is in it as well.
Neal, you're just a tease, how long have we got to wait?

Cheers
Phil
Aberdeen

Neal Asher said...

Shadow of the Scorpion is out first in April, then Orbus is out in November.

Anonymous said...

Sounds excellent :) I'm looking forward ot this one quite a lot, but I've just finished Shadow of the Scorpion and wondering whether you can top that!

Thud said...

I'll buy it!

Anonymous said...

Looking good. Still haven't started Gabbleduck, massive book log jam.

Neil

Jebel Krong said...

awesome! i really can't wait (thank the stars you are great AND prolific!!) - ian banks just isn't the same....

big monster? and a new threat? sweet!

Neal Asher said...

I saw your review, Mark, thanks. The bit about being an unashamed fan amused me. It wouldn't surprise me if there are those who are ashamed. I'm not exactly the standard lefty liberal SF writer.

That's what I like to hear, Thud.

Get your finger out, Neil.

Daniel, a lot more than one new monster - Orbus is a monsterfest.

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean, but those people should just grow up - it's what's in the book that matters :)

Unknown said...

looking forward to reading your new book. Are you planning writing more on the polity series, and if so how many?

ldraxx said...

I live in the US and I love all Neal Ashers books esp the Ian Cormac Books and SpatterJay books. I hate that I have to wait so long for the new releases! Amazon UK won't let me order and ship to california! argh. I loved Line War. I think that Sniper is the best character and can hardly wait to get my hands on Orbus!