And so it begins. Vincent Chong has just turned in his first batch of illustrations for the Special Edition of Stephen King's The Shining. You can see Jack with his mallet, here. Head over to the book's page, and you'll see one of the full color plates, and a number of the duotone illustrations, including a couple with elements that will extend from the main illustration into the novel's text. We're doing everything we can to make this a King edition to treasure. These illustrations are just one of many steps.

Gift: 1500 unsigned copies, printed in two colors throughout, housed in a custom slipcase: $95

Elizabeth Bear has penned a standalone prequel to her stellar novella, Bone and Jewel Creatures. The first review for Book of Iron is in, and we're mighty pleased.

From Publishers Weekly:

“Bear injects the fizz of the Roaring ’20s (including travel by roadster, automatic pistols , aeroplanes, and silent movies) into a thoughtful exploration of dealing with loss.”

Limited: 250 signed numbered copies, bound in leather, with a bonus short story: $45

Trade: Fully cloth-bound hardcover edition: $20

NY Times Best-Seller Jack Campbell's latest crackerjack novella, The Last Full Measure, is now available as an ebook.

About the Book:

As the author of the bestselling Lost Fleet series, Jack Campbell’s name is well-known to fans of interstellar heroics. Now, with his thrilling new novella The Last Full Measure, Campbell brings his keen eye for military adventure and political intrigue to a tale that is earthbound, but no less wondrous…

In a transformed mid-nineteenth century America dominated by plantation owners and kept in line by Southern military forces, a mild-mannered academic from Main, Professor Joshua Chamberlain, stands accused of crimes against the nation. In court alongside him is Abraham Lincoln, whose fiery rhetoric brands him a “threat to the security of the United States of America.” Convicted, Chamberlain is sentenced to forty years hard labor, while Lincoln’s fate is indefinite detention at Fortress Monroe. But Professor Chamberlain then encounters military minds who understand the true ideals upon which the country was founded and who want to foment revolution. To succeed, they need a leader, someone to inspire the people to take up the cause of liberty: Lincoln. All they have to do is flawlessly execute a daring plan to rescue him from the darkest federal prison.

In The Last Full Measure, Campbell delivers a riveting look at an America where war is imminent, and nothing is as it should be.

In the most recent issue of Locus, Gardner Dozois had some very kind things to say about Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz, the swashbuckling new collection from Garth Nix:

Fafhrd and the Mouser are also one of the inspirations for the fantasy’s most recent pair of mismatched adventurers, Garth Nix’s Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz, some of whose adventures have just been collected in Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz: Three Adventures. Sir Hereward is a fairly standard swashbuckling hero, good with a sword and a dead shot with a pistol (although his being an artillery expert, a master gunner, adds an unusual touch), but his companion, Mister Fitz, is an intriguing creation: a thousand-year-old living puppet who  is also a very potent sorcerer, wielder of deadly ‘esoteric needles’, and who brought Sir Hereward up from infancy. This adds a different edge to their relationship, as does the fact that, rather than running into dangerous adventures while searching for treasure, like many heroic fantasy heroes, they are indifferent to treasure, roaming the world seeking and destroying rogue gods…

The ultra-talented J. K. Drummond has just turned in the gatefold illlustration for Steven Erikson's Memories of Ice, the third volume in his groundbreaking Malazan Book of the Fallen. Over the course of the next week, we'll be reviewing the final files, and then sending Memories on to our printer. At 936 pages, it's at the absolute edge of the envelope of how thick a book we can print with the premium paper we've selected.

We're still shipping copies of Dan Simmons' The Fall of Hyperion, which is now sold out. We've already begun work on Endymion. Look for ordering information later this year or early next.

Once we finished sending out customer copies of Dan's Jack Vance tribute novella, The Guiding Nose of Ulfant Banderoz, we discovered we had eighteen copies of the Signed, Limited Edition still available. Please help yourself, but there's a limit of one copy per household.

Given that we've published a number of novellas by her, it's probably no surprise to anyone that I consider K. J. Parker among the two or three best epic fantasy writers currently active. Next year, we hae a huge (670 pages) collection, Academic Exercises, on the schedule, to be followed in 2015 by Savages, an original novel that's nearly as long! In the meantime, the current issue of Subterranean is the K. J. Parker Special, with a long original story ("The Sun and I") a rarity ("Illuminated"), and an appropriate bit of non-fiction ("Rich Men's Skins").

In addition to the Parker, you'll find a Joe R. Lansdale story, an original from Catherynne M. Valente (from her forthcoming collection, The Bread We Eat in Dreams), and "Stage Blood" by Kat Howard, who continues to make a name for herself with gems like this.

Remember, in addition to being free on the the site, the Summer issue is also available as .mobi and epub downloads.

Publishers Weekly has been most kind to us of late. We have four reviews to share with you, two of them receiving coveted stars.

How the World Became Quiet (Rachel Swirsky, Starred Review):

“Swirsky’s crisp prose and insightful vision draw the reader in, and her work will amply reward both casual reading and close attention.”

Jewels in the Dust (Peter Crowther, Starred Review):

“Crowther (Forever Twilight) unearths intelligence and compassion in the crawlspaces of the human heart with these atmospheric and emotionally intensive excursions between reality and fantasy. Versatility of theme and palpable mood breathe life in these modern myths of transformation and revelation. Genre staples (time travel, ghosts, fairies) are anchored in—and enlivened by—scenes of everyday people struggling to live and love and dream.”

Impossible Monsters (edited by Kasey Lansdale):

“Eschewing romantic vampires and shambling zombies, this collection presents monsters that do not merely kill, but suddenly and incomprehensibly consume, destroy, and reduce their victims to mere bones… Readers who stay up late wondering if there really is something out there will find these stories to be perfect nightmare fodder.”

Hot Times in Magma City (Robert Silverberg):

“Silverberg’s usual themes are present: classical history, archaeology, the nature of art and the artist’s role in creation… Dense with colorful settings, thoughtful characters, and Silverberg’s usual painstaking attention to detail, these stories reveal a master of the genre comfortable with what he does best.”