Harlan Ellison has just released two brand new limited editions, Brain Movies III and Brain Movies IV. For those not in the know, each of these volumes contain over 400 pages of Harlan's scripts. Each of these books is available until the end of Monday in special Birthday limited editions, which contain over 90 pages of bonus material that will not be available after May 27. I already have copies en route to me, and suggest you might want to do the same.

Oh, and the cover to Cutter's World, above… It's by noneother than Michael Whelan.

About the Books:

Brain Movies III:

EXPLORE ELLISON’S TAKE ON THE SCIENCE FICTION WESTERN: Cutter’s World, Ellison’s two-hour 1987 pilot for a Western-tinged science fiction series for CBS (fifteen years before Joss Whedon finally got one on the air with Firefly), tells the story of guilt-ridden 20th century astronaut Ben Cutter’s journey to an alien world, where he and his twelve-year-old son, Mac, must carve out a life for themselves in the perpetual twilight of a world inhabited by two species in conflict: the humanoid vivo, and the kyben (the recurring beings featured in Ellison’s Night and the Enemy story cycle).

If you order Brain Movies, Volume Three on or before Monday, the 27th of May, you will receive—at no extra charge—the first draft of Cutter’s World, featuring a different version of the third act with a subtler take on the series’s ongoing antagonist.

Please check out Harlan Books to see the additional content in the volume—it's considerable.

Brain Movies IV:

READ THE BASIS FOR ELLISON’S FIRST GROUNDBREAKING PLAGIARISM SUIT: Brillo, the two-hour ABC pilot based on Ellison and Ben Bova’s short story of the same name, was the impetus for the author’s first plagiarism lawsuit. At long last, Ellison afficionados can now see how the story of a (then-futuristic) 1990s beat cop teamed with the latest in law enforcement technology (the eponymous robot) would have played out on the small screen had not the network passed on the series. For fans of the absurd, some of the “suggestions” issued by ABC Broadcast Standards and Practices are recounted in the editor’s note.

If you order Brain Movies, Volume Four on or before Monday, the 27th of May, you will receive—at no extra charge—a revised draft of Brillo, which condenses the narrative, conflated characters, and eliminated elements found in the first draft. A version of this draft is what would have eventually been produced if the project had not been derailed.

Again, please check out Harlan Books to view the considerable additional material in this volume.

Michael Reaves and Neil Gaiman (the duo from Interworld and The Silver Dream) are crowdfunding a movie—in which Neil will appear.

About Blood Kiss

"I'm willing to pretend that the prospect of acting doesn't terrify me in order to help Michael Reaves make his film" —Neil Gaiman

"Michael Reaves is one of the most original writers I've met. His imagination is as boundless as his zeal for riveting storytelling." —David Brin

THESE PEOPLE BELIEVE IN MICHAEL'S DREAM AND WANT TO MAKE IT A REALITY.

A brilliant writer who can't talk is talking plenty loud—thanks to you.

When I finished Blood Kiss and gave it to my agent, he read it and in his first breath assured me that he liked it; then in his second assured me that he couldn't sell it. It seemed that, at the time, one couldn't throw a rock in this town without hitting a writer clutching a vampire script; the sparkly, twinkly romantic kind, of course. (And, to quote the Coen Brothers' brilliant script for Barton Fink: "Do me a favor; throw it hard.") it seemed that, even if I could place Blood Kiss at one of the studios, it would likely just sit on a shelf gathering more dust than Kharis the Mummy did while pining for Princess Ananka.

I couldn't stand the thought of that. All I needed was start-up capital.

But it's a funny thing about venture capitalists; none of them wants to put down the first money. They'll line up and stumble all over themselves to drop the second, third, fourth, etc. greenback on the barrelhead—as long as someone else goes first. It's a game as old as Hollywood.

But there's a new game in town now. It's called "crowdfunding," and KickStarter and other sites like it give creative people a forum in which to present a project and ask for money to at least get it started—and maybe do the whole shebang.

So that's why my movie isn't sitting in some producer's office somewhere, mixed in with others, its title an illegible scrawl of Magic Marker along its spine. Instead, it's getting made—with your help, and many others like you.

For which I can only say, (or rather, type): "Thank you."

The Signed, Limited Edition of Robert McCammon's I Travel by Night is in stock and shipping. That version is sold out, but we still have 150 copies of the trade edition hanging about the warehouse. We have no plans to reprint the novella, so now's a great time to pick up the trade from your favorite seller, or opt for the ebook version, if that's more to your liking.

Once again, we've made the foray into our Collectors Room, and come out wtih a handful of nifty items. We only have a copy or two of most of these titles, so please don't hesitate to get your orderr in. Also, please note that it's one copy per household.

• Mass for Mixed Voices (Charles Beaumont, three book set);
• Deathbird Stories (Harlan Ellison);
• Melinda (Neil Gaiman);
• A Screenplay (Neil Gaiman);
• Stories (edited by Neil Gaiman);
• The Moonlit Mind (Dean Koontz);
• Edge of Dark Water (Joe R. Lansdale, limited edition);
• Trapped in the Saturday Matinee (Joe R. Lansdale, slipcased edition);
• Songs of the Dying Earth (edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, trade hardcover);
• The Best of Lucius Shepard (trade hardcover);

We've finished our inventory of the collectors room. For the next few newsletters, we'll be listing our finds, including a number of books we thought long out of print. There is a limit of one copy per title. In fact, for many of thse books, we're down to single copies.

• The Drowned Cities (Paolo Bacigalupi, lettered edition);
• The Windup Girl (Paolo Bacigalupi, lettered and numbered editions);
• The Golden Apples of the Sun (Ray Bradbury, lettered edition, with exclusive material);
• Death Masks (Jim Butcher, lettered and numbered editions);
• Baal (Robert McCammon, lettered and numbered editions);
• The Hunter from the Woods (Robert McCammon, lettered edition)
• The Providence Rider (Robert McCammon, lettered edition)
• Hide Me Among the Graves (Tim Powers, Charnel Houe limited edition);
• Drood (Dan Simmons, limited edition)

Our friends at Centipede Press have just announced a pair of William Peter Blatty projects, both with low limitations—only 250 copies.

About the Books:

Demons Five, Exorcists Nothing

A scathing modern fable that chronicles the descent of an acclaimed auteur and a Hollywood screenwriter caught in his own private hell. This novel draws on Blatty’s own experiences in Hollywood during the writing and filming of such acclaimed movies as The Exorcist. Blatty takes no prisoners in this fable of towering ambition, cross and doublecross.

Demons Five, Exorcists Nothing is here published with the preferred text by Blatty, incorporating dozens of revisions and amendments. Jacob McMurray designed the dustjacket.

Limited: 250 signed numbered hardcover copies: $60

Dimiter

William Peter Blatty has thrilled generations of readers with his iconic international bestseller The Exorcist. Now Blatty gives us Dimiter, a riveting story of murder, revenge, and suspense. Laced with themes of faith and love, sin and forgiveness, vengeance and compassion, it is a novel in the grand tradition of Morris West’s The Devil’s Advocate, and the Catholic novels of Graham Greene.

Dimiter opens in the world’s most oppressive and isolated totalitarian state: Albania in the 1970s. A prisoner suspected of being an enemy agent is held by state security. An unsettling presence, he maintains an eerie silence though subjected to unimaginable torture. He escapes, and, on the way to freedom, completes a mysterious mission. The prisoner is Dimiter, the American “agent from hell.” The scene shifts to Jerusalem, focusing on Hadassah Hospital and a cast of unusual characters. All become enmeshed in a series of baffling, inexplicable deaths, until events explode in a surprising climax.

Told with unrelenting pace, Dimiter’s compelling, page-turning narrative is haunted by the search for faith and the truths of the human condition.

William Peter Blatty, the writer of numerous novels and screenplays, is best known for his internationally bestselling novel The Exorcist, deemed by the New York Times Book Review to be “as superior to most books of its kind as an Einstein equation is to an accountant’s column of figures.” An Academy Award winner for his screenplay for The Exorcist, Blatty is not only the author of one of the most terrifying novels ever written, but, paradoxically, also co-wrote the screenplay for the hilarious Inspector Clouseau film, A Shot in the Dark. New York Times reviewers of his early comic novels noted, “Nobody can write funnier lines than William Peter Blatty”, describing him as “a gifted virtuoso who writes like S. J. Perelman.” Blatty lives with his wife and a son in Maryland.

Limited: 250 signed numbered hardcover copies: $75

We've finally had a slot in our schedule to do a proper inventory of the Collectors Room her at SubPress. Here are the first fruits. (Reminder: In most cases, there are only one or two copies of a given title, so act quickly.)

• The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury);
• Moby Dick (Ray Bradbury);
• The Other in the Mirror (Philip Jose Farmer);
• The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard (Robert E. Howard);
• Brighton Shock (edited by Stephen Jones);
• The Five (Robert McCammon);
• Throne of Jade (Naomi Novik);
• Black Hills (Dan Simmons);
• Worlds of Weber (David Weber);

The trade hardcovers of two new Harlan Ellison titles hit our warehouse today, and will begin shipping tomorrow. Gentleman Junkie and The Deadly Streets are among the classics of Ellison's canon, the former the only title reviewed by Dorothy Parker in Esquire.

If you're in the market for even more early Ellison, please consider heading over to harlanbooks.com, where you can pick up Rough Beasts, which contains 17 tales from very early in Harlan's career. They aren't his strongest work, natch, but remain a treasure trove for his most ardent fans.