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.
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.
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The Drowned Cities (Paolo Bacigalupi, lettered edition);
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The Windup Girl (Paolo Bacigalupi, lettered and numbered editions);
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The Golden Apples of the Sun (Ray Bradbury, lettered edition, with exclusive material);
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Death Masks (Jim Butcher, lettered and numbered editions);
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Baal (Robert McCammon, lettered and numbered editions);
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The Hunter from the Woods (Robert McCammon, lettered edition)
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The Providence Rider (Robert McCammon, lettered edition)
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Hide Me Among the Graves (Tim Powers, Charnel Houe limited edition);
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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 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.
Progress. Progress, and some more progress. Here's one of Gabriel Rodriguez's interior illustrations for Joe Hill's epic road vampire novel, NOS4A2. We've seen the other interiors as works in progress, and should have finished version in house within the next two weeks. At the same time, Joe is putting the finishing touches on "Wraith", the bonus novella that's exclusive to our limited edition. With luck, the whole package should be headed to the printer in the next month, a bit later than we originally anticpated, but not too much so.
In other Hill news, the Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows books are done. We're just waiting on the slipcases and traycases before that hefty volume filled with dark wonders can ship.
We have a few recently released books, and one classic title, that have just received glowing reviews. We'll get out of the way and let the reviews speak for themselves.
From SF Revu:
Five Autobiographies and a Fiction collects six original novellas by Lucius Shepherd. It's rare to see a collection of novellas, never mind by a single author. It is a length that Shepherd excels at, and we are lucky that Subterranean Press has made this collection possible. Shepherd opens the collection with a frank introduction that shows how the protagonists of five of the novellas represent paths that Shepherd could have seen his own life taking, showing how they are in a sense alternate history autobiographies, which probably explains the sensitivity and compassion Shepherd's writing displays for even his most flawed protagonists… This collection is amazingly rewarding. These are clearly deeply personal stories for the author, and it pays off in the depth and richness of his writing. I highly recommend this collection to one and all.
From SFRevu:
McCammon creates a fast paced and entertaining tale with this novella, constructing the world Lawson inhabits with an admirable specificity. The feel of being in 19th century New Orleans is palpable. With his credo and calling card, which reads simply ‘I travel by night’, Lawson is a worthy protagonist who evokes the old television series Have Gun Will Travel with his forthright manner and direct approach to solving problems. He is less a detective than a force of justice and vengeance, going after a singular target.
From SFRevu:
…the gist of The Gist survives the difficulties generated by the two consecutive translations, providing the reader with an enticing piece of dark fiction and with the captivating results of an unusual linguistic experiment.
From SFSite:
Virtually all of the stories included in this volume were amongst the best science fiction written in the mid-1980s, and many were indeed nominated and/or won various awards. Robert Silverberg has created here tales of emotional impact and intellectual depth that should be avidly perused by every serious science fiction reader. I look forward to future volumes in the series.
We're sold out of The Best of Joe Haldeman, but you can still find copies out in the wild. Here's just one more reason to, from SFSite:
The Best of Joe Haldeman also ventures into horror, political conspiracies, anthropological science fiction, even a young adult adventure story set on Mars. These are the topics of a writer whose work has stretched across most of the themes and styles of modern SF, whose work has been an integral part of the on-going conversation that is science fiction. To read The Best of Joe Haldeman is to partake in that conversation at the highest level, fueled by a collection of stories whose ideas, characters, and themes will be talked about for as long as that conversation goes on.