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.
Our upcoming Lawrence Block offering, Catch and Release, just drew a coveted starred review from Booklist. You may safely assume that both author and publisher are pleased. To wit:
Block’s short stories are intelligent and respectful of the reader yet often take an unexpected turn. He plays fair. If you reread the story, you’ll find that he left you little clues about the final destination but didn’t connect the dots. Block is a master of the long-form mystery, and this collection proves he’s got the short form locked down as well.
Trade: Fully cloth bound hardcover edition: $30
Very long story short. We have 100 copies of a new printing of The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle: the Thing Beneath the Bed, the original adventure by Patrick Rothfuss. These copies, fourth printings, are signed by Pat. We don't expect to get any more in, so now's the golden chance to pick up one of the most ghoulish non-children's books this side of Edward Gorey.
Trade: Fully cloth bound hardcover edition (signed): $25
We've a new Peter Crowther collection slated for late this summer. When thinking of Jewels in the Dust, the operaterive term is Bradburyesque.
About the Book.
In the pages of this latest collection of downright delicate, often enchanting and occasionally distressing stories from the pen of award-winning Peter Crowther you will encounter:
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two boys who discover an elaborate trap to capture fairies;
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a young musician haunted by the song 'Moonlight In Vermont';
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a small-time crook about to fall under the spell of London while, at the same time, rediscovering his wife;
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a family who happen across a store with a back door that takes you back to your favorite past;
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a Runyon-esque gambler with the strangest set of dice you ever saw;
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a couple jaded with their life together who are re-visited by their collective histories;
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an unusual visitor who rolls in one fall day under cover of a mighty thick fog just to touch base with someone he maybe once knew;
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a dying man who learns that most important of all lessons: his life has been more worthwhile than he realized; and
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a carnival come to visit the small turn-of-the-century Texas town of Gault, there to make a big impression on two young women on the cusp of…well, on the cusp of so many things.
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and, by golly, you’ll want to sleep with the light on. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Limited: 750 signed numbered hardcover copies: $45
Daniel Abraham has become one of our favorite writers here at SubPress, whether he's writing under his given name, or the shared pseudonym, James S. A. Corey, under which he co-authors epic space operas.
We're inordinately pleased to have Balfour and Meriwether in the Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs on this fall's schedule. You may remember the intrepid due from their appearance in Subterranean in "The Vampire of Kabul".
About the Book:
When a private envoy of the queen and member of Lord Carmichael's discreet service goes missing, Balfour and Meriwether are asked to look into the affair. They will find a labyrinth of dreams, horrors risen from hell, prophecy, sexual perversion, and an abandoned farmhouse on the moors outside Harrowmoor Sanitarium. The earth itself will bare its secrets and the Empire itself will tremble in the face of the hidden dangers they discover, but the greatest peril is the one they have brought with them.
Balfour and Meriwether in the Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs is the first novella length work in the Balfour and Meriwether stories by Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award nominated author Daniel Abraham.
Limited: 250 signed numbered leatherbound copies: $40
Trade: Fully cloth bound hardcover edition: $20
We've just releaed a pair of Poppy Z. Brite's classic titles in affordable ebook editions.
Poppy Z. Brite is a master of the short form. In her newest gathering, The Devil You Know, you'll find everything from stories with an alternate world Poppy as the coroner of New Orleans (“Oh Death, Where is Thy Spatula?” “Marisol”), to a traditional Halloween story (“Lantern Marsh”), to one published as a hard-to-find chapbook (“Pansu”), to a brand-new novella related to her novel, Liquor. (This is not an excerpt; it stands alone.)
Even if you're a huge Poppy Z. Brite fan, you're certain to have missed many of these.
Poppy and Christa have long talked about expanding their novella into a full-length novel. Now they have. Triads is more than 70,000 words, with sections set in the 1930s, 1940s, and the present.
From Publishers Weekly:
Brite (Lost Souls) and Faust (Control Freak) combine tragedy, history, a touch of the supernatural, a bit of soap opera and, finally, hope in a surprisingly tender, if violent and sexually explicit trio of gracefully written, interwoven tales.
From Booklist:
Brite and Faust's trio of bright, edgy, seemingly discrete stories are actually interwoven by red threads of passion and violence and the spirit of one quiet Chinese man.
The art is sorted, and the files are ready, so this week we send Dan Simmons' The Fall of Hyperion to the printer. It's not too late to snag a copy of the follow-up that may (just possibly) be an even more impressive achievement that Hyperion. We're already at work on the next novel, Endymion, which you should look for next year. As well, we're at work on Lovedeath, Dan's stellar collection of novellas.
Dan's Jack Vance-infused novella, The Guiding Nose of Ulfant Banderoz, is a bit further along on the publishing conveyor. It's nestled comfortably at the printer, and now starting to pick up reviews, including this pair:
From Publishers Weekly:
Taking a more plaintive and concerned tack than Vance’s evanescent and insouciant tone, Simmons (Drood) uses familiar characters and settings in ways that restore their original luster and sharp edges.
From The Speculative Scotsman:
Yet it is homage of the highest order. Simmons' prose is moreish in much the same way as Vance's words were in the originating stories. His vivid vision of the Dying Earth is as affectionate as any other I can recall, striking precisely the right balance between the playful and the profound. The Guiding Nose of Ulfänt Banderōz was by a large margin the most absorbing story in the landmark aforementioned anthology—despite it featuring fiction from literary luminaries like George R. R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, Jeff VanderMeer and Tad Williams, alongside an assortment of other awesome authors—and it has lost none of its power in the years since Songs of the Dying Earth.
The first review of best-selling YA author Garth Nix's collection of grown-up short stories, Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz, has just been published. As Publishers Weekly notes:
Their methods involve explosives, hand-to-hand combat, and spells that Fitz casts with ‘esoteric needles.’ Nix creates well-defined characters; while fairly vain, Hereward appreciates the scars on a woman’s face more than the sullen disposition of a comely lady, and his magical companion has a surprisingly dry wit. Grown Nix fans looking for something a little different will enjoy these brief stories.
In checking our schedule, we see that it's been roughly six months since our last batch of Ebay auctions. We've rectified that by posting thirty-five books, from classic titles to recent ones, for auction, each discounted at least 50%. Be quick, as in most cases we're only selling 25 copies of most books at this price, and don't plan to replenish the auctions as they sell out.
Have fun snagging great reading material at unbeatable prices.
Lucius Shepard's new collection, Five Autobiographies and a Fiction, was just reviewed on Tor.com. As you'll see, it's a treat, in particular, for long-time Shepard readers;
Lucius Shepard’s new collection Five Autobiographies and a Fiction is required reading for fans of the author. People who have never read anything by Shepard may love it too, but because of the specific nature of this set of stories, it’ll definitely have more impact on readers who are familiar with the author. If that's you, I’d go as far as saying that this is nothing less than a must-read, because it will dramatically change and enrich your understanding of the author and his works.
Both the limited and trade editions are in stock, ready to ship.
We're inordinately pleased to be able to make three of Alastair Reynolds' classic novellas available as ebooks. They include
The Six Directions of Space
From Booklist:
Reynolds' impressive new space opera is a novella about the Mongol Empire 999 years after the death of its founder… Set in a solidly built universe, full of excellent espionage and adventure, Six Directions of Space is a surprisingly small package to contain such a lot of entertainment.
Troika
From Publishers Weekly:
Powerfully demonstrating that less can be more, hard science fiction master Reynolds (Terminal World) has crafted a short but effective first contact novella.
Thousandth Night
From Locus:
Part of what makes Reynolds so effective—what makes his version of space opera New—is his ability to work at both ends of the scale, from the intimate to the very very large.
Lucius Shepard is his usual excellent self in Five Autobiographies and a Fiction, his newest collection, copies of which have just been sent on to customers. Want proof? Check out this cutting from the Publishers Weekly review:
Nebula winner Shepard (Life During Wartime) often steers his fiction toward faraway shores, but the bulk of this collection directly targets the American heartland. A painfully confessional introduction sets the stage for five ‘autobiographies’—might-have-been stories exploring facets of the author’s personal journey… This honestly titled collection deals well and satisfyingly with deep truths.
You can read two stories from the book online: "The Flock" is posted to the book's description page, while the outstanding novella, "Vacancy", originally appeared in our online magazine.
We go from the heft of Lucius' newest collection, to the short and clever excursion into fantasy by Tad Williams. All copies of Diary of a Dragon are en route to customers. If the print edition isn't your thing, please consider the ebook. Diary is a wonderfully funny tale, very heavily illustrated by William Eaken, printed in two colors throughout.
We're reviewing the final files for Jack Campbell's alternate Civil War novella, The Last Full Meaure, before sending it to the printer. Here's David Palumbo's dust jacket for the novella. It's David's first project with us, but I can guarantee it won't be the last.
Meanwhile, here's Bill Sienkewicz's cover for Philip K. Dick's The Minority Report, which we've just sent on to the PKD estate to proofread. The book's right on schedule for an August release.
Just one week after announcement, our surprise Signed, Limited Edition of Jim Butcher's Furies of Calderon is over 85% sold out. Furies marks our lowest print run yet for a Jim Butcher edition, and likely the lowest print run one will ever see. Pick up a copy now, before it's too late.
Limited: 250 signed numbered hardcover copies, in custom slipcase: $175
We happen to think The Dragon Griaule is one of the most important books of Lucius Shepard's lengthy career, and are pleased to make it available as an ebook. Doubt us about its importance? Check out the reviews the hardcover edition received:
From Publishers Weekly:
“These six stories explore ground far from the high fantasy with which dragons are frequently associated. Fans of Shepard's unusual and often powerful Griaule tales will be delighted to have them all in one place.”
From SFRevu:
“The stories may be enjoyed as pure fantasy or as political metaphors to suit the individual reader. Either way, they are the creation of a master storyteller and present a fascinating world different from the usual fantasy world of dragons.”
From Tor.com:
“It just goes to show that there's more food for thought in each of these stories than you'll find in most full length novels. Each of them really deserves a review as long as this one, making The Dragon Griaule simply a brilliant collection. Subterranean Press has to be commended for collecting them all in one volume, because they're hard to track down individually but work together so incredibly well. Highly recommended.”
From Strange Horizons:
“'The Skull' ends one strain of the Griaule narratives, and leaves an infinity more open for further exploration. It ends at a certain moment of happiness and heroism after many long journeys through sorrow, terror, and ordinary human failure. It dreams itself toward light. As does each story in the book, it makes art out of fantasy and pain… The stories together here show that the last sentence of ‘The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule’ was the truest one. Regardless of the forces determining our fates and telling our tales, we all live our happy endings in advance.”
From SF Site:
“For many readers, several of these stories will be already familiar, three of them were Hugo nominees and widely anthologized. For new readers, rest assured that The Dragon Griaule contains stories that will alternately entrance, amuse, perplex, shock, enlighten, confound, and compel you to keep reading. It's a journey of altered lives in an altered landscape, where the fantastic and the real mingle in the lives of people who are never quite sure where their desires end and the dragon's desires begin. That's left for the reader to ponder, and in that way, the dragon Griaule remains as alive as ever.”
From San Francisco Book Review:
“For fantasy lovers, this is the event of the year!”
From SF Crowsnest:
“This collection brings together six short stories and novellas about this enormous dragon, giving different perspectives on his life and influence… ‘The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule’ tells the story of Meric Cattanay, a man who in 1853 proposes to kill the great dragon by painting an enormous mural on its side and thus slowly poisoning him with the toxic compounds in the paint. In ‘The Scalehunter’s Beautiful Daughter’, we get a glimpse of the inner workings of the dragon as we journey with Catherine inside his vast body. ‘The Father Of Stones’ takes us to the nearby town of Port Chantay, where a man accused of murder is pleading innocence because it was the dragon’s malevolent influence that caused him to commit the atrocious act. ‘Liar’s House’ is Hota’s tale of the beautiful woman he met on the dragon’s back and their unusual relationship. ‘The Taborin Scale’ is the story of George and Sylvia, mysteriously transported to another time at the whim of the dragon Griaule, but for what purpose they do not know. Finally, ‘The Skull’ brings us to a modern-day story set in a deeply political South America, where a young woman is leading a cult obsessed with the large dragon skull hidden in the jungle.”
Here's a nifty visual representation of how John Scalzi deals with trolls over at his blog, Whatever. It's also the cover to The Mallet of Loving Correction, which is due to drop on September 13, the 15th anniversary of the blog. We like to think of this cover as Shel Silverstein meets the internet.
The first and second printings of the trade hardover of Robin Hobb's The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince are both sold out. While shipping the latter, we discovered a small stash of copies of the Signed, Limited Edition. There's a limit of one copy per person, so don't hesitate. These won't last long, and we have no current plans to reprint the trade edition again.
We're pleased to announce the publication of Robert McCammon's classic vampire epic, They Thirst, as an ebook. (The Signed, Limited Edition hardcover will follow next year.)
About the Book:
First published in 1981, They Thirst was Robert McCammon’s fourth novel, and it remains one of the major milestones of an ambitious, constantly evolving career. Like its predecessors—Baal, Bethany’s Sin, and The Night Boat—They Thirst made its initial appearance as a paperback original. In the years since, it has acquired an intensely devoted following, and is now widely regarded as one of the significant vampire novels of the 20th century.
The story begins in the tiny Hungarian hamlet of Krajeck, where nine-year-old Andre Palatazin awaits the return of his father from an unspecified—but clearly dangerous—mission. The man who finally returns is no longer Andre’s father—is no longer, in fact, a man. Pursued by this undead entity, Andre and his mother barely escape with their lives. Decades later, Andre—now Andy—Palatazin is a homicide detective in the Los Angeles Police Department, and spends his days dealing with the quotidian terrors of a large metropolis. His life takes a darker turn when the demonic forces he first encountered in Krajeck arrive in L.A., led by an ancient vampire known as The Master. The Master’s plan: to overrun the city and use it as a stepping-stone toward wider, ultimately global, domination.
They Thirst marks the earliest appearance of McCammon’s penchant for epic, wide-angled narratives. With the unobtrusive ease of a natural storyteller, the author propels a wide assortment of vividly created characters through an apocalyptic scenario that combines gritty urban realism with a powerful portrait of supernatural forces at large in the modern world. The result is a genuine classic of the genre, a novel that is as fresh and absorbing today as it was more than thirty years ago.
Vincent Chong recently turned in the dust jacket for Caitlin R. Kiernan's major new collection, The Ape's Wife and Other Stories. As with Caitlin's most recent books (Two Words and In Between, Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart), we suspect the limited edition will set our prior to publication. It comes with an original 96 page hardcover novella, Black Helicopers, available nowhere else.. Please check out the book's page to read "One Tree Hill" or see the wraparound version of Vincent's dust jacket.
John Varley's newest collection, Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe and Other Stories has arrived in our warehouse. Our crew is currently sending out all preordered copies while we wait for the distributor orders the recent Publishers Weekly review is likely to generate. As to that review…
Eleven long-unavailable science fiction stories showcase Varley’s signature themes of freedom and free love in this literary tour of the odder byways of the solar system. Varley (Slow Apocalypse) loves exotic settings: talking black holes in “Lollipop and the Tar Baby,” a hollowed-out comet turned into a space ship in ‘The Funhouse Effect,’ an orbiting resort shaped like a champagne glass in ‘Blue Champagne,’ a tropical ‘Disneyland’ on Pluto in the title story. The collection serves best as a time capsule of Varley’s less-known work and silver-age science fiction.
Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe contains eleven long unavailable tales, most of them last reprinted no more recently than 1985, and some making their last appearance in the 1970s. Consider this a chance to see what cutting ege work from a SF master looked like in decades past. If you'd like a free taste, "Bagatelle" is posted to the book's page.
Late news: Good-Bye, Robinson Crusoe just received stellar coverage in the new issue of Locus:
Here the Nifty Skiffy technologies—nullfield vacuum suits, symbiotes, sex-changes, and the colonization of insanely hostile environments—compete for our attention with equally revolutionary and transformative changes in social, psychological, and moral realms… The shelf life of much SF can be surprisingly short, but the freshness and vividness of these stories after nearly four decades suggests that Varley’s work belongs in the permanent canon.
Head over to Sci-Fi Bulletin, where Michael Marshall Smith talks about his new SubPress project, The Gist, as well as his Straw Man novels, Clive Barker, and a host of other nifty projects and notions.
We've just made the first of a number of Poppy Z. Brite titles avialable as an ebook. You can look for her collection, The Devil Youu Know, down the line, as well as the collaborative novel, Triads, written with Christa Faust. For now, fill your need for Poppy's sharp observations and impeccable prose with Antediluvian Tales.
About the Book
The work of almost every New Orleans writer has been irrevocably split into two periods: pre-Katrina and post-Katrina. As Poppy Z. Brite writes in the foreword to this new mini-collection, “After the events of 2005, I couldn’t see pairing stories I’d written before the flood with those I’d written after; for better or worse, my life, my outlook, and, necessarily, my work has changed forever ... These are literally antediluvian tales, stories written before August 29, 2005… Whatever else they may be, the stories in this little collection now seem almost impossibly innocent to me.”
Antediluvian Tales contains five stories of the Stubbs family, the New Orleans clan whose adventures Brite has chronicled in her popular Liquor novels and other works. Two more stories revisit the author’s fictitious alter ego Dr. Brite, the coroner of New Orleans. Completing the book is “The Last Good Day of My Life,” a nonfiction look at the changes the past two years have wrought on Brite, filtered through a reminiscence about a day she spent knocking around Cairns, Australia.
Any reader who loves New Orleans will treasure these antediluvian tales for the city that exists in them: a city that will never again exist in its pre-Katrina form, but which cannot be killed by hurricanes, floods, or governmental neglect as long as its artists continue to chronicle and cherish it.
Not only will we be releasing one of Michael Marshall Smith's finest new stories (The Gist) as a special, two color hardcover, the exemplar of fine short fiction has a full-length collection coming out later this year from Earthling Publications. We don't have a ton of copies of Everything You Need, so please get your order in soon!
About the Book:
An aimless driver in the mountains comes upon something that’s both more and less than he hoped for. A child discovers why you should always stay in bed if you wake up in the middle of the night. A homeowner unpacks the wrong bag of groceries, and comes to suspect his neighbors might have secrets that he doesn’t want to know. A cable shopping channel presenter is confronted with disgruntled customers from a *very* long way out of town ... and a man sets himself to rid the world of one of its most famous lies, and winds up destroying himself instead.
Michael Marshall Smith’s last short story collection was hailed as “stellar” by Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) and a “major publishing event” by Ellen Datlow, and it won the International Horror Guild Award. You’re invited to return to the short fiction of New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author Michael Marshall Smith: it is Everything You Need.
Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies: $45
Table of Contents
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This Is Now
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Unbelief
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Walking Wounded
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The Seventeenth Kind
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A Place For Everything
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The Last Barbeque
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The Stuff That Goes On In Their heads
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Unnoticed*
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The Good Listener
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Different Now
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Author Of The Death*
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Sad, Dark Thing
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What Happens When You Wake Up In The Night
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The Things He Said
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Substitutions
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The Woodcutter*
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Everything You Need*
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Story Notes
*Original to this collection
The Best of Joe Haldeman is due in our warehouse today, and will start shipping immediately. On publication, the trade edition is 97% sold out, while fewer than 7% of the limited edition copies remain available for sale. With the reviews the book has received, we expect another strong round of orders will wipe us out..
From Publishers Weekly:
“Demonstrating that the hard-to-market novella is perfect for science fiction, this collection of 19 stories by SFWA Grand Master Haldeman (Earthbound) features several tales that bring out his ability to wrap hard science speculation with deep human feeling…”
From Library Journal:
“From the tense, military action of ‘Hero’, the basis for Haldeman’s award-winning classic The Forever War, to the horrific short story detailing the prison of the future, ‘Complete Sentence’, the 19 pieces collected here bear witness to the brilliant and hard-hitting prose of one of today’s most significant sf voices.”
From Locus:
“Another (relatively) Old Master, from the generation just after Le Guin, is Joe Haldeman, who has a big retrospective collection out in early 2013. The best story here may be the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novella ‘The Hemingway Hoax’, but there’s plenty of other first-class work here, including ‘Hero’, the seed that grew into his famous novel, The Forever War, ‘For White Hill’, ‘None So Blind’, ‘The Mars Girl’, ‘Sleeping Dogs’, ‘Anniversary Project’, ‘Tricentennial’, and ‘More Than the Sum of His Part’”, as well as stuff a bit removed from his usual science fiction, such as ‘Manifest Destiny’, a Western, and ‘Lindsay and the Red City Blues’, a supernatural horror story.”
Praise. It can be found aplenty over at Locus Online, where Lois Tilton considers the latest issue of Subterranean, where she found much to enjoy:
I usually look forward to a new issue of this quarterly because it offers stories at a greater length than the usual ezine, as well as authors I rarely see elsewhere. The current issue, though, goes beyond these standard virtues. There are six stories here, dark fantasy of different shadings and tones. All are good, some very good indeed – superior stuff. Subterranean has done itself proud this time.
Don't forget. Not only are the stories published online. The entire issue is also available as epub and mobi downloads.
More shifting around as we put up industrial shelving, and we've uncovered a box of the trade hardcovers of Jonathan Carroll's mammoth collection, The Woman Who Married a Cloud.
Here is a taste of the reviews it received:
From Locus:
There are dogs and children and lost lovers populating these tales, to be sure, and there are fair doses of grief and sentiment in some of them, but mostly there are the lineaments of a vision so distinctive, and so morally grounded, that it hardly bears comparison with anything else in modern fiction at all.
From Tor.com
In terms of themes and style, Carroll’s short stories are similar to his novels. The main difference is obviously a function of the difference in length: while it usually takes his novels a while to build up, the short stories go from common to cosmic surprisingly quickly. Expect a great many short stories that introduce a thoughtful, interesting protagonist whose life at some point suddenly intersects with (to use this word again) the transcendent: he or she discovers something about the true nature of the human soul, or love, or reality, or God.
We only have sixteen copies, so don't delay.
Update: All copies are now sold out.
We're putting up some new industrial shelving in the warehouse, and stumbling across the odd book or box that we didn't realize we still had around. The first among them is Grave Peril, Book Five of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. We only have 13 copies of the limited edition, so please don't delay, or risk disappointment. (Note: Some of the books show very slight shelf wear.)
Publishers Weekly just graced our two upcoming Harlan Ellison collections (Gentleman Junkie and The Deadly Streets) with reviews that are certain to sell out the trade hardcovers.
On Gentleman Junkie and other stories of the hung-up generation:
In his informative introduction to this collection of 22 stories originally published in 1961, Ellison states this is the book that ‘was most pivotal in changing my life.’ Writing these provocative tales led to an awareness of his concern with social problems, minorities, and injustice—and his involvement with civil rights, antiwar protests, and feminism… These are vibrant, moving stories from an increasingly confident young writer embarking on a remarkably productive career.
On The Deadly Streets:
This third reissue of Ellison’s classic 1958 collection about juvenile delinquents, city gang members, and those infected or affected by violence are still potent, even though switchblades and zip guns have been replaced by much deadlier weaponry in the hands of their present-day counterparts… Ellison’s prose remains satisfyingly sharp and his insights into the fears and longings that drive his characters are even sharper and more satisfying.
Both of the trade hardcovers are limited to only 750 copies, while the matched set, with one volume signed by Harlan, housed in a custom slipcase, carries of limitation of 250.
Tad Williams' clever new tale, Diary of a Dragon, is not only an ebook, it's also a heavily illustrated chapbook. Diary, which will be printed in two colors throughout, is currently at our printer. US shipping is free for a limited time.
About the Book:
You hold in your hand a sacred trust—a dragon’s diary. My diary. And that trust has been horribly violated by that dreadful Princess Lillian, or you wouldn’t be holding it. My own personal diary, published for all to see! That human female has no shame.
I do, however. I do not wish my secrets spread about. Please, I beg you, put this book down now and walk away, kind browser. Respect an old dragon’s privacy. No matter what the princess thinks, these matters of violence, blackmail, and unnecessary romance are not for the eyes of others!
No, no, don’t even open it! Ignore the attractive illustrations and the shockingly true secrets of dragon life. You’ll be sorry.
All right, you won’t. But I will.
I hate princesses.
Limited: 750 signed numbered trade paperbacks: $15
Brian Lumley's latest installment in his signature Necroscope saga, now running for two decades, is in stock and shipping. Stock is already running low, so get order Necroscope: The Mobius Murders soon, or risk disappointment..
About the Book:
Harry Keough, aka the Necroscope, has always considered himself a master of the Möbius Continuum—a dimension existing parallel to all space and time and his personal instantaneous gateway to anywhere in the multiverse. But this is hardly overweening conceit on Harry’s part, for to his knowledge he is not unique; two other intelligences, with powers similar to his, do indeed exist. One such is the long-dead August Ferdinand Möbius himself, the German astronomer, mathematician, and discoverer of the eponymous Möbius Strip which led him to explore, posthumously, his previously conjectural Continuum; and the other is Harry’s son, who has not only inherited his father’s mathematical skill but also the metaphysical talent by means of which the Necroscope converses with dead people in their graves!
Picture Harry’s confusion, then, on returning home via the Möbius Continuum from an adventure in Las Vegas, as he witnesses however briefly a flailing figure hurtling conscious but uncontrolled through the endless midnight of the Continuum. Who could this be—how can it be?—that a helpless, silently protesting other is rushing meteor-like across the Continuum’s Stygian vault? Moreover, if he hasn’t arrived here voluntarily, then what vile murderer has sent his victim on this monstrous journey to the end of life itself? For Harry is sure that this is neither his son’s nor Professor Möbius’ doing.
Who and where is he, this Möbius murderer? It is a mystery that only the Necroscope can ever hope to solve—but at what risk to his own life?
Limited: 250 signed numbered copies, bound in leather: $60
Trade: Fully cloth bound hardcover edition: $35
We're promoting a couple of our upcoming titles by posting stories to their respective product pages.
Get thee over to Caitlin R. Kiernan's The Ape's Wife and Other Stories to fill your cranium with "One Tree Hill". When you're done with that, feel free to check out "The Flock", a novelette by Lucius Shepard posted to the Five Autobiographies and a Fiction page.
Now, I'll get out of your way so you can enjoy the free stories.
This September, to celebrate the 15h anniversary of John Scalzi's blog, we'll be releasing The Mallet of Loving Correction, a huge (nearly 500 pages) compendium of columns as a signed, limited edition.
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“In a very real sense, Whatever is my life’s work; it’s fifteen years (so far) of me thinking about what’s going on in my life and in my world.”—John Scalzi
What sort of idiot spends fifteen years writing a blog? New York Times Bestselling author John Scalzi is that sort of idiot. And in those fifteen years the blog he’s written, called Whatever, has won awards, had its entries republished in newspapers, magazines and books, and has seen millions of readers each year come by to read Scalzi’s observations on life, the world, and just about everything that happens in both. It’s one of the most popular personal blogs on the planet.
The Mallet of Loving Correction (named for Scalzi’s method of moderating the comment sections of his site) is the second collection of entries from Whatever. It spans two elections, a civil rights revolution, the fall of MySpace and the rise of Twitter and Facebook, and a whole era on the Internet and on the planet Earth.
Nothing is sacred (“Taunting the Tauntable” is the motto of Whatever): Scalzi takes on politicians, bigots, vengeful nerds and major corporations with righteous sarcasm—and also takes time to muse on love, marriage, children and faith. Everything and anything is up for discussion, examination and explanation.
The Mallet of Loving Correction, in short, is the whole range of one human’s experience, in one easy-to-carry package.
Limited: 1500 signed numbered hardcover copies: $35
J. K. Drummond is really hitting her stride with Memories of Ice, the next Steven Erikson signed limited edition in our lineup. You can see a small version of the most recent color interior here, or head over ot the book's page to get a larger, more detailed look. We think Erikson's many fans are going to embrace Jae's work on this and subsequent volumes.
With John Varley's Good-bye, Robinson Crusoe and Other Stories safely ensconced at the printer, it's no surprise that the Publishers Weekly review has landed. If you're in the market for some of the finest short fiction of the seventies and early eighties, you can't go wrong with Varley.
Eleven long-unavailable science fiction stories showcase Varley’s signature themes of freedom and free love in this literary tour of the odder byways of the solar system. Varley (Slow Apocalypse) loves exotic settings: talking black holes in “Lollipop and the Tar Baby,” a hollowed-out comet turned into a space ship in ‘The Funhouse Effect,’ an orbiting resort shaped like a champagne glass in ‘Blue Champagne,’ a tropical ‘Disneyland’ on Pluto in the title story. The collection serves best as a time capsule of Varley’s less-known work and silver-age science fiction.
Once again, our pal Kat Howard is teaching an online writing workshop for Lit Reactor. If you're new to penning sf/fantasy, we can't think of anyone better to teach you the basics.
The class starts March 14, so time, as they say, is limited.
About the Course:
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Week One - Where do you get your ideas from? Writing science fiction and fantasy means transforming "That could never happen" into "I wonder what would happen if it did?" You'll talk about how to find our own big ideas, and to begin imagining the impossible.
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Week Two - Where are we, and what are we doing here? Hogwarts. Middle Earth. A generation ship. The moons of Mars. You're familiar with the otherworldly and out-of-this-world settings of SF/F literature, but now you'll learn how to create your own worlds, and make them believable.
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Week Three - Whose story is this? When writing fantasy and science fiction, your characters can be anything you want: Robots, elves, gods, sentient spaceships. If you can imagine it, you can write it. Here you'll learn to write complex, well-rounded characters of the human (and non-human) variety.
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Week Four - How do we make the impossible possible? Writing science fiction and fantasy works best when the reader engages in a willing suspension of disbelief. Learn how to give your imagination free rein without throwing the reader out of your story.
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Bonus lecture: Learn how to revise, accept feedback, and submit your work.
Update: This promotion has ended.
By our memory, it’s been a good year or so since we ran a 50% off sale, so here we go. We’re only going to leave the sale live for a couple of days, so please don’t hesitate to order.
Some important notes:
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You must order at least 4 forthcoming titles;
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Limit one copy per title;
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Lettered Editions are not eligible;
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In print titles are not eligible;
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Shipping is not discounted;
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Other publishers’ books are not eligible;
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Sorry, no retroactive discounts on already ordered titles;
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The following titles are not part of the sale: Memories of Ice, Smoke and Mirrors, Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows, The Shining, The Fall of Hyperion.
Discounts will be applied when you check out. Thanks, and have fun picking up some great reading at unbeatable prices.
Just a few weeks after publication, the hardcover edition of Six-Gun Snow White is over 90% sold out. Those interested in an electronic edition will be happy to know it's now available in the standard formats, from the standard sources.
As a reminder, here's a bit of the praise the novella has been drawing:
From Publishers Weekly (Starred Review):
Valente’s adaptation of the fairy tale to the Old West provides a witty read with complex reverberations from the real world… Any attempt to derive a simple message from this work would be an injustice to the originality of the atmosphere, the complexity of the interplay of its elements, and the simple pleasure of savoring Valente’s exuberant writing.
From Library Journal:
Valente’s (Palimpsest; In the Night Garden) talent for telling stories that have the cadence and grace of poetry makes her a perfect interpreter of classic stories. Her fans will appreciate the humor and artistry in this imaginative retelling of one of the world’s most popular fairy tales.
From Tor.com:
Valente’s adaptation of the fairy tale to the Old West provides a witty read with complex reverberations from the real world… Any attempt to derive a simple message from this work would be an injustice to the originality of the atmosphere, the complexity of the interplay of its elements, and the simple pleasure of savoring Valente’s exuberant writing.
From Locus:
Catherynne M. Valente’s Six-Gun Snow White moves Snow into the wild, wild west and her take on this trope has all that you’d expect: prospectors, duels, horses, and dust. But Valente rips the beating heart out of the old versions of the story, dissects it to see how it works, jams it back into this new tale, and gives it a jolt of juice to bring it back to life. Six-Gun Snow White is a vital marvel.
From SF Crowsnest:
…any reader who loves magical, poetic prose can dive into this sad and beautiful little story and take pleasure in the author’s elegantly rendered wordscapes.
The latest, greatest, issue of Subterranean is now available, and includes wonderful work by Jay Lake, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Francis Slattery, and Tobias S. Buckell. The latter's story shares a setting with his popular novella, The Executioness.
There are a couple of stories we'd especially like to draw your attention to:
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Painted Birds and Shivered Bones (Kat Howard)—Kat may be the finest young fantasy writer we've seen since Rachel Swirsky. Her published stories thus far have all been on the short side, sharp ideas with sharp prose, honed until they fairly glitter with brilliance. We pushed her a bit, and commissioned a novelette, "Painted Birds and Shivered Bones", which marries a strong plot to the idelible prose. We not so humbly think it's her best story yet.
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The Indelible Dark (William Browning Spencer)—We are accustomed to Bill's fiction being quirky, at times crossing the border from idiosyncratic to odd. "The Indelible Dark" does that one better, containing the tale's creator's notes embedded within the story itself. "Indelible" won't be to everyone's everyone's taste, but we happen to think it's brilliant.
We hope you enjoy the stories, either on screen, or via (epub and mobi) download.
The Best of Joe Haldeman continues to rack up kudos. First up is a new review from SFRevu, followed by some fo the praise the book has received elsewhere. The trade print run isn't exactly robust, so we fully expect it to go out of print shortly after publication.
From SF Revu:
Joe Haldeman has made his formidable reputation as a hard science fiction author, combining knowledge of science with sparse yet elegant prose and an excellent grasp of what makes people tick. The Best of Joe Haldeman showcases his range, with stories from science fiction to horror, tongue in check comedy to deeply serious meditations on mortality, and from short big idea stories to lengthy investigation of character and setting. Haldeman is a compulsively readable author… Haldeman is clearly a major talent, and this collection showcases his strengths.
From Publishers Weekly:
Demonstrating that the hard-to-market novella is perfect for science fiction, this collection of 19 stories by SFWA Grand Master Haldeman (Earthbound) features several tales that bring out his ability to wrap hard science speculation with deep human feeling…
From Library Journal:
From the tense, military action of ‘Hero’, the basis for Haldeman’s award-winning classic The Forever War, to the horrific short story detailing the prison of the future, ‘Complete Sentence’, the 19 pieces collected here bear witness to the brilliant and hard-hitting prose of one of today’s most significant sf voices.
Limited: 250 signed numbered hardcover copies: $60
Trade: Fully cloth bound hardcover edition: $45
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.
Limited: 250 signed numbered copies, bound in leather: $45
Trade: Fully cloth bound hardcover copies: $20
Herewith the just published review of Jack Vance's Magic Highways, from Publishers Weekly:
“Even a Grandmaster needs to begin somewhere. This evolving collection of 16 early SF stories by Vance, an award winner for mystery, fantasy, and science fiction, starts off with space opera in its pulpiest form…and proceeds to the more sophisticated vocabulary and cultured characters associated with his classic works such as The Dying Earth.”
As the book is already in print, no need to delay your gratifiction. Feel free to get your order in now.
We've just kicked Lucius Shepard's hefty (over 360 pages) new collection, Five Autobiograhies and a Fiction, to the printer. In a bit of fortuitous timing, the Publishers Weekly review crossed our desks this weekend:
“Nebula winner Shepard (Life During Wartime) often steers his fiction toward faraway shores, but the bulk of this collection directly targets the American heartland… This honestly titled collection deals well and satisfyingly with deep truths.”
We've negotiated some pretty healthy discounts with Centipede Press on a very limited quantities of a number of their titles, and are only too happy to pass along our savings on these gorgeous books. They include:
As mentioned, quantities are limited. In fact, we only have ten avaialble of most books, so please don't hesitate to get yorur order in.