Subterranean Press Featured Title

We’ve just seen the advance copies of Connie Willis’s time travel epic, Blackout, and the book turned out beautifully. Copies should be going out to customers in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, here’s a bit from Michael Dirda’s review in The Washington Post: “Blackout plunges the reader right into the middle of three key happenings of 1940: the rescue of the British troops from Dunkirk, the evacuation of children to rural villages and country houses, and the life of ordinary Londoners during the Blitz. Every detail rings true, with the kind of authority that only intense research can bring. Still, all of Willis’s knowledge is subsumed in her bravura storytelling: “Blackout” is, by turns, witty, suspenseful, harrowing and occasionally comic to the point of slapstick.”

Don’t hold us to this, but here’s a list of very tentative completion dates for projects we currently have at the printer:

– Bone and Jewel Creatures (Elizabeth Bear), April 12;
– The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury), March 20, although the slipcases will add 6-8 weeks to production;
– A Pleasure to Burn (Ray Bradbury), March 22;
– The New Dead (edited by Christopher Golden), March 19;
– Songs of a Dead Dreamer (Thomas Ligotti), March 22;
– Mister Slaughter (Robert McCammon, reprint), April 9;
– The God Engines (John Scalzi, reprint), March 18;
– The Sagan Diary (John Scalzi, reprint), March 19;
– Blackout (Connie Willis), March 16;

Again, please remember these are tentative dates when the books will be finished. Our warehouse is so overwhelmed that we’re likely to be a few weeks behind release dates when shipping.

Here is a list of books already done, ready to be shipped as soon as we can manage:

– The Book of Dreams (edited by Nick Gevers);
– The Club Dumas (Arturo Perez-Reverte);
– The Skylark (Peter Straub);
– The Happiest Days of Our Lives (Wil Wheaton);

While we’d be more than happy if you spent all of your hard earned cash here at SubPress, there are a few recent books not published by us we’d like to bring to your attention. One of our favorite fantasy writers, K. J. Parker, has a brand new novel out. The Folding Knife (Amazon / BN / Powells) tells the story of Basso the Great, a series of immoral choices and moral consequences. It’s an epic novel spread over 400+ pages, with the grittiness and ground level detail one has come to expect from Parker. If you enjoyed her The Engineer Trilogy or The Company, you won’t find The Folding Knife a disappointment.

If you haven’t picked up a copy of Joe Hill’s new novel, Horns (Amazon / BN / Powells), then you’re behind the cool-kid curve. Be warned, as good as his debut, Heart-Shaped Box was, Horns represents a huge step forward in complexity and ambition. It’s also one unsparing, uncompromising mother of a read. Finally, don’t forget that our friends at PS Publishing will soon be releasing a limited edition of Horns, illustrated by Vincent Chong. (We’re unlikely to be carrying this edition, so please order direct from PS.)

Finally, one of our finest purveyors of short fiction offers up some of his strongest work in Wild Child and Other Stories (Amazon / BN / Powells). T. Coraghessan Boyle’s been playing tricks with words and baby boomer concerns for a few decades now, and his latest collection is no different. If you find Wild Child to your liking, you may also want to check out his hugely impressive T.C. Boyle Stories, or the more focused If the River Was Whiskey, the latter being on the very short list of my two or three favorite collections.

We’re ending this issue of Subterranean Online with a long dark fantasy novella by one of our favorite new writers, Livia Llewellyn. Head over and check out “Her Deepness“, where the first two installments (of four) have now been posted.

Locus magazine just ran a lengthy review about Peter Straub’s The Skylark, the original (and 200 manuscript pages longer) version of what was to become his new novel, A Dark Matter. As Stefan Dziemianowicz noted, “As regards the differences between the two versions of the novel, The Skylark provides a more detailed linear account of events leading up to the event in the agronomy meadow, and fuller backstory for the characters… The publication of the two together constitutes a major event in horror publishing this early in the 21st century.”

Also, given the large number of direct orders we have on hand for The Skylark, we’ve decided not to fill large online retail and wholesale orders for this title.

The first review for Patrick Rothfuss’s The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle: The Thing Beneath the Bed is in, from Booklist. Here’s just one highlight: “The inclusion of three successive ending points, each darker in nature than its predecessor, allows the faint of heart the chance to stop, but really, the payoff for hanging on to the final ending is too good to miss.”

Here’s a first look at Timothy Truman’s dust jacket art for Joe R. Lansdale’s weird western compendium, Deadman’s Road, which gathers the novel and stories about his signature character, Jedediah Mercer.

We have been running a special on the Signed Limited Edition ($25 off the cover price) but forgot to mention it was expiring in our newsletter, so have decided to extend it to March 19.

Somewhat surprisingly, we’ve found ourselves with a few returned copies of Peter F. Hamilton’s gigantic (over 900 pages) space opera, The Reality Dysfunction.

Those interested in collecting his The Nights Dawn Trilogy, of which this is volume one, might want to pick up one of the remaining copies. We’re already hard at work on volume two, The Neutronium Alchemist, and it’s even longer than the first book.

Our friends at PS Publishing are slated to release another classic Ray Bradbury collection soon. We’ve secured a number of copies of both the 200 copy Limited Edition (signed by Ray Bradbury) and the 100 copy Traycased Edition (signed by Ray Bradbury and the author of the introduction, Neil Gaiman) of The Machineries of Joy.

Our allotment of signed copies of the last Bradbury title we offered, Long After Midnight, didn’t last long, so if you’re interested, please consider ordering soon. Also, please remember, as with all PS Publishing titles we offer for sale, US shipping is Free.

Thanks to everyone for their enthusiasm. We bought up the remaining copies of the Morrow Signed Limited Edition of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, and sold out the 200 copies in only one week. Look for a shipping update on our copies in roughly one week.

While we have you, please give our upcoming edition of Smoke and Mirrors by Neil a look. It’s going to come out a bit later than originally planned, but as those who own our edition of The Graveyard Book know, it’ll be a top level production.