Well, this was unexpected, but we seem to have a Connie Willis title that’s slipped onto our end of the year schedule. J.K. Potter is finishing up the cover art as I type this, and the interior of the book has been designed and proofed. So enjoy the holiday season with the comic masterpiece, All Seated on the Ground, a 128 page novella that features Connie at her screwball best.

Here’s the fuller description:

The aliens have landed! The aliens have landed! But instead of shooting death rays, taking over the planet and carrying off Earthwomen, they’ve just been standing there for months on end, glaring like a disapproving relative. And now it’s nearly Christmas, and the commission assigned to establish communications is at their wits’ end. They’ve resorted to taking the aliens to Broncos games, lighting displays, and shopping malls, in the hope they’ll respond to something!

And they do, but in a way nobody ever expected, and Meg, the commission, and an overworked choir director find themselves suddenly caught up in an intergalactic mess involving Christmas carols, scented candles, seventh-grade girls, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Meg’s Aunt Judith, Victoria’s Secret, and Handel’s Messiah.

Multiple Nebula and Hugo Award-winning author Connie Willis may be most famous for her books To Say Nothing of the Dog, Doomsday Book, Inside Job, D.A., and The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories, but she’s also a huge fan of the holidays and their accompanying frivolity and nonsense, and has written a marvelous array of Christmas stories, including Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, “Just Like the Ones We Used to Know” (made into the CBS movie Snow Wonder), “deck.halls@boughs/holly”, and now the hilarious All Seated on the Ground.

With only 1200 copies total (1000 trade at $20, and 200 signed at $45) this is our smallest Connie Willis print run ever, and certain to sell out quickly.

Eleven flights of fancy and one true story… but it can be hard to say where fancy ends and the truth begins.

From Publishers Weekly:
“Veteran British horror writer Gallagher (The Kingdom of Bones) shows off his versatility in this collection of 11 stories and a review of Joseph Payne Brennan’s Nine Horrors and a Dream. Among the best are ‘The Back of His Hand,’ a shocking description of the unexpected dangers involved in tattoo removal; ‘Doctor Hood,’ a touching ghost story concerning a world-famous physicist, his daughter and the recently deceased loved one haunting their family home; and ‘My Repeater,’ a grim science fiction story about the fruitlessness of using time travel to correct one’s past errors. Capable of being either subtle or blunt depending upon the needs of his plot, Gallagher has assembled a fine and varied collection of weird fiction that should find many admirers.”

Limited:

$40

According to Publishers Weekly: “Lansdale’s The Nightrunners (1987), the centerpiece of this chilling collection, set new standards for the depiction of graphic violence and is probably the best novel of its type between Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs… This upsetting look at the human capacity for evil breaks with crime novel conventions when a supernatural element enters the story in the form of the grotesque deity known as the God of All Things Sharp. Twenty years later, The Nightrunners retains its ability to awe and to horrify. Six short stories that grew out of the novel, one previously unpublished, round out the volume.”

Trade:

$40

Subterranean Press is proud to present Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key, an exclusive pirate novel by the author of the acclaimed “Company” series. Look for it in April 2008.

His name is John James–at least, that’s the name he gives to anyone asking. He’s a former pirate just back in Port Royal from the sack of Panama, and he has every intention of settling down and leading a respectable life. First, though, he must honor a promise and deliver a letter to the mistress of one of his dead comrades.

But the lady is much more than she seems, and the letter turns out to contain detailed instructions for recovering a hidden fortune. It’s one thing to know where treasure may be found; finding it, and keeping it, is quite another. On his quest for a prince’s ransom John is joined by two unlikely allies: a black freedman named Sejanus Walker and a humble clerk named Winthrop Tudeley. Pirate attacks, hurricanes, shipwrecks, sharks, unearthly visitations and double-crosses follow. Especially double-crosses…

Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key will be available exclusively from Subterranean Press in two unique editions

Limited: 2000 signed hardcover copies: $35
Lettered: 15 signed leatherbound copies, housed in a custom traycase: $200

Stephen Gallagher’s Plots and Misadventures,”Eleven flights of fancy and one true story…” is in stock in shipping. Like our other Gallagher titles, we don’t expect this one to be around long. As Publishers Weekly noted: “Veteran British horror writer Gallagher (The Kingdom of Bones) shows off his versatility in this collection of 11 stories and a review of Joseph Payne Brennan’s Nine Horrors and a Dream. Among the best are ‘The Back of His Hand,’ a shocking description of the unexpected dangers involved in tattoo removal; ‘Doctor Hood,’ a touching ghost story concerning a world-famous physicist, his daughter and the recently deceased loved one haunting their family home; and ‘My Repeater,’ a grim science fiction story about the fruitlessness of using time travel to correct one’s past errors. Capable of being either subtle or blunt depending upon the needs of his plot, Gallagher has assembled a fine and varied collection of weird fiction that should find many admirers.”

Just in case you’ve been under a rock, we’ve got new stories over at Subterranean Online by David Prill and Chris Roberson, with work coming in the near future by Lewis Shiner, Charles Stross (an audio!), and a screwball comedy novella by Daniel Abraham we’ll be serializing. That’s not all. Look for more appearances by everyone’s favorite conman, Lucifer Jones, straight from Mike Resnick’s imagination into the ‘pages’ of Subterranean Online. Head over and check out some of the best free fiction and features on the web.

Early next year, Subterranean Press will give birth to a new imprint, Far Territories, one that focuses on popularly priced trade paperbacks and hardcovers, with distribution in the chain and independent bookstories.

First up, in the spring will be two of our quickest selling titles:

Rite by Tad Williams is the first-ever short story collection by this NY Times best-selling writer, showing off his considerable chops at less than novel length. In addition to the Arabian Nights inspired novella “Child of an Ancient City,” you’ll find a lengthy excursion into his popular Otherland universe in “The Happiest Dead Boy in the World,” and tales of all lengths and subject matters in between. The trade paperback of Rite will differ considerably from the hardcover of Rite, focusing on just the short stories, leaving the non-fiction and teleplays as a special bonus to those who ordered the signed edition.

New Amsterdam is Elizabeth Bear’s acclaimed alternate history novel, featuring a number of stand-alone tales that build an overall arc featuring Deputy Crown Inspector Abigail Irene Garrett and Sebastion de Ulloa, the latter also known as The Great Detective, a centuries old vampire who no longer remembers his birth, but interests himself in the darker side of human nature.

Each of the Far Territories titles are just $14.95, with Free Shipping on US Preorders.

We’ve just received (and are shipping) three brand new lettered editions right now:
* The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (Gordon Dahlquist)
* Space Boy (Orson Scott Card)
* Up from the Bottomless Pit (Philip Jose Farmer)

If you’ve ordered a copy of any of the above, you should have yours in a week or two, depending on UPS/USPS.

In addition to distilling its complex plot to a few accurate, descriptive lines, Publishers Weekly had this to say about Alan Campbell’s Lye Street, the prequel to Scar Night: “Campbell meshes pity with terror against the bleak phantasmagoric backdrop of a city suspended from chains, swinging dismally over a yawning abyss. In a civilization literally built upon nothing, dark magic and vengeance are the rule of the day, and Campbell will quickly have readers under his creepy and sometimes heartbreaking spell.”

This special collection gathers for the first time a number of obscure and unpublished children’s story by master storyteller Charles de Lint, each story featuring a brand new illustration.

What the Mouse Found will be available exclusively from Subterranean Press in 2008, in two unique editions:

Trade: 2000 signed hardcover copies: $20
Limited: 400 signed leatherbound copies, with a story not in the trade: $45

Table of Contents:

* “What the Mouse Found” (1700 words);
* “Oakey Bedokey” (1600 words);
* “Gnomin’ in the Gloamin’” (2080 words)
* “Tip & the Lion” (2600 words);
* “Maple Sugar” (1500 words);
* “The Songs of Timothy Tomtit” (210 words); unpublished, appearing in the Limited Edition Only.