The latest features up at Subterranean Online include an audio of one of our favorite tales of the past two years, Trunk and Disorderly by Charles Stross — equal parts P.G. Wodehouse, Robert A. Heinlein, and Stross himself, of course. In addition, we’ve got Memoir by Neal Barrett, Jr. If only all such trips down memory lane could be so to the point and poignant at the same time. Enjoy!

Our shippers are packing peanuts and bubble wrap deep shipping three brand new titles, including After the War (Tim Lebbon), which contains “Vale of Blood Roses” and “The Bajuman”, two novellas set in his popular fantasy world of Noreela.

Tim Power & James P Blaylock have graced us — if that’s the right way to put it — with an early William Ashbless tale unearthed, touched up, then annotated by the poet himself, who has once again proven himself not dead just in time to pick up his check. Pilot Light is a hardcover small format chapbook, printed in two colors throughout, available as an unsigned trade hardcover ($20) and a limited edition signed by all three miscreants ($45).

Considering we did very little promotion for the rare Jack Vance novella, The Kragen, we were more than a little surprised to find numbered edition of the book out of print on publication. We’ll have copies of the lettered edition in a few months, as the traycases are manufactured, then make their way on to our supplier, then to us.

In addition to the starred review Publishers Weekly recently gave our upcoming collection by Philip Jose Farmer, Booklist had this to say about Venus on the Half-Shell and Others: “Collected here for the first time, Farmer’s complete fictional author tales include the complete Trout novel, a Trout faux biography, and eight more pseudonymous inventions. Inevitably and unavoidably, the star attraction here is Venus, the story of disillusioned space wanderer Simon Wagstaff and, in its own impish way, one of Farmer’s best short novels.”

Given the reviews it’s receiving, we fully expect Venus on the Half-Shell to join our other Farmer volumes and be sold out on, or shortly after, publication.

Farmer fans will be happy to know that we’ve just reached agreement for a Farmer omnibus for 2009, this one to contain three of the sf Grandmaster’s idiosyncratic, and exceptional, novels, each to be introduced by one of sf or fantasy’s luminaries. We’ll post more details soon.

Kudos continue to roll in for the first volume of Brian Lumley’s Best Mythos Tales, The Taint and Other Novellas. Here’s a short bit from Rambles.net’s take on this career spanning volume: “Lumley’s morbid affection for the Cthulhu Mythos shines through in these stories, and we are all the richer for having such rare frights set before us in a collected format. I look forward to the next volume with the fervor of an overgrown kid waiting for his next Halloween candy spree.” Don’t forget, the even longer second volume, Haggopian and Other Stories, which focuses on the short stories, will be out in May.

We’re in the last days before the limited edition of Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean’s Coraline lands in our offices and starts shipping, so we thought it time to remind everyone that we’re giving away a very exclusive Coraline doll — created by Mary Robinette Kowal, photographed here by Ellen Datlow — to one lucky person who has ordered the book direct from us. In addition, for every copy sold before this children’s classic ships, we’ll be donating 10% of the purchase price to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

We’ve just seen the first copies of George R. R. Martin’s vampire epic, Fevre Dream, and it is, without a doubt, one of the nicest limited editions we’ve yet published. The art may have been two years late, but we think everyone from the author to the customers who’ve been waiting patiently will feel more happy Justin Sweet’s efforts to bring Abner Marsh, Joshua York, and the other characters to life. We’ll need to ask everyone’s patience of just another month or so, while the slipcases are manufactured, and then we’ll begin shipping the numbered edition. The lettered edition will take a bit longer, until the traycases land in our offices.

Still on the George Martin front, it’s time for A Feast for Crows update. Tom Canty has now turned in all of the black and white artwork for both volumes, and we’ve already managed to proof volume one completely. Jenny Crisp, our Martin proofer, should be done with volume two in the next couple of weeks. All we’re waiting for then is Mr. Canty to turn in the color work for the book, and we head to the printer.

We’re also in final negotiations with an artist for the novel George is currently working on, A Dance with Dragons, and expect to have an announcement on that front soon.

Finally, the sf novel that George wrote with Gardner Dozois and Daniel Abraham, Hunter’s Run, has just been sent off to the printer, and is on schedule for a late January, early February release. If you’re not signed up for our email list, now might be a good time, as we’ve got a Martin project for next year that we haven’t even announced yet!

We’ve just finished shipping copies of Scott Lynch’s Red Seas Under Red Skies, the comic caper that mixes gambling, swashbuckling, vulgarity, and up-the-ante plot tension that Scott is becoming known for. We had a couple of cancellations for the Lettered edition, so if you’re interested in one, please drop us a note at subpress@gmail.com. The lettered copies are $250 each plus shipping, and you’ll have right of first refusal on further books in the series.

That’s right, Connie Willis’s most recent gem, All Seated on the Ground, came back from the printers and we’ve already shipped all the pre-orders of the trade and limited editions in time for the holidays! We’ve also shipped the second printing trade edition pre-orders for John Scalzi’s popular You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffeshop.

While we still have copies on hand, both books had very small print runs for their authors, and we’ve just started receiving distributor and large online retailer orders. What does this mean? It means it’s all too likely that both books will be out of print by the new year or shortly thereafter. If you absolutely must have one or both for your collection, your best chance is to snag one now.

Edward Miller has just turned in the storm-tossed cover for Kage Baker’s pirate novel, Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key, which is right on schedule for release in April. If you like your tales piratical with twists and doublecrosses, and a hint of the supernatural, you won’t be disappointed. Head over to the last issue of Subterranean Online to check out the first six chapters of the novel.

Given how many books are released each month, it’s always gratifying when Publishers Weekly gives coverage to a Subterranean Press title. This week’s issue we feel even more charmed. Our new edition of Ray Bradbury’s Golden Apples of the Sun is not only reviewed in the December 10 issue, it received a coveted star. As PW notes, “A half century after its initial appearance, Bradbury’s fourth published book remains vivid and memorable. The original table of contents is restored (under Joe Mugnaini’s iconic original cover art), with Bradbury’s familiar and characteristically wistful, dreamy fantasy, such as ‘The April Witch,’ a haunting tale of teenage dream-traveler Cecy and her desperate desire for romance, mingling with brilliant science fiction like the title story and the widely reprinted ‘A Sound of Thunder.’” In addition to the classic tales, the SubPress edition of Golden Apples is printed in two colors throughout, and rounded out by play versions of “The Fog Horn” and “En La Noche.” The latter PW says “succeeds on page or stage, like most Bradbury, as a story of human sensitivities.”