We don’t have time this holiday season for our usual fall sale — be it a grab bag or 50% off special. Our shippers are far too busy for us to add that to the equation. Still, it didn’t seem right not to do something toward the end of the year, so we’ve decided to put single copies of most SubPress books up on Ebay with starting bids of only $9.95. This first batch focuses on limited and trade editions — and we’ve only posted about half of those we plan to auction. Keep checking back for more auctions over the next week, and again in a few weeks, as we put a number of lettered editions up on the block.

Enigmatic dark fantasy author K. J. Parker has just turned in her novella, Purple and Black, for publication next year. The novella, a series of missives between an adviser assigned to an outlying military outpost, and the emperor who sent him, consists of a number of official communiques (printed in purple ink) and back-channel communications (printed in black). Each set of letters is shuttled back and forth via sealed communication packets. As one would expect from Parker, the novella is darkly funny, gritty, and with a few twists along the way. (By the way, I’m reading her new novel, The Company, right now, her first standalone, and recommend it very highly.)

We’ve just finished typesetting Peter F. Hamilton’s GIGANTIC novel, The Reality Dysfunction, which came in at over 900 designed pages. Look for us to announce this one soon, once proofreading is underway. Tomislav Tikulin will be gracing us with a classic space warfare cover.

After copies of the limited edition of Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy had been packed up and shuttled to the post office, our shippers came to the horrible realization that our printer had failed to include one of the signature pages in the book, meaning that copies were only signed by half the contributors. They made a quick trip back to the post office and recovered the packages.

The good news is that we managed to get all of the books back before any had shipped. The bad is that all everything had to be unpacked, and the books ferried back to our printer, who will tip-in the sheet they should have included the first time through. This is going to delay the shipping of Dark Fantasy by a few weeks, for which we sincerely apologize to everyone who ordered a copy. It is, however, a much better alternative than if the mistake hadn’t been discovered and the books sent to customers with this unfortunate error uncorrected.

On a more positive note, our shippers are currently packing up copies of the limited edition of The Best of Lucius Shepard (complete with the extra volume, Skull City and Other Lost Stories) and sending them out to customers.

The first review for Elizabeth Bear’s Seven for a Secret is in, from Green Man Review: “Where New Amsterdam had a strong action element to it, here the pyrotechnics are emotional. And where New Amsterdam was in many ways about beginnings, Seven For a Secret is about endings, and last acts of defiance against the dying of the light… Either way, Seven For a Secret remains as enjoyable as its predecessor, while managing to be more thought-provoking. It is the shorter book of the two, but it is by no means the lighter one.”

As a reminder, the limited edition of Seven for a Secret comes with an 11,000 word chapbook, The Tricks of London, set early in the career of Deputy Crown Inspector Abigail Irene. It stands easily among the best of the New Amsterdam tales.

Another glowing review for Dan Simmons’ space opera novella, Muse of Fire, to go along with the Publishers Weekly starred review. This time, according to Booklist, “Simmons’ novella, narrated by a young male earth’s Man, is an exceptionally artful religious legend of the far future, and quite special.”

Count Booklist among those praising Allen Steele’s latest gathering of short stories, The Last Science Fiction Writer: “…[an] admirable showcase of the technical skills and wide range of interests of one of sf’s brighter lights.”

Now that we’ve finished shipping Ray Bradbury’s glorious gathering of Green Town stories, Summer Morning, Summer Night, it’s time to announce a collection devoted to a different corner of Bradbury’s imagination: that of robots, and the company Marionettes, Inc.

In Marionettes, Inc., Ray Bradbury offers his devoted readers something both special and unexpected: a unified view of one small corner of a varied fictional universe. In five stories (one of them original to this collection, plus a rare, previously unpublished screen treatment), Bradbury explores the concept of Robotics and examines its impact on the day-to-day lives of ordinary people.

Please head over to the product page to read more about this special gathering of tales, and see the full table of contents.

As of the beginning of this week, the following will all be out the door:
– Backup (Jim Butcher, Second Printing, Sold Out);
– The Adventures of Langdon St. Ives (James P. Blaylock);
– Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy (Limited Edition, Sold Out);
– The Best of Lucius Shepard (Lucius Shepard, Limited Edition, Sold Out);
– The Best of Michael Swanwick (Michael Swanwick);

Next up for our shippers will be (likely in this order):
– Stonefather (Orson Scott Card, Sold Out);
– The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox (Barry Hughart, Sold Out);
– A Coven of Vampires (Brian Lumley, Trade Paperback);
– Dreadful Skin (Cherie Priest, Trade Paperback);
– Storm Front (Jim Butcher, Sold Out);
– Skeleton in the Closet (Robert Bloch);
– The Six Directions of Space (Alastair Reynolds);
– The Empress of Mars (Kage Baker).

All of this is, of course, subject to adjustment as more titles line up and are ready to ship. (We currently have an additional ten titles at the printer that are likely due out before the end of the year.)

The first major review of Alastair Reynolds’ novella, The Six Directions of Space is in, and it’s a good one. According to Publishers Weekly, “Reynolds (The Prefect) is a master of fitting large-scale space opera into just a few pages, and this novella is no exception. The Mongols, led by Gehghis Khan, conquered Earth a thousand years ago and now rule an interstellar civilization via a wormhole transportation system created by extinct aliens… Technology, history and an unlikely friendship add dimension to the short but universe-spanning mystery.”

The Six Directions of Space is already printed, and just awaiting its turn in our ever dwindling shipping queue.

This year, in the spirit of the old Ace Doubles, we’re releasing a few books containing novellas bound back to back. (You may remember our first foray into this format was the novelettes Starlady and Fast-Friend by George R. R. Martin.)

Our second double effort contains two novellas by one of our favorite writers, Lucius Shepard, the previously uncollected tales Vacancy and Ariel. Both are Lucius at the top of his game, and not slated to appear in any collection in the near future, so you’ll be getting 220 pages of Shepard’s luminous prose, all wrapped up neatly in a double-fronted dust jacket by J. K. Potter.

Vacancy & Ariel will be limited to only 500 copies, slated to be released in January, so it’s sure to go fast.