By the end of Tuesday, our shippers will have kicked all the orders for Kage Baker’s Empress of Mars out the door, to UPS or USPS as appropriate, so be on the lookout for that Red Planet adventure if you’ve preordered. (And if you haven’t, consider this a reminder.)

After that, we’ll be turning our attention to Charles de Lint’s newest collection, Woods & Waters Wild, which is massively oversold. Including all individual, wholesale and online retailer orders, we have demand for nearly 4000 copies, and only a 2000 copy print run. If you want guarantee yourself a copy, you might want to order direct, as we’ll be pulling Woods from our site later this week, as we fill as many orders as we can.

Over at his blog, Whatever, John Scalzi has published the first look at a short story we commissioned by him, “The State of Super Villainy.” Head over to John’s site for all the particulars — you may need to scroll down a bit as he adds more entries to the blog, but if you like the story, we hope you’ll consider donating to help out Vera Nazarian, the writer in need. If that’s not enough incentive, we’re matching the first $1000 in donations the short story generates.

So what are you waiting for? The super villains sure aren’t!

First came Edgar Rice Burroughs’ view of the Red Planet, then the romance of Leigh Brackett, the poetic visions of Ray Bradbury, and the hard sf underpinnings of Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy. Now, added to that estimable list, we have Kage Baker, who makes Earth’s nearest neighbor all her own. Based on the Hugo-nominated novella of the same name, The Empress of Mars is a rollicking novel of action, offworld romance and high adventure.

Limited Edition:

$60

Paul di Filippo on the very soon to be published novella, Muse of Fire, by Dan Simmons:
“Simmons conjures up a true portrait of racial despair and desuetude, in which the little pinpoints of commonplace indomitable human spirit seem always on the point of extinguishment—until a final, joyous bonfire of triumph. His presentation of Shakespeare’s canon and its encapsulization of the greatness of human spirit is convincing and well handled—he knows the Bard and his works well. And he never lapses into spiritual mumbo-jumbo, but presents his religious insights in a clearly defined way that still allows for ineffable, numinous moments.”

We’ve finished shipping all individual and retail orders for Jim Butcher’s Storm Front. (Thanks to everyone for their patience as we catch up on our still growing shipping backlog.) Next up in the queue is Kage Baker’s The Empress of Mars.

Well, no Pat’s not really a Heifer, though he does consort with them. Read on…

Our pal — and SubPress author — Pat Rothfuss, is trying to tempt his readers into donating $30,000 to the Heifer International, an amount he then intends to match out of his own pocket.

Needless to say, we were more than impressed with Pat’s dedication, his generosity, and promptly got in touch with him to judge his sanity.

Instead of deeming him insane — in this regard at least — we decided to join Pat in his efforts, and donated 120 books to be given away as prizes to those who aid him in his worthy efforts.

If you want to make a difference in the world this holiday season, take a minute to check out Pat’s blog, see all the neat-o prizes you might win, but more importantly, inform yourself about Heifer International and toss in a small contribution if you’re able.

Following close on the heels of her contribution to A Fantasy Medley, Canadian author Kelley Armstrong has favored us a novella from her Otherworld. Eve Levine, ghost and part-time avenging angel, is ready for her already overdue annual vacation from her work for the Fates, who have just one small, simple job that she needs to take care of before they’ll let her go. And as all things involving fate, it’s neither small, nor simple.

Angelic will be available as limited and trade hardcovers. Pre-order information coming soon!

In addition, we’ve just bought a few other new titles:

– The Evil at Pemberley House (Philip Jose Farmer and Win Scott Eckert) — a darkly erotic novel that is part of Farmer’s Wold Newton canon. The limited edition will include a chapbook with a whole host of unpublished background material.

– An as yet untitled short story collection by hot new writer Daniel Abraham, whose series, The Long Price Quartet, is must reading for fantasy aficionados. In addition to roughly 70k words of already published stories, Daniel is slated to include a long original tale.

We’ve been overrun with reviews this week. This pair comes straight from Green Man Review.

On A Fantasy Medley (edited by Yanni Kuznia): “A Fantasy Medley is a chapbook that collects four of the major female fantasy authors in publishing today. Although, to be fair, you could remove the female from that previous sentence and, in a book that gathers together C.E Murphy, Kate Elliot, Robin Hobb and Kelley Armstrong, it would not be any less true… If you are already a fan of any of the authors included in the collection it will be a fun extension to the canon and if you’ve never read them before, then this would be an excellent sampler to see if you’d enjoy their other works. On its own merits A Fantasy Medley is definitely worth a read. The narratives and tightly woven and well told, the authors’ familiarity with their worlds gives the setting a concrete feel and the stories are interesting and original.”

On Metamorphosis (James P. Blaylock): “‘Stone Eggs’ with Adriana Campoy, ‘P-38′ with Brittany Cox and ‘Houses’ with Alex Haniford are all well-crafted, engaging stories and I’d be surprised if at least one of them doesn’t make an appearance in a bookshop near you in the future. The stories are all cleverly conceived, well-written and full of the authors’ enthusiasm. ‘Stone Eggs’ is a charming, slightly claustrophobic story that takes both its main character and its reader beyond the horizon. It’s also my personal favourite, if only for the hand-me-down cat. ‘P-38′ is a wistful story of loss and the erosion caused to both places and memory by the passage of time, an impressively mature tale by Brittany Cox. Last, but not least, is ‘Houses’, a quietly eerie story that explores loss and disillusionment through the neighbourhood myths that grow up around any old, abandoned house. It’s a dark little tale, but certainly not without its charm.”

Over at the Fall issue of Subterranean Online, we’ve just posted a couple of treats for readers — “Spring Training,” by Mike Resnick, being the latest adventure starring everyone’s favorite scalawag, the Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones, and “The Seed of Lost Souls“, part of the long sold out chapbook that includes the story that was to become Poppy Z. Brite’s acclaimed first novel.

Three New Reviews, all of them of the positive stripe:

Booklist on Cryptic (Jack McDevitt): McDevitt has a knack for making the familiar mysterious and a fondness for mysteries that bring a frisson of joyful recognition to fans of classic sf. His stories cover the map of sf themes: mad artists, alien worlds, astronauts and explorers, AI, time travel, and so forth…McDevitt’s stories show him a true heir to the legends of the genre’s golden age, writers with a wonder-filled but occasionally cynical regard for the future and the universe.”

Locus on The Empress of Mars (Kage Baker): “Because of Kage Baker’s deft hand, The Empress of Mars is a fun read that expands on the original story in satisfying ways. For those who just want to enjoy a story, it’s a potent sweet.”

Booklist on A is for Alien (Caitiln R. Kiernan): “The grace and subtlety with which Kiernan inverts the roles of us and them, of those who seek to belong and those who watch from the sidelines, makes for unnerving but extraordinary storytelling. Kiernan’s style relies on clarity in prose, the extraordinary related as if it were everyday, and a subtlety that belies her disturbing imagery. The eight stories in this slim volume are, in short, exquisite containers for the strange paths of her imagined futures. In reading these pieces, you become other, and the better for it.”