And the first review for our Jack Vance tribute anthology, Songs of the Dying Earth, is in from Rick Kleffel’s Agony Column: “At $40.00 with all the stories alone it would be a steal, but I have to mention the outstanding illustrations by Tom Kidd. Each story gets its own detailed title-page illustration, and they’re gorgeous. The interior book design is also classy, with framed pages. Each story includes an introduction to the author and an afterword by the author. The writers have been careful to preserve the particular flavor of Vance’s work, that combination of humor, horror, and unbound imagination that forced the critics to come up with the appellation ‘Science fantasy’ to describe it. Any way you look at it, Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance is a total steal. But for all the quantity and quality on parade here, there’s one simple reason to buy this book. It will mark you. These writers have remembered Jack Vance for you — wholesale.”

We’ve just posted a number of Ebay auctions, including new releases by Stephen King, Charles Ardai, Dan Simmons, and a whole host of other fine writers.

The kicker to this set of auctions is that 30% of the proceeds are going to The Haven Foundation, an organization whose mission is “to strengthen and sustain the careers of freelance professional writers, artists and others connected with the entertainment industry across the United States who are in financial need due to a medical condition or who have been adversely affected as a result of a natural disaster.”

We hope you’ll take a minute, check out the auctions, and pick up a copy of something to support this worthy cause.

First off, have a look at the first draft of the cover for K. J. Parker’s devious and twisty new novella, Purple and Black. Artist Vincent Chong has a little revising to do, but we (and the author) couldn’t be happier with the direction he’s taken the dust jacket in.

Now, to the main production update. The following books are all fully designed and being proofread:

– The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury);
– Where Everything Ends (Ray Bradbury);
– Forever Twilight 2 (Peter Crowther);
– The Dark Volume (Gordon Dahlquist);
– Son of Retro Pulp Tales (edited by Joe R. Lansdale and Keith Lansdale);
– Unchained and Unhinged (Joe R. Lansdale)
– The City and the City (China Mieville);
– Thousandth Night and Minla’s Flowers (Alastair Reynolds);
– The Last Colony (John Scalzi);
– The Terror (Dan Simmons);
– The Skylark (Peter Straub);

The following are done and ready to go to the printer in their time slot:
– Angelic (Kelley Armstrong);
– The Women of Nell Gwynne’s (Kage Baker);
– The Ebb Tide (James P. Blaylock);
– The Onion Girl (Charles de Lint);
– Crystal Nights and Other Stories (Greg Egan);
– The Evil in Pemberley House (Philip Jose Farmer and Win Scott Eckert);
– Scenting the Dark and Other Stories (Mary Robinette Kowal);
– Songs of the Dying Earth (edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois);
– Purple & Black (K. J. Parker);
– Hazards (Mike Resnick);
– Metatropolis (edited by John Scalzi);

In addition to these, we’re working on a host of titles that haven’t even been announced yet, including The Club Dumas (Arturo Perez-Reverte); The Book of Dreams (edited by Nick Gevers); Dying of the Light (George R. R. Martin); Hamlet’s Father (Orson Scott Card); The Shop of the Mechanical Insects (Ray Bradbury); and a few surprises we can’t even mention yet.

Meanwhile, here’s a first look at the cover art for Crystal Nights and Other Stories, Greg Egan’s new 120,000 word collection.

Phil may no longer be with us, but in The Other in the Mirror his work lives on, in a gathering of three outstanding novels, including his ultra-rare title, Fire and the Night as well as Jesus on Mars and Night of Light.

Limited Edition:

$125

Trade HC:

$45

Our latest Ray Bradbury offering, Marionettes, Inc., is a special collection containing his tales of robots and the havoc they bring to relationships. It’s a nifty little hardcover, printed in two colors, with a black and white illustration at the head of each story by Mark A. Nelson, and full-color endsheets by Bradbury himself.

Trade HC:

$35

As Publishers Weekly noted of A Fantasy Medley in its starred review: “Four fantasy heavyweights contribute original tales featuring intriguing female protagonists to this enthralling anthology.” Medley includes tales by Robin Hobb, Kelley Armstrong, C. E. Murphy, and Kate Elliott, and is selling so well we don’t expect to have copies for more than a few weeks past its release.

Limited Edition:

$45

Trade HC:

$20

Our shippers made much progress late last week and over the weekend in packing up copies of George R. R. Martin’s A Feast for Crows. Today (Monday), they’ll be taking half of the orders to the post office or sending them out UPS, as appropriate, and expect to finish shipping all copies no later than Tuesday afternoon. Important note: We may have a few copies of Feast left when all the shipping is done. If this comes to pass, we’ll post an announcement in our newsletter when we’re done with our weeks long shipping marathon.

Immediately following the Martin, we’ll be shipping copies of Stephen King Goes to the Movies and A Fantasy Medley (edited by Yanni Kuznia). Finally, if all else falls into place, by the end of the week we’ll be shipping Marionettes Inc. (Ray Bradbury) and the long-awaited limited edition of The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman).

Peter Straub asked us to post the following clarification on the various incarnations of his novels The Skylark, A Dark Place, and the related novella, “A Special Place,” which, we hope, makes everything clearer to his fans:

I have altered the section of The Skylark now called “A Special Place: the Heart of A Dark Matter” in a hundred different places, and that version of the text is the one preferred by its author. Also, A Dark Matter is no longer The Skylark but something trimmer and tighter, and I would like those who read the finished version of the novel then to read the novella called A Special Place, which would alter their understanding of a central part of the novel — I see this as like having a wonderful meal, followed by a bomb for dessert. The Skylark is a tremendously interesting way-station that I took for my final destination, and it bristles with all kinds of ideas and scenes and situations that were never really fully worked out, but it shows exactly what I thought I was doing at the time. However, it is not an alternative to A Dark Matter: those who read it should also read the novel it became. Ideally, they should then go on also to also read the novella, which would have a different impact and create a different effect than it does and can in the early version of my novel.

This is by no means a complete update, but we have a ton of titles in various stages of production, and figured folks might like to know where things stand:

Currently at the printer — completed and awaiting pickup
– Stephen King Goes to the Movies;
– A Fantasy Medley (Yanni Kuznia);
– The Other in the Mirror (Philip Jose Farmer);
– Marionettes, Inc. (Ray Bradbury)
– Black Powder War (Naomi Novik);
– Fool Moon (Jim Butcher);

Currently at the printer, slated for completion in the next two weeks:
– The Steel Remains (Richard K. Morgan);
– Metamorphosis (James P. Blaylock);
– Trips (Robert Silverberg);
– Dark Integers and Other Stories (Greg Egan, trade paperback);
– Alabaster (Caitlin R. Kiernan, trade paperback);
– The Nonesuch and Others (Brian Lumley).

The cover at the top is, of course, for Alastair Reynolds’ double novella book, Thousandth Night and Minla’s Flowers, due this fall. Some time next week we’ll post a lengthy update about books in various stages of production but not yet at the printer.

We figured a lot of Kage Baker’s fans would want to get a taste of her novella, The Women of Nell Gwynne’s, the precursor to the Company series, so we posted the first two chapters to the book’s page.

In other Kage news, this summer we’ll be posting the first short story about the Gentleman’s Speculative Society, “Speed, Speed, the Cable” over at Subterranean Online, as well as doing the limited edition of the first full length novel in the Company-related series, And We Are Everywhere. Look for ordering information on that soon.