SubPress favorite Brian Lumley has turned in a brand new 60,000 word novel, The Fly-By-Nights, a good old fashioned mix of apocalypse and vampires. Bob Eggleton has not only provided different dust jackets for the Signed Limited and Trade Hardcovers, he’s also contributed a dozen end of chapter sketches to the book.

As to the tale itself:

150 years ago the world ended. Bombs fell, winter came, and the survivors fled underground in search of safety. Now they struggle to preserve what’s left—sleeping by day, and battling fearsome vampiric fly-by-nights after sunset.

Resources are scarce and security is scarcer in this fallout-poisoned world, but one subterranean clan of hardy souls clings to life, scavenging and scraping by until their water supply goes catastrophically bad. Forced to seek a new life above, they leave their long-time home to caravan across the stricken planet’s surface, where the light is toxic and the night hides unspeakable monsters.

It is a difficult existence without promise or direction, until word from a band of fellow refugees fizzes through the choppy radio static. The Kindred promise help, companionship, and a new settlement in a distant valley…if only the clan can reach them.

For between the Kindred and the Clan stand a hundred miles of impossible terrain and countless fly-by-nights, and within the Clan itself trouble brews when two very different men fight for the love of one woman who has already made her choice.

It’s the oldest story ever told, but this time it could mean the end of humanity.

The Fly-By-Nights is already fully designed and illustrated, and very much on schedule for its June release.

Earlier this year, James P. Blaylock graced us with a surprise novella, nearly 34,000 words long. We’ve been at work on The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs, the latest—and one of the longest—adventures to feature Langdon St. Ives, his 19th Century steampunk scientist/adventurer, ever since. With the exception of a final proofing pass, everything is already done for Affair, which is slated to be published in June, and includes a full wrap around dust jacket and more than twenty interior illustrations by J. K. Potter.

Affair is not only a long St. Ives adventure, it’s also the first tale where the mad scientist, Narbondo finally takes center stage, to the dismay of his adversaries.

Here’s a taste of what the novella’s about:

An outbreak of violent madness at the Explorers Club, the coincidental murders of a recluse scientist in North Kent and a lighthouse keeper on the chalk cliffs below Brighton, and the mysterious disappearance of Alice St. Ives, lead Langdon St. Ives, Jack Owlesby, and their resolute friend Tubby Frobisher into the very heart of danger, where they discover the great secret of the chalk cliffs at Beachy Head and a looming threat to the collective sanity of mankind.

Also of note: We’re down to the last sixty copies of The Ebb Tide, St. Ives’s last adventure, and expect sales on that title to pick up a bit as readers catch up prior to the upcoming novella’s release.

A few SubPress titles, led by Norman Partridge’s stellar collection, Lesser Demons, made the very select year end Recommended Reading list over at Stomping on Yeti, which they explain is a near enough cousin to a Year’s Best list. About Norm’s collection, Yeti said, “His fiction is pulpy and raw, full of overambitious simile and metaphor that shouldn’t work but always does. He writes about sheriffs and soldiers, the kind of hard nosed men who do what needs to be done because, hell, someone has to do it.”

We’re more than pleased with Norm notching that bit of praise on his literary six shooter. Congrats also go to Mary Robinette Kowal, whose short collection, Scenting the Dark and Other Stories, came away with the following: “Kowal is another burgeoning writer who appears destined for greatness.” We’re sold out of the collection, but copies are still out there in the retail pipeline to be had at the published price.

The deadline for preordering the limited edition of Caitlin R. Kiernan’s mammoth Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlin R. Kiernan (Volume One) is 5:00 pm EST, December 31, 2010. Four-hundred-fifty odd copies of the six-hundred copy limited edition are already reserved, making this the best pre-selling Kiernan title in SubPress history, so feel free to get your order in soon. You’ll save $20 on the limited edition, which includes everything in the trade hardcover, plus a bonus art section, a leather binding, and an exclusive chapbook, The Crimson Alphabet.

If the trade hardcover is more to your liking, that version is $10 off its regular $40 price until the December 31 deadline.

We have no fewer than a dozen books that are either in our warehouse waiting to be shipped, or at our printer, done and awaiting pickup. Now that the Counterfeit Magic (Kelley Armstrong) shipping marathon is out of the way, we should be able to ship into high gear and make some progress.

Since we left the company we’d been subcontracting with, moved to a warehouse closer to where SubPress Director of Production Yanni Kuznia and I can more directly oversee operations, and hired an all new staff, we’ve seen a huge uptick in productivity, accuracy, and efficiency, for which we can’t thank Matt, Sam, and Josh enough. In the madness of December, they were sending out up to 250 packages a day, a pace we expect they’ll need to match to keep up with our projected 2011 releases. (We currently have over 30 books under contract we have yet to announce, many of them already in various stages of production.)

Now, back to the tarmac, and books that are done, and slated to ship in the next 4-6 weeks. Here’s the list of completed books, which means this is likely your last chance to get an order in with Free US Shipping, and, in some cases, your last chance to get an order in at all:

– The Alchemist (Paolo Bacigalupi);
– Nell Gwynne’s Scarlet Spy (Kage Baker);
– The White City (Elizabeth Bear);
– Summer Morning Summer Night (Ray Bradbury);
– The Executioness (Tobias S. Buckell);
– The King of the Elves (Philip K. Dick);
– Up the Bright River (Philip Jose Farmer);
– The Neutronium Alchemist (Peter F. Hamilton);
– The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard (Robert E. Howard);
– Blue and Gold (K. J. Parker);
– Zodiac: an Eco-Thriller (Neal Stephenson)
– All Clear (Connie Willis);

Once again, all of these books are already printed and in our warehouse, or ready to be shipped to us as soon as we clear enough space. We’ll keep everyone abreast of progress with regular shipping updates.

Our latest Robert Silverberg project, Times Three, a nearly 500 page gathering of three of the SF Grand Master’s time travel novels, is selling very well. Only 50 copies 250 copies of the signed limited edition are still available for preorder, while the book itself is ready for the printer, and just awaiting its slot for an April release.

A number of our Silverberg Collected Stories titles are in short supply. There are only 17 copies of the trade hardcover of Something Wild is Loose left, 67 copies of Trips, and 78 copies of The Palace at Midnight. Each of the titles continues to sell steadily. In a few cases, there are even copies of the signed limited edition still available.

Once these go out of print, we expect prices on the secondary market to climb, as has happened with the first couple of volumes in the series. Meanwhile, we’ve started work in earnest on our next couple of Silverberg titles, the sixth volume of the Collected Stories, Multiples, as well as a trade paperback, The Best of Robert Silverberg, which is an expanded (to over 275,000 words) version of his Phases of the Moon from a number of years ago.

While shipping out Kelley Armstrong’s Counterfeit Magic and preparing both The Blade Itself (Joe Abercrombie) and Brayan’s Gold (Peter V. Brett) for shipping, our warehouse staff — who rock, in case you weren’t aware — managed to ship the second printing of Ted Chiang’s acclaimed new novella, The Lifecycle of Software Objects.

We’re down to our last 300 copies of the second printing, with no firm plans for a third, so please fee free to order a copy of one of this year’s most acclaimed novellas, and further proof of Ted Chiang’s storytelling genius.

This book has been in the works for years. We had the interior designed and proofread in late 2008, and are pleased to announce that J. K. Drummond has taken the art reins from Michael Komarck, whose schedule didn’t allow him to continue with the series. Steven Erikson has termed Jae’s preliminary work on the second volume in the series, Deadhouse Gates, to be “terrific”, and we couldn’t agree more.

If you’re interested in seeing more of Jae’s color work, look no further than the covers for The Alchemist (Paolo Bacigalupi), The Executioness (Tobias S. Buckell), and Leviathan Wept and Other Stories (Daniel Abraham).

Please note that only those who own a copy of Gardens of the Moon may order Deadhouse Gates at this time. Specific ordering instructions may be found at the Deadhouse page.

Finally, fans of Malazan may be interested to know we have copies of Steven Erikson’s 181 page Malazon short novel, Crack’d Pot Trail back in stock, as well as the two volume epic Malazan novel, Stonewielder by Ian Cameron Esslemont.

If the reviews are any indication, K. J. Parker’s Blue and Gold is shaping up to be one of the major novellas of the year. This time, it draws praise from Fantasy Literature:

K.J. Parker has another gem on her (his?) hands with this little novella. Parker knows how to write an opening line:

“Well, let me see,” I said, as the innkeeper poured me a beer. “In the morning, I discovered the secret of changing base metal into gold. In the afternoon I murdered my wife.”

And from that start, you will plunge headlong into a story that goes through as many transmutations as an alchemist’s potion. Saloninus is an intriguing character that is arrogant, completely unreliable, brilliant, perhaps a little crazy, and fascinating to read about… It is not just Saloninus who is an alchemist; Parker is as well. Starting with the fairly base story elements of greed, envy and power, Parker transmutes these into literary gold.

Final Update: This title is now sold out.

This latest Tim Powers offering from Charnel House, Deliver Us From Evil, is already in print—I’ve got a copy by my keyboard right here.

Update: Charnel House was kind enough to sell us 25 copies of the 100 copy print run and we managed to sell 21 of them on the day our newsletter went out. In addition, we just found out that, though the books are already printed, they are being hand bound as orders come in, so it will be 2-4 weeks before copies are en route to us.

This is one of the most rarefied, impressive productions we’ve yet seen from Charnel House, limited to only 100 numbered copies, a wonderful read for dedicated Tim Powers fans as well as being a gorgeous artifact.

This lost Powers ghost story is set in Santa Ana involving The Laguna Art Colony, religious fraud, and a 1930’s silent film titled Thou Hast Hell, which induces insanity and death at its viewing—including that of the director who was beaten to death in the theater lobby. This outline has all the wacky characters, convoluted superstitions, and plot twists that we have come to love in a Powers story. The original title of this story was The Stress of Her Regard which Tim explains in his 2010 introduction to this 1979 manuscript which is presented here for the first time in print as Tim left it 31 years ago.

Limited: 100 signed numbered copies, handbound in Tangerine Cave Paper boards Japanese Tsumugi-Shantung Silk spine and Tsumugi-Shantung Silk Slipcase: $380 ($20 off the published price)

I’ve got to admit that I like it myself, though it is a portion and outline—that is, after the first three full-length chapters the rest of the story’s chapters are told in present tense, and are briefer. But, in my 1979 naivete, I virtually told the whole story, including a lot of description and dialogue, in that outline…it seems to me any virtues [the book] might have had are all right here anyway.