Joe R. Lansdale’s early serial killer novel, Act of Love, inches closer to publication—it’s at the printer right now—and continues to garner positive notice:

From Fantasy Literature:
“Originally published in 1981, Joe R Lansdale’s Act of Love is a serial-killer thriller. A year before Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon took us into the mind of a sadistic serial killer, Lansdale was doing it, giving us chapters in the point of view of a necrophiliac, sadistic, misogynist cannibal as he terrorizes the city of Houston, Texas… In the 2000s, articulate, witty serial killers like Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter took the stage, making us think that maybe psychopaths weren’t so bad. Joe R Lansdale begs to differ. After you read Act of Love, you will, too.”

Mike Resnick will be the Guest of Honor at Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention. To honor him, we decided to publish a collection of his best most recent short fiction—and one classic tale. The result is The Incarceration of Captain Nebula and Other Lost Futures—more than 100,000 words of prime Resnick, including two of his long African novellas.

In his long and storied career, Mike Resnick has won all of science fiction’s most prestigious awards. He has won the Nebula, the Hugo, and numerous readers awards. He has won the Japanese Hugo, as well as major awards in Spain, France, Poland and Croatia.

The Incarceration of Captain Nebula and Other Stories focuses on Mike’s most recent award-winners and nominees with the exception of heartbreaking “The Last Dog,” Mike’s very first award-winning short story and his multi-award-winning classic “Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge.”

From examinations of life and death to questions of eternity, Mike’s short fiction explores the range of the human experience—even though his characters include dogs, robots and aliens.

This collection has everything to appeal to the most devoted Mike Resnick fan, including a never-before-seen-in-print novella, “Six Blind Men And An Alien.” The story, set in Africa like so many of Mike’s award-winners, is one of his most spectacular works to date.

The Incarceration of Captain Nebula and Other Stories shows why Mike Resnick is one of science fiction’s most treasured writers—and one of its most beloved.

This week, we’re giving away five Advance Reading Copies of Alan Campbell’s clever new dark fantasy novella, Damnation for Beginners. Winning one is easy enough—just make sure you’re signed up for our email newsletter. At the end of the day on March 3, 2012, we’ll draw the five lucky names, drop them emails, and soon they’ll be reading Alan’s novella before its official publication.

J. K. Potter outdid himself with the dust jacket to Lucius Shepard’s The Dragon Griaule, which contains the tales (and a new 40,000 word novel) centered on that miles long dormant serpent. A pair of the novellas — “The Scalehunter’s Beautiful Daughter” and “The Father of Stones” — haven’t seen print in twenty years or better. The Dragon Griaule is a high point in Shepard’s already stellar career.

We’re in the happy place of having far more orders for Joe R. Lansdale and John L. Lansdale’s hefty (424 pages) gathering of Weird Western screenplays than we have copies. We’d like to see copies directly into readers’ hands, so will leave the book live on our site for roughly the next week before filling as many large online retail and wholesale orders as we can, putting Shadows West out of print.

We have a pair of reviews of Elizabeth Bear’s ad eternum to share this week. The novella will be sent to the printer just as soon as Patrick Arrasmith’s dust jacket art is in house.

From The New York Journal of Books:

“Ad Eternum is so perfectly balanced with exactly what the reader needs to know about each character and each plot thread without any of the clutter of a longer book resulting in a polished gem. The narrative is the pure essence of a story, longer than a short story and packing more into its pages, but not as long as a novel—a perfect example of the novella as an art form. Ad Eternum is, indeed, an argument in favor of writers producing more novellas.”

From Fantasy Literature:

“At the risk of repeating myself, the tale and Ms. Bear’s writing are elegant and subtle… There is a definite artistic effect, though, created by the waiting period between books: the reader has the sense of years passing in the world of the story and returns to it eagerly wondering what changes have transpired—and who has died. I do hope we’ll see Sebastien and his acquaintances again…”

Behold the spectral rider that signifies the coming of Robert McCammon’s classic novel, Bethany’s Sin. Tomislav Tikulkin has contributed not only the dust jacket, but full-color endsheets to our edition of McCammon’s tale of small town horrors unleashed.

First published as a paperback original in 1980, Bethany’s Sin was Robert R. McCammon’s second novel. Like its predecessor, Baal, it offers a frightening, thoroughly imagined portrait of ancient forces set loose in the modern world. Like Baal, it is both a notable accomplishment in its own right and an invaluable glimpse into the formative years of a major writer, a man whose raw narrative talent was apparent from the start. This deluxe new edition offers McCammon’s many fans the definitive version of a significant early work, a book that foreshadows the later—and larger—accomplishments to come.

Bethany’s Sin is right on schedule for its publication this fall. The signature pages are nestled safely in house, and we’re giving the book a final proofread.

We’re pleased to announce that we’re continuing our relationship with China Mieville, with a signed limited edition of his upcoming novel, Railsea. As with most of our other Mieville limiteds, Vincent Chong will be providing a full color cover. Look for our edition to be published this summer.

Welcome to the Railsea, a vast conglomeration of interconnected railroad tracks reaching to the limits of the known world. This brilliantly imagined setting stands at the heart of one of China Mieville’s most extraordinary accomplishments.

A host of memorable characters move through these pages, among them a “bloodstained boy” whose adventures form the armature of the narrative, a brother and sister determined to complete their parents’ unfinished journey, and a one-armed captain relentlessly pursuing her “philosophy:” the great almost-white mole known as Mocker Jack.

Railsea is a novel about the power of obsession, about the human longing for completion, about narrative itself. But it’s also a captivating story that overflows with wonders and strange terrors, with pirates and scavengers, monstrosities and prodigies. And so much more. Filled with humor and great narrative energy, and written in a language so vivid it virtually leaps off the page, it is at once an utterly unique creation and a classic re-imagining of a classic tale. Railsea shows us China Mieville at the top of his game. It’s going to be around for a very long time.

Limited: 500 signed numbered hardcover copies: $75
Lettered: 26 signed leatherbound copies, housed in a custom traycase: $250

Michael Bishop’s mammoth career retrospective, The Door Gunner and Other Perilous Flights of Fancy, is in stock and shipping. Mike’s collection stands as a high point in our ongoing series of Best of short story collections. I’ve been reading him since I was seventeen, and can tell you that culling his oeuvre down to a representative 200,000 words was an act of editorial alchemy. Our thanks to Mike and Michael H. Hutchins for that, and to Bill Sheehan for the illuminating flap copy.

Here’s part of the flap copy, to give you a sense of the collection:

In the course of a distinguished career now entering its fifth decade, Michael Bishop has amassed a large body of fiction notable for its intellectual range, narrative sophistication, and sheer stylistic elegance. This massive new retrospective, The Door Gunner and Other Perilous Flights of Fancy, amply celebrates that career, offering one example after another of Bishop’s unique—and characteristic—virtuosity.

Bob Eggleton has just turned in an epic dust jacket for Philip Jose Farmer and Christopher Paul Carey’s omnibus, Gods of Opar, which features three novels, including the previously unpublished novel, The Song of Kwasin, and, exclusive to the lettered edition, a bevy of related related information: glossaries, an outline, and a calendar.

For those of you who can’t wait, you might want to check out a long interview with Christopher Paul Carey, over at the Official Philip Jose Farmer website.