Latest Subterranean Press News

Robin Hobb — Words Like Coins, an Exclusive New Ebook

May 21, 2012

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We’re pleased to present our first ebook exclusive, Words Like Coins (Kindle|BN.com|Kobo) a 10,000 word Farseer tale by Robin Hobb, featuring five new illustrations by Tom Kidd.

Mirrifen, a failed hedge-witch’s apprentice who has married to find security finds that threatened by a severe drought and the appearance of a pregnant female pecksie.

Joe Abercrombie — BEST SERVED COLD Cover Revealed

May 21, 2012

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Progress continues apace on Joe Abercrombie’s Best Served Cold, at 656 pages, his longest novel yet, one filled with revenge, mud-black humor, and enough blood to soak its pages red.

Raymond Swanland has just turned in the full-color dust jacket, and has sent us the roughs for his five interior illustrations. This is shaping up to be the best of our Abercrombie limiteds yet. Do consider picking up a copy.

Joe R. Lansdale — ACT OF LOVE Limited Edition, a New Novella, and a new Collection

May 21, 2012

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We’re prepping copies of the signed, limited edition of Joe R. Lansdale’s atmospheric, violent early novel, Act of Love, which should begin to ship in a day or so. In addition to the novel proper, our edition contains a full-color dustjacket by Timothy Truman, and twenty full-page pen and ink illustrations by Glenn Chadbourne. Add to that a brand new 12,000 word Marvin Hanson short story, and we think it turns our edition of Act into the definitive one.

In other Lansdale news, Joe recently turned in Dead Aim, a brand new, 20,000 word Hap and Leonard novella. This one’s already fully designed, and we’ve sent it out to have the dust jacket illustration completed. Look for us to announce it for preorder soon.

Finally, Joe we agreed to publish a large, 150,000 word original collection that contains over 25 stories, including a bunch—such as “Old Man in the Motorized Wheelchair”, “Six Finger Jack”, “The Bleeding Shadow”, and others—that we bet even his most ardent fans haven’t read.

Alan Campbell’s DAMNATION FOR BEGINNERS in Stock and Shipping

May 21, 2012

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We’re shipping out the initial orders for Alan Campbell’s Damnation for Beginners, a novella-length foray into his Deepgate Codex world. With a ton of Bob Eggleton’s pen and ink illustration illuminating the text, it’s one project where the art and design match the quality of the story within. As Publishers Weekly noted in their starred review, “Complemented by Bob Eggleton’s eerie pen-and-ink illustrations, Campbell’s vivid description of Hell is nothing short of brilliant: towering structures made of souls creeping across the infernal surface, a labyrinth of blood red canals and crumbling ziggurats. Longtime fans of Campbell’s Deepgate Codex (Scar Night, etc.) will cherish this dark little gem of a story; others will find it an excellent place to start.”

Booklist Reviews Brian Lumley’s No Sharks in the Med

May 15, 2012

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As Booklist notes, “Lumley is a master of subtle horror and grotesquery, with a career spanning more than 40 forty years —this collection ranges from 1976 to 2008 — and even the oldest have aged quite well… As is the mandate of horror, these stories take off from ways in which the world is already strange — and go further into the depths of the imagination… In short, this is an excellent collection for completist fans, and a broad introduction for new readers.”

Jonathan Carroll — The Booklist Review

May 15, 2012

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We’re reading the files for Jonathan Carroll’s mammoth short story collection, The Woman Who Married a Cloud, for final review. In the meantime, Booklist just weighed in… “Better-known as a novelist, Carroll has won more awards with his short stories, which are of a piece. Set in mundane contemporary America, they customarily focus on a man or woman in a middle-class couple whose relationship has been or is stressed, broken, empty, or tentatively developing… Carroll wants not to shock but to suggest that life really may be very, very strange.”

Paolo Bacigalupi — Praise for THE DROWNED CITIES

May 15, 2012

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We’re making progress on Paolo Bacigalupi’s latest novel, The Drowned Cities. The exclusive interview for our limited edition is in hand, and the book has been fully designed and proofread. We’re merely waiting on the artwork (by Jon Foster, who also illustrated Ship Breaker), and the signature sheets.

Meanwhile, the book is not lacking for laudatory reviews:

From The Los Angeles Times:
The Drowned Cities is not for the faint of heart… It is far more violent even than “The Hunger Games” conclusion, “Mockingay.” The action is oftentimes barbaric. Amputations are common. Even more bodies pile up as a result of atrocities committed with acid and, of course, guns. Many of the book’s minor characters delight in torturing their victims, pouring flesh-eating chemicals down bare-skinned backs and smashing their faces into the dirt. At one point Mahlia notes that surviving only creates more killing.”

From The Verge:
The Drowned Cities stands out as one of the most brutal pieces of YA fiction in recent years… The Drowned Cities is a believably militaristic place, civilian life seeping in around the edges of the endless patriotic battles. Despite its reclamation by vines and animals, Mahlia’s world is filled with vibrant and well-sketched people, even if they treat her with — at best — veiled hostility and suspicion… After all that, it feels almost odd to say that Drowned Cities is almost uplifting for a Bacigalupi novel. I’m not entirely sure why, but I think it may be because unlike some previous works, it offers the possibility of redemption as well as revenge. There’s plenty of catharsis to be had, along with an assurance that not even the most powerful are immune from harm. But it also acknowledges that the villains are tragic as well as monstrous.”

From The Washington Post:
“A new Paolo Bacigalupi novel is reason to celebrate — no matter how old you are…Bacigalupi’s latest, The Drowned Cities, is his second straight young adult release, but that shouldn’t deter the writer’s older fans from picking up the book (even if you have to do it on the sly).

Two Great Howard Waldrop Collections

May 14, 2012

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We’ll soon be stocking a pair of beyond excellent short story collections by Howard Waldrop, both published by Old Earth Books.

Things Will Never Be the Same focuses on Howard’s shorter tales, including 16 of them, while Other Worlds, Better Lives gathers seven of his novella-length excursions into the strange, including the classic short novel, A Dozen Tough Jobs.

Don’t take our word for it. Here’s a smattering of praise for Howard:

From Tim Powers:
“There’s no better writer alive than Howard Waldrop, and here are all his best stories, with funny and fascinating afterwords — you need this book.”

From Connie Willis:
“It always feels like Christmas when a new Howard Waldrop collection arrives, and this one is as crammed with wonderful presents as Santa’s sack. This is even better than getting a BB gun!”

From George R. R. Martin:
“The only problem with Things Will Never Be the Same is that it’s not nearly long enough. Sure, sure, it’s chock full of great stories by the best short fiction writer of his generation, modern classics like “The Ugly Chickens” and “Flying Saucer Rock n Roll” and “Heart of Whitenesse” and many more… but there are two or three times as many terrific Waldrop stories, equally good and sometimes even better, that have been left out for want of space. There’s only one solution. Read this book… and then go out and track down all of Waldrop’s other collections and read them too.”

Robert Silverberg — Announcing WE ARE FOR THE DARK

May 13, 2012

It’s that time of year again, when we release another volume of The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg on the world. Volume seven, We Are for the Dark, is no less distinguished than its predecessors, and includes a few novellas gathered in Silverberg collections for the first time.

Now, to the book’s description and table of contents:

The stories collected here, written between August of 1987 and May of 1990, demonstrate that I still believe in the classical unities. Of course, what seems to us a unity now might not have appeared that way when H.G. Wells was writing his wonderful stories in the nineteenth century. Wells might have argued that my “To the Promised Land” is built around two speculative fantastic assumptions, one that the Biblical Exodus from Egypt never happened, the other that it is possible to send rocketships to other worlds. But in fact we’ve sent plenty of rocketships to other worlds by now, so only my story’s alternative-world speculation remains fantasy today. Technically speaking the space-travel element of the plot has become part of the given; it’s the other big assumption that forms the central matter of the story.

—Robert Silverberg, from his Introduction

Limited: 150 signed numbered copies, bound in leather and cloth
Trade: Fully cloth bound hardcover edition

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction
  • The Dead Man’s Eyes
  • Enter A Soldier. Later: Enter Another
  • To The Promised Land
  • Chip Runner
  • A Sleep And A Forgetting
  • In Another Country
  • The Asenion Solution
  • We Are For The Dark
  • Lion Time In Timbuctoo
  • A Tip On A Turtle

Library Journal on Robert McCammon

May 13, 2012

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Our warehouse is awash in copies of Robert McCammon’s latest Matthew Corbett adventure, The Providence Rider. Unsigned trade hardcovers have gone out to our large online retail accounts and wholesalers, while individual orders are waiting for Rick to be here to sign copies on June 19-21.

We have a lot of promotion planned for this novel—one of the best we’ve ever published—and expect reviews to spring up all over the net, and in print, as well. The latest is from Library Journal: “McCammon has constructed an intriguing series of suspense novels using a historical setting with interesting details and characters… [H]e has managed to keep his main character viable and credible as Corbett continues to confront dangerous situations. Fans of the earlier books will enjoy this compelling follow-up.”

Recent Releases

EMBASSYTOWN by China Mieville

EmbassytownChina Mieville’s linguistic space opera, Embassytown, may well be the most praised novel we release this year. None other than Ursula K. Le Guin said, “Embassytown is a fully achieved work of art.” It also drew praise from the likes of Publishers Weekly (a Starred Review), Entertainment Weekly, Locus, and many others. Read it. You will be amply rewarded.

Limited HC:
$75
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THE CURSE OF FOUR by Caitlin Kittredge

The Curse of FourVenture into Caitlin Kittredge’s Black London setting in the novella, The Curse of Four. At this point, only the limited edition, which includes the exclusive 12,000 word chapbook, The Names of Hell, is available. According to Publishers Weekly, “Kittredge returns to the world of her Black London trilogy (Street Magic, etc.) with this supernatural locked-room mystery slated for an appropriate Halloween release… Kittredge fans will welcome this tension filled short work.”

Limited HC:
$45
Trade HC:
Sold Out
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THE ADJUSTMENT TEAM by Philip K. Dick

The Adjustment TeamVolume two of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, The Adjustment Team, is selling very well out of the gate. In fact, the trade hardcover is already sold out, leaving just a double handful of copies of the leatherbound limited edition. As Publishers Weekly noted, “With cover art by Bill Sienkiewicz and a full chapter of endnotes about the stories, fanatics will enjoy this substantial volume.”

Limited HC:
$60
Trade HC:
Sold Out
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THE CHRONICLES OF MASTER LI AND NUMBER TEN OX by Barry Hughart

The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten OxBarry Hughart’s trio of novels collected as The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox are among the most beloved in recent memory. We’re pleased to present them again in one elegant volume, with signed copies available if ordered direct from SubPress.

Signed HC:
$45
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SHIP BREAKER by Paolo Bacigalupi

Ship BreakerOur edition of Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker has arrived, and is, hands down, one of our nicest turned out volumes of the year, from the two color printing on 80# Finch, to Jon Foster’s dust jacket and interior illustrations. As Booklist noted, “Bacigalupi’s future earth is brilliantly imagined and its genesis anchored in contemporary issues…The characters are layered and complex, and their almost unthinkable actions and choices seem totally credible. Vivid, brutal, and thematically rich, this captivating title is sure to win teen fans for the award-winning Bacigalupi.”

Limited HC:
$125
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SUMMER KNIGHT by Jim Butcher

Summer KnightOur latest Jim Butcher signed limited edition, Summer Knight, is in stock and shipping, and well over 90% sold out. Vincent Chong has done his masterful job on the dust jacket and interior illustrations.

Limited HC:
$75
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THE BEST OF STEPHEN R. DONALDSON by Stephen R. Donaldson

The Best of Stephen R. DonaldsonThe Best of Stephen R. Donaldson, a 150k word gathering of the best novellas and short fiction by the author of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, is in stock and shipping. The collections shows, in stunning novellas such as “Ser Visal’s Tale,” “The Woman Who Loved Pigs,” and “Daughter of Regals” that Donaldson is, according to Booklist, “a master of shorter lengths.”

Limited HC:
Sold Out
Trade HC:
$40
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DARK TANGOS by Lewis Shiner

Dark TangosJust a couple of reasons to buy Dark Tangos, Lewis Shiner’s newest thriller:

“Shiner’s latest (after Black and White, 2008) delivers its grim story line with artistic mastery and surprising punctuation by joy and hope…” (Booklist, Starred Review)

“The versatile Shiner (Black and White) plunges into the dark recent history of Argentina in this thriller that tells a gentle love story against a backdrop of sheer terror. Shiner gracefully and efficiently tells his moving tale within a tight frame. Along the way are short tutorials on tango, Argentine history, and torture techniques.” (Publishers Weekly)

Limited HC:
$35