K. J. Parker's Academic Exercises—her first collection—is in stock and shipping. It's a 200,000 word plus volume, full of novellas (such as "Let Maps to Others", a  World Fantasy Award-winner), and novelettes (including "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong", a World Fantasy Award-winner) and more acclaimed short fiction (for example, "The Sun and I", a World Fantasy Award finalist this year).

Please note: We're down to our last 50 copies of the collection, which we expect to receive no less acclaim than its individual contents.

About the Book:

Academic Exercises is the first collection of shorter work by master novelist K. J. Parker, and it is a stunner. Weighing in at over 500 pages, this generous volume gathers together thirteen highly distinctive stories, essays, and novellas, including the recent World Fantasy Award-winner, “Let Maps to Others”. The result is a significant publishing event, a book that belongs on the shelf of every serious reader of imaginative fiction.

The collection opens with the World Fantasy Award-winning “A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong,” a story of music and murder set against a complex mentor/pupil relationship, and closes with the superb novella “Blue & Gold,” which features what may be the most beguiling opening lines in recent memory. In between, Parker has assembled a treasure house of narrative pleasures. In “A Rich, Full Week,” an itinerant “wizard” undergoes a transformative encounter with a member of the “restless dead.” “Purple & Black,” the longest story in the book, is an epistolary tale about a man who inherits the most hazardous position imaginable: Emperor. “Amor Vincit Omnia” recounts a confrontation with a mass murderer who may have mastered an impossible form of magic.

Rounding out the volume—and enriching it enormously—are three fascinating and illuminating essays that bear direct relevance to Parker’s unique brand of fiction: “On Sieges,” “Cutting Edge Technology,” and “Rich Men’s Skins.”

Taken singly, each of these thirteen pieces is a lovingly crafted gem. Together, they constitute a major and enduring achievement. Rich, varied, and constantly absorbing, Academic Exercises is, without a doubt, the fantasy collection of the year.

Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies: $40

From Publishers Weekly (Starred Review):

“Parker (the Engineer trilogy) collects 10 stories and three essays to deliver all the cynicism, dry wit, and gray morality that fans have come to expect. The World Fantasy Award–winning ‘A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong’ explores the tense relationship between a disillusioned music teacher and his brilliant but murderous student. Amoral scoundrels wreak havoc in ‘The Sun and I’ and ‘Blue and Gold.’  …This meaty compilation will please fans as well as readers who are now discovering this skilled author.”

From Locus:

“‘Let Maps to Others’ is certainly be my favorite piece here. A ironic and blackly humorous account of the rediscovery of a Prester John-style kingdom lost to history involves scholarly rivalry and deceit and royal bull-headedness. It’s comic gold where, as in much comedy, the most vile deeds are the funniest.”

First, a word of thanks to Mark Miller. He's a VP at Clive Barker's production company, and has been many steps beyond helpful in putting together Chiliad, Tortured Souls, and an original Barker project so cool and exclusive we can't even talk about it yet. (Thanks, Mark!)

We've just heard that copies of the inaugeral release from Clive's own publishing imprint, SeraphimINK will be en route to our warehouse in the next few days. We were one of only a trio of outlets (the other being Camelot Books and Clive Barker's own site) chosen to sell Clive Barker's First Tales, which gathers a lengthy novella and short story from Clive's teenage years.

About the Book:

First Tales, the inaugural self-published release from Clive Barker’s Seraphim Ink is a book that contains two original stories of fantastic fiction penned by Clive when he was a young man of seventeen.
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The book begins with “The Wood on the Hill”, a short story about a bourgeois woman who is soon to learn a terrifying lesson concerning her complete disregard for anyone other than herself.

The second tale, “The Candle in the Cloud”, is a dark fantasy novella which follows three children who discover a magical candle that transports them to a world where a plague-cloud is destroying everything in its wake.

These two tales, the first ever written by Clive, are offered here for the very first time. Their production has been lovingly supervised by Clive himself to ensure that these are not mere books, but works of art to be cherished. Complete with original illustrations and appendices in select editions, First Tales is sure to delight everyone from longtime fans to new readers.

Limited: 350 signed numbered copies, in slipcase: $125
Trade: Hardcover Edition: Our Copies Sold Out

Table of Contents:

• The Candle in the Cloud (novella)
• The Wood on the Hill (short story, with illustrations exclusive to the limited edition, by Clive, from 1971)
• Appendix (exclusive to the limited edition)

Please Note: This title is now sold out.

After shipping out the initial wave of copies of Neil Gaiman's The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains, we have a few extras left, with no plans to reorder.

About the Book:

Beautifully illustrated by renowned artist Eddie Campbell, this is a four-color edition of Neil Gaiman’s award-winning novelette “The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains”—a haunting story of family, the otherworld, and a search for hidden treasure.

The text of “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains” was first published in the collection Stories: All New Tales. This gorgeous full-color illustrated book version was born of a unique collaboration between writer Neil Gaiman and artist Eddie Campbell, who brought to vivid life the characters and landscape of Gaiman’s story.

In August 2010, The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains was performed in the concert hall of the Sydney Opera House to a sell-out crowd—Gaiman read his tale live as Campbell’s magnificent artwork was presented, scene by scene, on large screens. Narrative and art were accompanied by live music composed and performed especially for the story by the FourPlay String Quartet.

Trade: Hardcover with a cloth spine and pictorial boards: $22

As many of you know, we lost Lucius Shepard earlier this year. I've been reading Lucius regularly since 1983, so I'll miss his voice, lush descriptions, depictions of down-at-their-heels characters, and, most especially, his stories of the Dragon Griaule, the mile-long dragon who may live on in a dormant state.

Lucius may be gone, but we have what may be a final gift from him: Beautiful Blood, which, at nearly 70,000 words, is the longest tale about Griaule.

About the Book:

Lucius Shepard’s Beautiful Blood is something both special and long awaited: the first novel-length exploration of the world of the Dragon Griaule. It’s a subject that has preoccupied Shepard since the publication of “The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule” in 1984, and he has returned to it repeatedly over the years, though never before in such a mesmerizing, all-encompassing fashion.

Like the initial tale, Beautiful Blood begins in the 1850s in the town of Teocinte, in a world “separated from our own by the thinnest margin of possibility.” It is a landscape whose dominant feature is the massive, long-dormant body of an ancient dragon that has lain there, motionless, for millennia, exerting a powerful but mysterious influence on the surrounding area. The novel tells the story of Richard Rosacher, an ambitious young medical student who becomes fascinated by the properties inherent in the dragon’s blood. His exploitation of those properties launches him on a career that leads him from the shabbiest quarter of Teocinte to a morally ambiguous position of power, wealth, and influence. Beautiful Blood takes us though the entire length of that career, which is marked throughout by the invisible agency of Griaule, who may well be the driving force behind Rosacher’s astonishing ascension.

The novel also encapsulates the events of the initial Griaule story, events that dovetail neatly with the current tale. Meric Cattanay, the eponymous protagonist of “The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule,” makes a welcome reappearance here. Meric’s decades-long involvement with the dragon begins at roughly the same time as Rosacher’s. Their stories proceed along parallel but independent lines that occasionally intersect, providing us with a view of familiar events wider and deeper than any we have had before. The result is a colorful, involving narrative with profound metaphysical overtones, one that raises—but does not answer—significant questions. Is the dragon merely a bizarre but entirely natural phenomenon? Or is he/it the manifestation of some divine purpose? And to what extent are the actions of men like Meric and Rosacher the reflections of its implacable but enigmatic will? Questions such as these animate the narrative at every turn, adding an extra level of resonance to one of the most original and important fictional creations of recent years.

Limited: 1000 numbered copies, fully bound in cloth: $40

From Publishers Weekly:

“In 1984, the late Shepard (1943–2014) began telling tales of Teocinte, the city growing in the shadows of the enormous, paralyzed dragon Griaule. Griaule’s 30-year story comes to an end in this novel, which runs parallel to Shepard’s other Griaule stories… The volume brings the Griaule cycle to a very satisfying conclusion, leaving the reader wishing that Shepard had lived to tell more tales.”

We're pleased to announce that the Signed Limited Edition of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's most recent novel, The Prisoner of Heaven, is in stock and shipping. (In fact, in a spasm of extreme efficiency, our warehouse has already sent out all preorders for the numbered edition.)

As is usual with one of Carlos' titles, Prisoner is a highlight of the year, with a number of high end features:

• Printed in two colors on 80# Finch;
• Full color and duotone illustrations by Vincent Chong;
• Deckled Edges;
• A "hidden" image on the reverse side of the dust jacket;

About the Book:

Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s “secret history of Barcelona” continues, to mesmerizing effect, in The Prisoner of Heaven, the third installment in his steadily deepening portrait of an endlessly fascinating city, at the heart of which lies the mysterious and seductive Cemetery of Forgotten Books.

The story begins, appropriately enough, in a bookstore, when Daniel Sempere (a figure familiar to readers of The Shadow of the Wind) encounters a mysterious stranger who leaves an enigmatic message for Fermin Romero de Torres, Daniel’s oldest and closest friend. That message leads to a series of revelations regarding Fermin’s previously undisclosed past. Those revelations move the story from its point of departure in 1957 to the darker, more oppressive Barcelona of 1940, when the brutal Fascist regime of Generalissimo Francisco Franco assumed undisputed leadership of Spain. What follows is a political horror story that involves Fermin, a corrupt prison administrator, and imprisoned novelist David Martin, whose Faustian bargain formed the central thread of Zafon’s 2009 novel, The Angel’s Game. The story Fermin tells, which encompasses murder, literary fraud, and a hidden cache of stolen money, reaches from the squalor of a subterranean cell into Daniel’s own life, illuminating some previously obscure corners of his troubled family history.

The Prisoner of Heaven is sure to speak directly to admirers of Umberto Eco, Arturo Perez-Reverte, and Alexandre Dumas, whose The Count of Monte Cristo plays a significant role in the narrative. But it should also appeal to anyone with a taste for elegant, suspenseful storytelling filled with color, drama, and unexpected turnings. This is popular fiction at its absolute best, a book that no one but Carlos Ruiz Zafon could have written.

The Prisoner of Heaven, like The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel’s Game before it, has become an international phenomenon, a best-seller in dozens of countries. Subterranean Press is proud to publish this deluxe limited edition, which will feature a fine paper (80# Finch), deluxe cloth, a sewn binding, and be printed in two colors throughout.

The Lettered Edition will be hand bound in the finest materials, housed in a handmade clamshell traycase.

Limited: 500 numbered copies, bound in premium cloth, printed in two colors throughout, with both two-color and full-color illustrations, signed by the author: $125

Lettered: 26 copies, handbound in the finest material, signed by the author, housed in a custom traycase: $500

Three new books have just made their merry way to the printer:

• Dead Beat (Jim Butcher);
• We Can Remember it for You Wholesale (Philip K. Dick);
• Black Hat Jack (Joe R. Lansdale);

As a reminder, the exclusive preorder period for Dead Beat ends July 31. After that, we'll send a newsletter out to our email list, opening ordering up to everyone.

Once again, Jon Foster has hit it out of the park with his cover for Brandon Sanderson's Legion: Skin Deep, which is twice as long as its predecessor. Jon's at work on the two full-color interior illustrations, which we'll share as soon as they're in hand.

Limited: 2500 numbered copies, bound in leather, signed by the author: $45

Charles Stross' new Laundry Files novella, Equoid, is in our warehouse, merely awaiting its turn in the shipping queue. We're pleased to let you know that we have order for hundreds more copies than are in the first printing—and we don't plan any subsequent printings at this time. Now's your best chance to pick up a copy of the Trade Hardcover. Once we start filling wholesale and large online retail orders, we'll pull the Trade Edition from the site, leaving only a not robust stock level of the Signed Limited Edition.

About the Book:

For Bob Howard, a working day tends to alternate between desperately trying not to fall asleep in committee meetings and being menaced by tentacular horrors from beyond spacetime. That’s because Bob works for the Laundry, the secret British government agency tasked with protecting the realm from occult nightmares. So when his manager Iris sends him off to the countryside to liaise with a veterinary inspector from the Department of the Environment, Fisheries, and rural Affairs, at first he takes it as a pleasant vacation. But why is Edgebaston Farm’s livery stable buying a hundred kilos of raw meat per day? Why does his briefing file contain the death-bed confession of that old fraud, H. P. Lovecraft? And why is his contact from DEFRA so deathly afraid of unicorns…?

Limited: 350 signed numbered copies, bound in leather: $60
Trade: Fully cloth bound hardcover edition: $35

From Publishers Weekly:

Stross’s Hugo-nominated Laundry Files novella, first published in Tor.com in 2013, is an entertaining mash-up of Lovecraftian mythology and an extremely twisted take on a fantasy trope… Laundry Files fans accustomed to more action-oriented spy riffs might be a little disturbed by the horror elements, but if they can stomach it, there’s plenty of traditional action (including a car chase and a close-quarters zombie fight) and Stross’s trademark wit.

We're currently in the middle of shipping Joe Abercrombie's Red Country, a long standalone in the epic world he created for The First Law trilogy, and continued in the revenge thriller, Best Served Cold. Red Country's probably the best place to ease yourself into Joe's imagination, one in which long-time Abercrombie fans will revel in his take on the western, populated with a new band of misbegotten souls, and the return of some old favorites, while newcomers will experience one of the darkest, most fertile imaginations on display today.

About the Book:

Shy South hoped to bury her bloody past and ride away smiling, but she’ll have to sharpen up some bad old ways to get her family back, and she’s not a woman to flinch from what needs doing.  She sets off in pursuit with only a pair of oxen and her cowardly old step father Lamb for company.  But it turns out Lamb’s buried a bloody past of his own.  And out in the lawless Far Country, the past never stays buried.

Their journey will take them across the barren plains to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feud, duel and massacre, high into the unmapped mountains to a reckoning with the Ghosts.  Even worse it will force them into alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, and his feckless lawyer, Temple, two men no one should ever have to trust…

Limited: 500 signed numbered hardcover copies: $80

We're pleased to bring Thomas Ligotti's most sought after (and expensive) book, The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein, and Other Gothic Tales, into print in an affordable ebook edition.

About the Book:

The majority of the pieces in The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein, and Other Gothic Tales feature characters and storylines that have previously made appearances, sometimes many times over, throughout the history of supernatural horror. This is not unusual. Like cannibals or vampires, authors have fed off the flesh and blood of one another’s creations in various ways. Even if the intent is not monstrous or malign in the manner of the aforementioned beings, this practice is as old as literature itself.

In the early 1980s, Thomas Ligotti began exercising his auctorial right to revive familiar figures from the ancient literary line. Naturally, those he selected belonged to the lineage of his chosen genre, that is, horror fiction. Among them were the physical freaks fashioned by mad scientists, including those in H. G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau and the distinguished man of parts known only as Frankenstein’s monster. As is commonly the case with horror writers, Ligotti displays a tendency to sympathize with the miscreations that emerged from Moreau’s and Frankenstein’s laboratories rather than with their creators. Nevertheless, as an artist of horror, he was also bound to the signal emotion of his genre. The solution to these this seeming conflict was to depict the dreadfulness of the misguided efforts of the fictional scientists—who, after all, were pitifully mad—and to make the awful fates of all concerned more awful still.

One critic described the Ligotti’s revisionary designs in The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein as amounting to “an apotheosis of pain.” Seemingly this was the case, even though others regarded the book as no more than a playful diversion. If the endings of the originals were quite terrible, those of these new tellings attempt renderings that are even more terrible. As with the physical horrors of the section titled “Three Scientists,” whom Ligotti gave an extra turn on the rack, those of such metaphysical aberrations as Dracula, the Wolf Man, sundry malicious revenants, and other-dimensional critters and phantasms as devised by Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft also became the source of nightmares with as much pain and tragedy as the present writer could put into them.

In addition to the deranged or diabolical actors in stories well-known to seekers after horror, Ligotti has provided newly fabricated accounts to express a greater variety of pain. Much in the style of the older agonies, these take the reader into realms of pathos that may also be found elsewhere in his published work of the same period.

As an addendum, it should be said this edition The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein, and Other Gothic Tales contains the revised and definitive incarnations of earlier versions of these works as they appeared in Fantasy Macabre, Grimoire, and other little magazines of horror, the Silver Scarab edition of Songs of a Dead Dreamer (1985), and the 1994 Silver Salamander collection of the same name.