Dust jacket by Dave McKean
Interior color plates by Vincent Chong (Limited and Lettered Edition)

This title replaces The Best of Subterranean Press on our schedule. While attempting to select stories for that volume, we decided instead to look to the future with an original anthology

Fantasy comes in all shades, from gentle tales of elves and fairies, to the blackest of horrors. Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy tends toward the darker edges, where the fantastic mixes with the horrific. With all original tales by a number of SubPress favorites, and writers new to our stable, we’ve aimed to illuminate these shadowed corners, to bring into the light the creatures that venture forth from the sea, those that alter our reality to suit their sinister needs, and others who head into territory so bleak it’s best left undescribed.

Accompanying Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy will be an exclusive chapbook of one of Joe Hill’s signature tales, “Thumbprint,” thus far only available in the excellent UK magazine, Postscripts.

Vincent Chong will be supplying a suitably atmospheric cover for this 10,000 word story.

Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy will be available in two unique editions:

Limited: Bound in leather and cloth, housed in a custom slipcase, with three full color plates, signed by most contributors
Trade: Fully cloth bound edition

Table of Contents:

-- “Caverns of Mystery” by Kage Baker
-- “The Gulf” by Poppy Z. Brite
-- “Face” by Mike Carey
-- “Thumbprint” by Joe Hill (a separate chapbook)
-- "The Steam Dancer" by Caitlin R. Kiernan
-- “It Washed Up” by Joe R. Lansdale
-- “The Hour of Babel” by Tim Powers
-- “Alastair Baffles Emporium of Wonders” by Mike Resnick
-- “The Road to Levinshir” by Patrick Rothfuss
-- “The Lunatic Miss Teak” by Darren Speegle
-- “Penguins of the Apocalypse” by William Browning Spencer
-- “Monstrous Embrace” by Rachel Swirsky

From Booklist:
"In Subterranean Press' latest collection of speculative fiction, the only common thread tying the tortured protagonists together is their origin in the darkest recesses of their creators' imaginations. With dark fantasy as the sole prerequisite, editor Schafer has gathered 11 previously unpublished tales containing a wide spectrum of nightmarish ideas... Aside from a predilection for ghoulish visions, all the contributors share a gift for sharp-edged prose that keeps the reader pleasantly perturbed for hours."

Paul di Filippo, at Barnesandnoble.com:
"Something of an in-house sampler of writers who have worked with the house before, its ambition clearly extends beyond self-publicity and showcases the wide range of possibilities within the eponymous genre."

From SFSite:
"Used as we are to themed anthologies, the title here is loose and generic enough to capture virtually any kind of genre story that has something strange in it. As such, Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy...is indeed an eclectic mix of works, but it is the consistent excellence of the material that gives this collection its cohesion as much as the fantasy content of the stories."