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June 2007 News round-up
Posted by Peter Crowther on June 16th, 2007 at 13:00
I know, I know… it’s been far too long since we sat down and chatted about what’s happening in the wild and wacky world of PS Publishing. But here we are, with a few things to report and craving your forgiveness for the lapse in communications.
First off, Postscripts #10: this 352-page monster has been a huge success and we’re hoping that folks will subscribe or at least pick up copies when the mag is its more usual (and more modest) 144 pages.
Its launch – and our appearance – at the World Horror Convention in Toronto in March went down extremely well, as did the first glimpse of the trade edition of Stephen King‘s The Colorado Kid plus debuts for the first two volumes in our complete short story cycle from Ed Gorman, Steve Erikson‘s The Lees of Laughter’s End and the special 100-copy volume The Collected Stories of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, Vol #1 (which is sold out already), Conrad Williams‘s The Scalding Rooms, Richard Parks‘s Hereafter, And After and Robert Edric‘s The Mermaids.
My thanks go to Raymond Alexander for representing PS in the bookroom and for handling the launch at the Merril Collection; and to Rodger Turner, who was a constant source of help, advice and good companionship throughout the whole event.
There have been a few glitches with Postscripts #10, though only because of my scatterbrained forgetting to send the list for slipcased copies down to the mailing house. That’s all done now and I think we’re pretty much there and everyone should now have – or soon will have – whatever it was that they ordered. As of right now, the slipcased and PPC semi-Hardcover signed editions are sold out and the paperback edition is running very low. We may decide to do a reprint and we may not – watch this space.
All of you people who ordered – and paid for! – copies of The Colorado Kid deserve medals for your patience and forebearance as the original publication date of late March drifted into April, and then into May and here we are in June with nary a sign of the darned thing. Well, no… that’s not true. We just received word that copies of all editions will be at the mailing house on Tuesday 19th June and we’re hoping to get all the orders sent out by the end of the month (the month of June that is, unbelievers!)… or as close to it as jazz.
Also coming up are Jack Dann‘s Promised Land and Philip José Farmer and Danny Adams‘s The City Beyond Play, both available next month, plus Lucius Shepard‘s Dagger Key and Other Stories. We’re a little behind where we’d ideally like to be on Lucius’s book but it’s for a very understandable reason: China Miéville, who’s doing the Introduction, is presently spending as much time as possible with his mother, who’s very seriously ill. I’m sure you’ll all join with us in sending your thoughts and best wishes to China and his mum. (We have managed to produce a special limited paperback edition – sans Intro, of course – of the book for ReaderCon… just 50 copies, so it’ll be a case of first come, first served at the event.)
We must also ask you to spare a thought for Michael and Jeri Bishop on the loss of their son, Jamie… and to Jamie’s widow, Stefanie. Jamie was killed by the gunman at Virginia Tech in April – one more senseless slaying in a world that seems filled to bursting with them. I can only guess as to how that loss must feel. (For those who don’t know, Jamie was a marvellous artist and designer… as can be seen from his work on the cover of his dad Mike’s book of essays A Reverie for Mister Ray that PS put out a couple of years back.)
Okay, other stuff: Harlan Ellison has just finished signing the tip sheets for our anniversary edition of Ellison Wonderland and Bob Silverberg is, even as we speak, writing the Introduction with one hand and signing HIS tip sheets with the other. We’ll soon be sending sheets out to Lawrence Block and his Introducer, Spider Robinson for Random Walk, and we’ve just got back in the edited files for Dandelion Wine and Summer Morning, Summer Night (the companion book to the two-volume deluxe slipcased edition).
Also just finished are the sheets for Eric Brown‘s Starship Summer (by the way, have you read Eric’s new novel from Solaris Books, HELIX? It’s a gem) and Justice & Wilbanks‘s Dead Earth: The Green Dawn.
New purchases include new novellas from Steven Erikson (Revolvo, a 30,000-word everyday tale of octopids, neanderthals and cigarettes) Steve Baxter (Starfall), Beth Bernobich (Ars Memoriae) and Eric Brown (Gilbert and Edgar on Mars) and novels from Robert Wexler (The Painting and the City), John Gribbin (Time Switch) and, from Ian Cameron Esselmont, the limited edition of the 260,000-word follow-up novel to Night of Knives entitled Return of the Crimson Guard.
We’ve also bought Darkness on the Edge, edited by Harrison Howe; a new anthology of dark tales inspired by the music of Bruce Springsteen and featuring work (bought so far!) by Lee Thomas, Michael A. Arnzen, Lorne Dixon, Gerard Houarner, Tom Piccirilli and Elizabeth Massie.
There are other things to tell you about but this should do it for now. The new website design is imminent now so we’ll leave a few things – and a couple of special announcements – for that.
It’s been good chatting with you – we’ll do it again soon, Meanwhile, look after each other… and happy reading!
Pete