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Archive for March, 2008
Out Now: ‘Random Walk’ by Lawrence Block
Posted by Darren on March 29th, 2008 at 17:28
We’re delighted to announce that copies of our re-issued edition of veteran crime scribe Lawrence Block‘s mystery novel Random Walk are currently being delivered to our despatch warehouse and should be winging their way to our pre-order customers early next week.
Heres’ the teaser text from the book, to whet your appetite:
In Rosburg, Oregon, a bartender named Guthrie Wagner responds to an inner prompting by quitting his job, walking out of town, and heading east, over the Cascades.
In Fort Wayne, Indiana, a woman named Sara Duskin realizes she’s losing her eyesight; her inner vision leads her to board a series of buses, taking her in turn to Chicago and Salt Lake City and Portland.
In Littleton, Colorado, a real-estate investor named Mark Adlon lures a clerk into the rear section of a convenience store, knocks her out with a blow to the head, then waits for her to regain consciousness before strangling her.
These and other lives connect and collide in a rich narrative that is magical and mystical and vividly real.
Lawrence Block has never written another book like Random Walk.
Neither has anybody else.
Random Walk is available to order from the PS Webstore in two editions:
- Signed, limited, slipcased hardcover – £50.00 ($100.00 approx.) 200 copies
- Hardcover – £20.00 ($40.00 approx.) 500 copies
Out Now: ‘Omega’ by Christopher Evans
Posted by Darren on March 29th, 2008 at 17:22
Omega is Christopher Evans‘ first adult science fiction novel for over ten years. It’s a story of cross-multiverse alternate history and one man’s struggle to come to terms with his crumbling identity:
Omega: an apocalyptic rumour from the Eastern Front.
Omega: something that will alter all the strategic calculations of the Earth’s great military blocs.
Omega: the code name for a weapon that may well bring doomsday with it.
But if Omega is indeed the agent that will destroy the world, that world is not our own. For this is a timeline in which World War Two never truly ended: a timeline in which Hitler died in a plane crash, Britain joined Germany in its battle against Communist Russia, and the present is an age of intermittent, but deadly, armed conflict between the USSR, the European Alliance, and the USA. The frontier regions are radioactive wastelands, nuclear winter threatens catastrophe, global confrontation could erupt again any time – and that’s before Omega is taken into account…
This is the reality experienced by Owen Meredith when an accident forces his consciousness from the England we know into the mind of his cognate self in that other darker, Europe. Switching back and forth between being plain Owen Meredith and troubled Major Owain Maredudd, Owen is faced not only with a Cold War going Hot, but with a deep crisis of identity. Who is he? Whose twisted destiny is he treading? Did the ordinary domestic life he remembers ever even take place? Perhaps the universe of Owain and Omega is merely a symptom of mental illness – but if so, why is it so urgently tangible?
Omega can be ordered in one of two editions from the PS Webstore:
- Signed, limited, slipcased hardcover – £50.00 ($100.00 approx.) 200 copies
- Hardcover – £20.00 ($40.00 approx.) 500 copies
The hardcover is in stock and will be shipping imminently. But we’re sorry to have to report that the slipcased edition will be delayed by a couple of weeks; a printing error has meant that the whole run will have to be re-done. Watch this space, we’ll keep you posted!
Out Now: ‘The Last Book’ by Zoran Zivkovic
Posted by Darren on March 29th, 2008 at 17:19
The Last Book is the brand new novel by multiple award-winning Serbian author Zoran Zivkovic and tells the tale of a mysterious tome that seems to be responsible for the demise of a number of unfortunate bibliophiles:
A series of mysterious deaths in the Papyrus Bookstore brings literature-loving police inspector Dejan Lukic to investigate. Here he meets the attractive owner, Vera Gavrilovic, and learns that the only thing the victims have in common is that in the moments before their deaths they were reading an elusive and unidentified volume – the Last Book.
As the plot thickens and the seemingly causeless deaths multiply, the National Security Agency, a secret apocalyptic sect and an exotic teashop become involved, while Dejan and Vera’s growing attachment is threatened by nightmares and ever-encroaching danger…
Is a literary madman on the loose, murdering readers according to the method laid down in The Name of the Rose? In a final race against time, Inspector Lukic must discover the secret of the Last Book and the reason why he feels as though he has already read everything that is happening to him. The extraordinary denouement reveals hidden truths about the clash of realities and the awesome power of the creative imagination.
The Last Book is available to order from the PS Webstore in two editions:
- Signed, limited, slipcased hardcover – £50.00 ($100.00 approx.) 200 copies
- Hardcover – £20.00 ($40.00 approx.) 500 copies
Dare you read it?
Finished Cover: ‘PS Showcase #2 – Conscientious Inconsistencies’ by Nancy Jane Moore
Posted by Darren on March 29th, 2008 at 17:15
Here’s the artwork for Conscientious Inconsistencies by Nancy Jane Moore; the second volume in our ‘PS Showcase’ series of mini-collections of brand new short stories by some of the best and brightest new writers on the genre fiction scene.
The instantly-recognisable style will tell you that this piece is by PS favourite Edward Miller.
PS Showcase #2: Conscientious Inconsistencies will be published in the next month or so, in two editions:
- Signed, jacketed hardcover – £25.00 / $50 (approx.) 100 copies
- Hardcover – £10.00 / $20.00 (approx.) 300 copies
Finished Cover: ‘Shrike’ by Quentin S. Crisp
Posted by Darren on March 29th, 2008 at 17:12
Another gorgeous piece of work by Vincent Chong will be gracing our edition of Quentin S. Crisp‘s novella Shrike when we publish later in the year. Here it is in all its glory:
Two editions are available to pre-order from the PS Webstore:
- Signed, jacketed hardcover – £25.00 / $50 (approx.) 200 copies
- Hardcover – £10.00 / $20.00 (approx.) 500 copies
Finished Cover: ‘Postscripts #14′ ed. by Peter Crowther & Nick Gevers
Posted by Darren on March 29th, 2008 at 17:07
Here’s the riotously colourful cover for the next edition of our award-winning Postscripts Magazine, which we’re expecting to ship to subscribers and pre-order customers in early April. The artwork – a mind-bending blend of surrealism, cubism and probably a couple more -isms besides – is by PS regular James Hannah.
Our fourteenth issue contains brand new fiction from Rhys Hughes, Paul Jessup, Guy Immega, Sarah Monette, Barry Wood, Robert Reed, William Alexander, Jetse de Vries, Jeff VanderMeer and Robert Weston.
It’s available in two editions:
- Signed, limited hardcover – £25.00 / $50 (approx.) 200 copies
- Paperback – £6.00 / $12.00 (approx.)
And don’t forget that four issue subscriptions are also available and every current and paid-up subscriber will receive a copy of our seasonal chapbook, round about the end of the year.
Finished Cover: ‘The Last Book’ by Zoran Zivkovic
Posted by Darren on March 29th, 2008 at 17:03
A deceptively simple, minimalist cover for this brand new novel by one of Serbia’s finest literary sons, Zoran Živkovic:
The Last Book is just back from the printers and will be shipping to pre-order customers in the next few days in two editions:
- Signed, limited, slipcased hardcover – £50 / $100.00 (approx.) 200 copies
- Hardcover – £20 / $40.00 (approx.) 500 copies
PS Current Catalogue and Forthcoming Titles Update
Posted by Darren on March 29th, 2008 at 17:00
We’ve been working away here at PS Towers to bring our Webstore catalogue and forthcoming title schedule for the rest of 2008 bang up-to-date.
Low Stock Warnings
The first change you’ll notice when checking the Current Catalogue page of the Webstore is the addition of a number of low and very low stock warnings.
Following our first ever sale last Autumn that ran through to the end of a very busy holiday season, we’ve carried out a full stock-check. As a result, a number of titles which are now sold out have been moved to the archive. In addition, any titles with between 11 and 20 copies in stock have been marked low stock and any title with 10 or fewer copies in stock has been marked very low stock.
So if there’s a title you’ve had your eye on for a while that’s now marked ‘very low’, you might want to get an order in sooner rather than later…
Forthcoming Schedule Update
We’ve also been through our schedule for the rest of 2008 with a fine-tooth comb and have made a few necessary adjustments. Thieving Fear by Ramsey Campbell has been brought forward and will now be published earlier than we were originally anticipating. Alas though, a few titles have suffered from what we in the trade technically term ‘slippage’ for one reason or another and will now be published a little later than we originally hoped (although having said that, they may well end up being moved forward again… these things can happen when you’re an independent publisher).
- The Babylonian Trilogy by Sébastien Doubinsky
- The City in These Pages by John Grant
- Planet of Mystery by Terry Bisson
- Harsh Oases by Paul DiFilippo
- The Painting and the City by Robert Freeman Wexler
- The Book, The Writer, The Reader by Zoran Zivkovic
- Living With the Dead by Darrell Schweitzer
- The Song of Time by Iain R. MacLeod
- Camp Desolation and an Eschatology of Salt by Uncle River
- Blue Canoe by T.M. Wright
- The Witnesses Are Gone by Joel Lane
- Billy’s Book by Terry Bisson
- Counting Tadpoles by Uncle River
We’ve also added four new titles to the forthcoming titles page of the webstore, which of course means they’re now available to pre-order:
- The Pilo Family Circus (a Novel) by Will Elliott
- PS Showcase #3: Mad Scientist Meets Cannibal by Robert Jeschonek
- PS Showcase #4: Glyphotech by Mark Samuels
- Grazing the Long Acre (a Collection) by Gwyneth Jones
Please click the book title to visit the relevant catalogue page for more information.
If you have any questions about any of the information in this article, please get in touch via the Contact Page of the Webstore.
Farewell, Sir Arthur C Clarke
Posted by Peter Crowther on March 19th, 2008 at 19:28
I got the news about Arthur C. Clarke’s death first thing this morning. ‘Today’ started (on Radio 4) and one of the announcers – it might have been John Humphreys – mentioned it just as I was spreading marmalade on my toast. I thought of all the homes that that news would be drifting into and about how tragic it is… and yet how calmly most listeners would receive it. It’s always sad when someone dies, of course, but there are certain people who, to the members of any close-knit community, should really be given an exemption card to show the Reaper when he appears at their door with that damn scythe. Arthur was one of them.
Ken Slater, much loved book dealer (Fantast Medway and, latterly, Operation Fantast) and, I seem to recall, a founder member of the British Fantasy Society and a member of First Fandom (that rare and exclusive band of SF-ers who were around at the genre’s Big Bang) was another; Ken died last month. Both of them were 90 years old; not a bad innings, as they say… but I hated being ‘out’ when I played cricket, no matter how many runs I’d notched up.
In the early 1960s I could be found tramping around the corridors of Leeds Grammar School, age 12 or so, with a paperback stuffed into my blazer pocket. The paperbacks – mostly Ballentines and Pyramids, and Corgis and Panthers (Pan seemed to have only Charles Chilton and C. S. Lewis… curious bedfellows when you think about it) – were pretty much all SF, though Ballentine did a lovely line in ‘horror’ (Fritz Leiber’s Night’s Black Agents, John Kier Cross’s The Other Passenger and Zacherley’s two anthologies, Midnight Feast and Vampire Stew being good examples). Anyway, two of the writers whose work would so enthrall me were Ray Bradbury and Arthur C. Clarke.
Not surprisingly, then, this past few years have been particularly rewarding for me here at PS. First we republished Ray’s R is for Rocket and S is for Space, with a new Intro by Arthur (we’re currently doing several more of Ray’s finest works) and then – just a few months ago, in fact – we re-published an all-time fave of mine, Arthur’s Tales From the White Hart… with a brand new story from Arthur and Stephen Baxter. Alas, it’s the last White Hart story that’ll carry Arthur’s byline.
All of us here at PS wish him well on that final journey. I trust it’s as exciting and as enigmatic in reality as it was on the big screen. And when he gets there – wherever ‘there’ may be – I’m sure Ken will buy him a drink.
Out Now: ‘The Situation’ by Jeff VanderMeer
Posted by Darren on March 19th, 2008 at 19:20
Our limited edition of Jeff VanderMeer‘s brand new chapbook novelette, The Situation is back from the printers, in-stock at our despatch warehouse and is shipping now to pre-order customers.
As you will probably have heard, we recently teamed up with Wired.com’s GeekDad blog to give away a pdf copy of the entire text of The Situation and if you’re interested in trying before you buy, that download is still available over at blog.wired.com/geekdad.
As a result of the coverage, the book has been selling very strongly indeed, particularly the 200-copy only signed, numbered, jacketed hardcover edition, so we’re really not kidding when we say that if you want to secure a copy you’ll need to get your order in fast!
And now, a quick note from our publisher, Peter Crowther:
It’s mea culpa time, folks. We’ve just noticed, with a fair degree of embarrassment, that the signing sheet for the limited edition of The Situation states that there will be ’200 slipcased signed hardcovers of this book, plus 500 unsigned hardcovers’. Well, the truth is that we mixed up the text from a signing sheet for a different PS title, and the signed hardcovers will not be slipcased… just as it has said all along on the website.
Of course, right now, everyone is happy with that – nobody is expecting a slipcase – but, of course, as soon as the pre-ordered books start plopping onto hallway mats and into creaky old tin rfd mailboxes, everywhere from here (just a couple of streets away is a brand-new regular customer), to all over the USA, to Australia, to North Korea (I kid you not! PS straddles the globe…) then people are going to be phoning wondering where their darn slipcase is.
Well, now you know: there weren’t any. Looks like I ducked out of too many lectures on that ‘Publishing 101′ course! Note to self: must do better in future. Apologies for any confusion caused!
Best wishes
Contrite Crowther
Out Now: ‘The Luminous Depths’ by David Herter, plus PS acquires ‘One Who Disappeared’
Posted by Darren on March 18th, 2008 at 14:59
David Herter‘s new novella – The Luminous Depths, sequel to his 2006 PS debut On the Overgrown Path is now available and shipping to pre-order customers in two editions:
- Hardcover, £10.00 ($20.00 approx.)
- Signed, Jacketed Hardcover, £25.00 ($50.00 approx.)
The novella features as one of its main characters the Czech writer and 1936 Nobel Prize Nominee Karel Čapek. In a recent blog post, David has compiled a sampling of Čapek’s work, and he also presents extracts from the selected pieces in further posts.
We’re also delighted to announce that PS Publishing has acquired the final book in this superb trilogy. One Who Disappeared will be a novel rather than a novella and will be published in 2010. Full details will be added to the catalogue in due course.
PS Publishing acquires new steampunk novella ‘The Baby Killers’ by Jay Lake
Posted by Darren on March 18th, 2008 at 14:25
PS Publishing is delighted to announce our first acquisition of 2008: The Baby Killers by US author Jay Lake, a brand new novella that we’ve scheduled for publication in 2010.
PS commissioning editor Nick Gevers said of the book: “With The Baby Killers, Jay Lake puts the ‘punk’ back in steampunk (never fear, there’s quite a bit of steam as well…)
“Written in a style which recalls the Victoriana-that-never-was spirit of the steampunk movement, this novella offers a wild ride through the streets of Philadelphia in 1907, when that city serves as the seat of the British Dominion of the Americas.
“Villains and heroes, for the most part indistinguishable from one another, battle over a restaging of the Fall of Innocence. The strangest parts of this story are straight from the history books – only Lake could combine Doukhobors and Le Pétomane, fartiste extraordinaire of the French stage, into one raging, rampaging explosion of technology, morality and clanking good fun.”
We’ll be adding details to the catalogue in due course.
Win a proof / ARC of ‘The Return of the Crimson Guard’ with Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist
Posted by Darren on March 16th, 2008 at 10:19
We’ve teamed up with top fantasy blogger Pat St Denis of the legendary Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist to give away one ultra-rare proof / advanced reading copy of our forthcoming Ian Cameron Esslemont novel, The Return of the Crimson Guard, sequel to his debut Night of Knives.
Both Night of Knives and Return of the Crimson Guard are set in the same world made hugely popular by Steven Erikson’s Malazan Books of the Fallen, which Esslemont and Erikson co-created.
Return of the Crimson Guard has such a huge page count that we’re publishing our limited, true first edition in a two-volume slipcased edition, priced £75.00 (£150.00 approx.) and proof copies will be incredibly rare, so make sure you enter the competition sooner rather than later…
‘Basil Copper: A Life in Books’ launch event – great time had by all!
Posted by Peter Crowther on March 14th, 2008 at 11:49
The launch of Stephen Jones‘s marvellous Basil Copper: A Life in Books went swimmingly on Saturday 23rd Feb, thanks in no small way to the book’s editor (and Mandy Slater, who was allergied up to the eyebrows on the night of the event and unable to attend) and, of course, those tried-and-tested stalwarts of the British Fantasy Society.
Basil was a real sweetie and we also had contributors Randy Broecker, Les Edwards, Mike Marshall Smith and, of course, Steve himself signing copies… and even I got roped in to sign a few as publisher.
Fantastic turnout with appearances from master anthologist Hugh Lamb, plus Paul McAuley, Kim Newman, Andrew Hook, Sarah Pinborough, Allen Ashley, David Sutton, Christopher Fowler, Mark Samuels and many others… not least BFS regulars Peter and Jan Coleborn, Paul and Marie Kane, Sylvia Starshine and Gary Couzens. Nice too to see Suzanne Barbieri again (Hi Suzanne) though we were sorry to miss out on husband Richard, who was in ‘training’ for an important tennis match (for those who don’t know, Richard is keyboard-player for the remarkable Porcupine Tree, who feature regularly on the CD players dotted around Crowther Towers).
Manning (personing? personning?) the sales counter were Amanda Foubister (welcome to Blighty, Amanda) ably assisted by Nicky Crowther. A real hoot of a night… though I’m pleased I don’t need to do it every week!
Here are a few pics taken on the evening by Peter Coleborn (many thanks to Peter for permission to reproduce them here!):
And event attendee Gary Power has posted a number of pictures from the evening over at his website, www.GarysStrangeWorld.com. Thanks Gary!
Jack Dann’s ‘Rings Around the Moon’ shortlisted for 2008 Darrell Award
Posted by Darren on March 12th, 2008 at 10:26
The Darrell Awards are given annually by the Mid-South Science Fiction & Fantasy Association (MSSFFA) for the Best Midsouth SF/F/H fiction in Short Story, Novella, Novel and Other Media categories.
This year, Jack Dann has been shortlisted in the Best novella category for Rings Around the Moon, which we published last year in our Promised Land collection.
This year’s winners will be presented at Midsouthcon on Saturday, March 29, 2008. Good luck, Jack!
Download Jeff VanderMeer’s ‘The Situation’, FREE, from Wired.com
Posted by Darren on March 5th, 2008 at 9:39
Canadian journalist Brad Moon has interviewed Jeff and Ann VanderMeer for Wired.com’s GeekDad blog and to mark the occasion, we’ve supplied a pdf copy of Jeff’s forthcoming chapbook / novelette, The Situation and made it available as a free download from the blog.wired.com/geekdad article.
That’s right folks, if you’d like to try before you buy, simply head on over and grab the pdf, then put the printer on or transfer the file to your e-reader of choice. Once you’re done, high-tail it over to the PS Webstore to place your pre-order; the book should be back from the printers and shipping at the end of the third week in March.
Quick word to the wise: we’re only printing 200 copies of the signed, numbered, jacketed hardcover edition and around a hundred of those are already accounted for by pre-order customers, so you may have to be quick to secure your copy.