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Archive for December, 2008
Wednesday reviews roundup for 24th December
Posted by Paul Raven on December 24th, 2008 at 10:46
Season’s greetings, folks! For those of you still trawling the intertubes today (be it at home, or in the workplace with one eye on the clock), here is a final flurry of reviews of from the last week:
Theaker’s Quarterly #26 features three PS titles in its review section. Here we go…
The City in These Pages by John Grant:
Of the books I have read, this reminded me most of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. Admittedly that’s the book around which the rest of the literary universe revolves for me at the moment – I did go a bit mad for it! – but there are similarities. Both have a world-weary tough guy teamed with a bulkier partner (here they are black and Japanese, rather than Jewish and Tlingit), and both are set in a present-day world that isn’t quite ours.
This book doesn’t quite match Chabon’s masterpiece, but it’s very enjoyable. Its only real flaw is its short length; I’d quite happily have read much more of the same. It’s more like an episode of Homicide than an episode of Columbo: you’ll be left wanting more. The conclusion left me rather conflicted… I felt rather cheated out of a proper resolution to the criminal investigation, but I was very happy with it in science fiction terms.
Living with the Dead by Darrell Schweitzer:
Having rattled through the book in a couple of hours, thinking mainly about the practicalities of what was going on, as noted above, I took a day or two to really appreciate it. It really came to life for me when I began to look around our living room and imagine bodies arranged along the walls… At that point I started to think of the book in terms of feelings and images, rather than plot, and my estimation of it went up considerably. Reading it for plot, you miss a lot; it’s a story of images and tableaux, rather than developments and revelations.
So, enough literalism… One way of reading the book is as a metaphor for life in a seaside town; somewhere like Blackpool. The dead are the holidaymakers and daytrippers, pouring into the town in their vast numbers, overwhelming the few actual inhabitants, who have to spend their whole lives catering to the needs of out-of-towners.
As a resident of a seaside town, that review’s going to put a very odd slant on Schweitzer’s book for me, I suspect!
Song of Time by Ian R MacLeod:
… though it didn’t need to be a science fiction novel, it is a very good one. There are many very interesting science fictional ideas in here, in particular with regard to post-death existence; just don’t expect raygun fights. Many traditional science fiction novels are about people taking on a rotten society and changing it; this one is more about the way people get on with life despite the way things change. It’s a very different kind of science fiction novel, but it’s a welcome departure.
[...]
Most interesting is the novel’s clear-eyed but sensitive attitude to death. What would it mean for us if it was avoidable? Would that be a good thing? Are stories with endings inherently better than those that go on for ever? MacLeod doesn’t force the reader into agreeing with his answers, but he makes his character’s final decision entirely believable.
All pretty positive stuff. Here’s Lisa Tuttle taking another look at Christopher Evans‘ Omega, this time with her Aqueduct Press hat on:
Chris Evans is a fine writer, but not a prolific or predictable one. Each one of his books is different. (To me, that seems like a good thing, but apparently not so in the publishing biz.) Characterization and ideas are two of his strengths, and although there’s generally a strong science fictional element to his work, he’s more interested in psychological and moral issues than in pyrotechnics or wild’n’crazy plots. Omega could almost be a mainstream novel – almost – about one man’s mental breakdown and recovery…. yet it is also, just as strongly, a novel about alternate worlds/alternate history, and it has a really terrific hard-science (or wacky science?) idea at its core. I was especially impressed by the way ideas about war and masculinity were put under scrutiny: the main character is an expert on warcraft – in one world he’s the creator of a TV series about famous battles; in the other, he’s a real soldier, in a grim, unending war – but not so good at personal relationships.
Next, Mike O’Driscoll takes on Douglas Smith‘s Impossibilia for The Fix Online:
In his elegant and perceptive introduction to this latest showcase collection from PS Publishing, Chaz Brenchley reminds us that “the proper focus of a story, any story, lies in the characters that inhabit it.”
In the three novelettes that comprise Impossibilia, Douglas Smith attempts—and on the whole, succeeds—in laying bare the psychological and emotional fragility that motivates his characters.
Meanwhile, Matt Denault of Strange Horizons gets busy with Zoran Živković‘s The Last Book:
By thematic necessity, Živković’s surface story is more ironic; its pathos is generated by the very rarity of the glimpses it offers of humanity transcending its allotted roles in the story. It thus cannot not be judged completely successful by the standard of its own examples, being only half of an argument: The Last Book never offers itself as an argument for a world that appreciates the type of story it holds up as ideal. As an argument, though, it does have the ascribed characteristic of serious literature that it rewards investigation, requires it to be appreciated fully. The Last Book makes the reader a detective, and supplies the reason for doing so in its rejection of pat answers and packaged narratives. The success of Živković’s novel ultimately lies in how artfully it reminds us that while we often speak of nuanced narrative as depicting shades of gray rather than mere black and white, the world itself is full of colors.
And finally, Charles “Unstoppable Reading Machine” Tan found a copy of Jeff VanderMeer‘s The Situation that he’d forgotten all about:
The fiction is presented in short burst of scenes, each one as evocative and compelling as the one that preceded it. The bizarreness of it all seems like the perfect analog to the corporate environment where one slaves away their time working for rich employers although in this case, it is filtered through the lens of the surreal and the fantastic. Vandermeer is consistent all throughout, creating apt analogies for the toxic workplace.
Wow, that’s quite a selection! Click through on the cover images to go to the catalogue pages for the books in question… and have a browse around while you’re there! We’ve got plenty of good stuff just waiting to be ordered – not to mention much more to come in 2009, our tenth anniversary year.
And so, on behalf of all the PS Publishing crew, let me wish you all a festive holiday and a happy new year! Take care…
Tenth anniversary special offers from PS Publishing for 2009
Posted by Peter Crowther on December 18th, 2008 at 12:00
Hi everyone!
2009 is a bit of a milestone for PS Publishing inasmuch as it’ll mark our tenth anniversary. We’re excited — and we’re still planning a few new touches — but we’ve already got lots of celebratory deals in the offing.
Just for a start, all books added to the ordering pages of the website from 1 January 2009 onwards will be free of any postage and packing charges when you order and pay for them prior to publication. The postage charges will be applied to the titles as soon as they’re received from the printers.
Anniversary Gift Boxes
We’re also giving folks a grand opportunity to get their hands on some of our back catalogue for a special 10th anniversary knock-down price. We’re offering 10 trade-edition novellas at £40 (instead of £100) plus postage* or 10 of the jacketed-hardcover editions for £100 (usually £250) plus postage*.
On our bigger books (collections, novels etc.), we’re offering 10 of the trade editions at £100 (they were originally published at £20, £25 and £35 each) or 10 of the slipcased editions at £200 (these first saw the light of day at £50 and £60)… both plus postage* to be added. Please note that orders for specific titles cannot be considered — we’ll pick them, but they’ll all be different.
This Anniversary Gift Box offer applies only to PS titles published before January 2008 and it’ll be available all year long throughout 2009… or while stocks last. All remaining copies of pre-2008 titles will revert to full price on 1 January 2010, but you can order a Gift Box right away using the links below!
- Anniversary Gift Box: 10 trade novellas – £40 [ $60 approx. ]
- Anniversary Gift Box: 10 jacketed hardcover novellas – £100 [ $150 approx. ]
- Anniversary Gift Box: 10 trade novels – £100 [ $150 approx. ]
- Anniversary Gift Box: 10 slipcased novels – £200 [ $300 approx. ]
(*Postage will be a flat £15 for UK customers and £25 for anyone ordering from outside the UK.)
New titles for Christmas
Today PS will be taking delivery of Joe Hill‘s Gunpowder, Terry Bisson‘s Planet of Mystery, the latest winter chapbook for Postscripts subscribers (Ramsey Campbell‘s The Long Way), the paperback edition of Postscripts #17, and the special three-book gift set of Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree, The October Country and Something Wicked This Way Comes.
We aim to get as many copies as we can out to customers before Christmas hits us but, particularly with a proposed strike in the offing by Royal Mail, I’m doubtful that we’ll manage more than those customers who live in the UK. But let’s see how we get on.
(The hardcover editions of both Postscripts #16 and #17 are still delayed as we await signing sheets. They’re well on their way now, after a couple of delays, so those will be going out in January.)
The Land at the End of the Working Day
PS Publishing always espouses an air of rivalry with our competitors but, without exception, it’s good-natured — so we took no satisfaction whatsoever when the lovely folks at Humdrumming closed their doors.
In an attempt to help their somewhat debilitated cashflow, we bought the remaining copies of my own The Land at the End of the Working Day quartet of novelettes (all of them signed and numbered by me and featuring individual introductions from Elizabeth Hand, Joe Hill, Ian McDonald and Lucius Shepard) and, as a one-off, we’re offering these on the PS website at just £12 (less than half the original list price). Post and packing will be charged extra as usual. There aren’t many left, so move fast!
- The Land at the End of the Working Day by Pete Crowther: signed and numbered hardcover – £12 [ $18 approx. ]
Apologia – Crowther screws up again!
Keen followers of the now almost traditional PS typographical goof-up may already have noticed I dropped the ball once again with our editions of The Day it Rained Forever and A Medicine for Melancholy in the sumptuous deluxe two-book set from Ray Bradbury.
The plain fact is that the artist for … Melancholy is Chris Roberts (who produced the cover for The Pilo Family Circus and the upcoming The Babylonian Trilogy) — we credited the work to PS-fave Tomislav Tikulin, who did the illustration for The Day it Rained Forever. Chris, our sincere apologies for omitting your name from the copyrights page — the fault is, alas, mine entirely. Back to solitary for another few weeks…
More developments on Secret Histories
And talking of cover artists, the kudos for Powers: Secret Histories goes to John Berlyne and Dirk Berger (sorry for dropping you, Dirk).
Still on the subject of Secret Histories, John Berlyne’s charm and persuasive personality have done it again. The rascal has persuaded Tim to produce a brand-new face doodle for each of the 26 copies of our super-deluxe three-volume edition, meaning that each of the cases will carry a unique and original piece of artwork! Now… how cool is that! Not many of these unreserved, so pre-order now while you still can:
- Powers: Secret Histories super-deluxe edition – £495 [ $742.50 approx. ]
Who is this who is coming…
And finally, what would Christmas be without a spooky story? And what’s a spooky story without the incomparable M. R. James? And of James’s work, his remarkable “Oh Whistle And I’ll Come To You, My Lad” is, for me, one of the field’s most chilling pieces. Well, the good news for anyone who’s likely to find themselves around London between now and 4 January is that Robert Lloyd Parry (see photo) is bringing a seasonal shiver to London, with his retelling of that very tale… plus the author’s “The Ash Tree”.
We haven’t seen the production ourselves — yet! — but Parry’s background gives us cause for excitement (his last one-man show picked up The Dracula Society’s prestigious Hamilton Deane Award) so we felt we should pass on the details.
The show started a couple of weeks ago and runs until Sunday 4 January 2009, with a daily performance at 8pm (but do note that there are no performances on 22, 25, 26, 29 and 31 December or 1 January). The venue is Barons Court’s Theatre, The Curtain’s Up Pub, 28a Comeragh Road, West Kensington, London W14 9HP. The box office number is 020 8932 4747, or you can e-mail them at londontheatre@gmail.com … or just check the website at www.nunkie.co.uk
Maybe I’ll see you there!
***
That’s it for this time — have a fab Christmas… and may the new year bring you all the health, happiness and success you could possibly wish for. Look after each other… and happy reading!
Seasonal best wishes
Pete
Wednesday reviews roundup for 17th December
Posted by Paul Raven on December 17th, 2008 at 9:07
Wednesday’s here again! Two recent PS novellas have been reviewed by Peter Tennant in his capacious column for issue #8 of Black Static, TTA Press‘s horror magazine, and he seems to have been pretty impressed by them. First off, Darrell Schwietzer‘s Living With the Dead:
This is, as Tim Lebbon observes in his introduction, a clever book before it is anything else. Schweitzer’s intelligence shines through in the delicate, interlocking web that he constructs with such skill. The stories shift and change, reinventing themselves as more information is supplied. They dance around each other, as the dead dance in the night time streets of Old Corpsenberg. Phrases, images and motifs recur. The dead, when they arrive, are always heaped on the wharf like fish. The same four figures always parade around the clock-tower. The order of things must be preserved is a phrase that is repeated over and over again, like a litany or spell to keep away harm. The characters in one story reveal more about the events in another, so that we see the same things happening, but from a different perspective.
Second, Tennant introduces his review of Nicholas Royle‘s The Enigma of Departure with the phrase “I’ve kept the best to last”, before going on to say:
More than most The Enigma of Departure is a book that is the sum of its effects, and those effects are diverse and many. Royle writes with feeling and insight of human relationships, of childhood and family, love and despair, history and art, and brooding over all is death, departure. He brings a wealth of ideas to the table, making Enigma a book that can be read many times and some new discovery made on each reading, with the perceptions of the reader as vital as the writer’s input. It is perhaps the best work in the short form that I have seen from Nicholas Royle and I loved it.
I think we can file that one in the ‘positive’ drawer, don’t you? Both of the above titles are ready for purchase from the PS Webstore – click through on the cover images to make your selection!
Catastrophia progress
Posted by Paul Raven on December 16th, 2008 at 10:40
A brief update from Allen Ashley regarding the work-in-progress on the Catastrophia anthology:
The BBC are showing a remake of ‘Survivors’ and talking about having another stab at ‘Day of the Triffids’. Catastrophe and disaster stories have never been out of fashion as far as I’m concerned but it seems that Catastrophia the anthology is riding the zeitgeist. On which timely note, thank you to everybody who has submitted so far – you have kept me very busy reading and considering your manuscripts. I am sticking firmly to my response period of within three months. A few stories have been held for further consideration and I expect to make a few more acceptances very soon.
In case you missed out on the initial announcements, you can always pop back and check out the details of the selection criteria for Catastrophia.
Two PS stories in Rich Horton’s Best of the Year anthologies
Posted by Paul Raven on December 11th, 2008 at 9:00
More cause for celebration! Two PS authors have made their way onto the hallowed TOCs of Rich Horton’s Best of the Year 2009 anthologies.
Beth Bernobich‘s “The Golden Octopus” has made the cut for the Science Fiction volume; it was originally published in this summer’s Worldcon-special all-sf issue of Postscripts, namely #15. We’ve still got copies available… and with over thirty stories and essays between the covers, it’s virtually an anthology in its own right! Click through below and check it out:
- Postscripts #15 – multi-autographed slipcased hardcover [ £75 / $112.50 approx. ]
- Postscripts #15 – signed hardcover [ £30 / $45 approx. ]
- Postscripts #15 – hardcover [ £15 / $22.50 approx ]
The other of Horton’s choices was “The Hiss of Escaping Air” by Christopher Golden, which will grace the Fantasy anthology. Published as a special limited edition pamphlet to celebrate Golden’s Guest of Honour status at Fantasycon, it’s a veritable bargain at the price – not to mention very collectible. And given Horton’s selection, you can take our word that it’s a fine story as well – so click on through to the store and grab one before they’re all gone!
- The Hiss Of Escaping Air (paperback chapbook) – [ £6 / $9 approx. ]
Congratulations are in order for all the selected authors, of course. Looking at those line-ups, it’s hard to believe the nay-sayers who try to tell us that short fiction is a dead scene, isn’t it?
Wednesday reviews round-up for 10th December
Posted by Paul Raven on December 10th, 2008 at 9:00
Only one review of a PS Publishing title this week, but it’s one we’re very proud of indeed. Lisa Tuttle, writing for The Times, has picked out Christopher Evans‘ Omega as one of her five top science fiction and fantasy books of the year. Here’s what she had to say:
Outer space seems synonymous with science fiction, but for a brief period in the 1960s and 1970s the field expanded to include more experimental explorations of “inner space”. Nowadays this is rare, and the genre is the poorer for it. Christopher Evans (trained as a chemist, retrained as a science teacher) boldly uses the familiar concept of alternate realities to investigate ideas about personality, masculinity and war in his gripping, character-led psychological thriller, Omega. Although it could be read as a tale of madness, the science-fictional rationale makes it a stand-out, well-written, original and memorable read.
You can’t ask for a better recommendation than that! And sales have been strong too, so if you want to get yourself a copy, click through below right away…
- Omega (signed, limited, slipcased hardcover) – £50.00 [$75.00 approx.]
- Omega (hardcover) – £20.00 [$30.00 approx.]
Jack Dann’s The Economy of Light nominated for an Aurealis Award
Posted by Paul Raven on December 9th, 2008 at 9:00
In what must surely be the last awards-related genre fiction news of the year, we’re pleased to congratulate Jack Dann on his finalist nomination in the Aurealis Award ‘best horror novel’ category for his recent PS Publishing release, The Economy of Light.
Here’s the synopsis:
Stephen is a retired Nazi hunter, divorced yet living happily enough on his ranch on the fringe of the Amazon jungle. But when Brazilian police unearth the alleged remains of the detested Auschwitz camp doctor, Josef Mengele, Stephen’s life is immediately and traumatically transformed.
At the grave site, he falls suddenly ill, and the diagnosis is terminal cancer; a hideous skin disease adds to his woes; and the Indian couple working at the ranch soon hint that Stephen’s unresolved relationship with Mengele is the moral and spiritual core of a syndrome only superficially physical.
For Stephen as a boy was a prisoner at Auschwitz, a subject of Mengele’s horrifying medical experiments; his twin brother and his mother died there at Mengele’s hands; survivor’s guilt and mortal hatred remain unassuaged after the Doctor’s peaceful death in exile. Something must be done.
And so Stephen, accompanied by his strangely quiet and also afflicted Indian ranch foreman, Genaro, sets out to consult a rumoured miracle-working Doctor in a remote jungled region of Brazil.
The pilgrimage is arduous and hallucinatory at once; and Stephen must ready body and soul to confront his darkest, most persistent hopes and fears…
Psychological horror, Nazi experiments and Amazonian shamanism – a rare combination, I think you’ll agree. We’d be very happy to see Dann take the prize, of course, but on behalf of everyone at PS Publishing I’d like to congratulate all the nominated authors in all the categories.
Now, click through below to order a copy of The Economy of Light, and find out what all the fuss is about!
- The Economy of Light – slipcased hardcover (only 26 signed copies printed!) – [£50 / $75 approx.]
- The Economy of Light – jacketed hardcover – [£25 / $37.50 approx.]
- The Economy of Light – hardcover – [£10 / $15 approx.]
Wednesday reviews round-up for 3rd December
Posted by Paul Raven on December 3rd, 2008 at 18:44
Rather than scattering out review notification piecemeal, I thought it might make more sense to collect them up in a single post each week, so let’s consider this an experiment!
First thing to point out is that Charles Tan is some sort of inhuman book-consuming machine. In recent days we’ve had reviews from Charles of James Barclay‘s Vault of Deeds:
James Barclay attempts to do one thing–makes readers laugh–and does it well.
And Douglas Smith‘s Impossibilia:
Overall, Impossibilia was fun romp that delivered something different. Smith [...] definitely writes stories that are exhilarating, enjoyable, and well above competence.
And The City in These Pages by John Grant:
While the mystery is compelling, the highlight of this book are the personalities [...] The various characters have their own voice and unique character quirks, complementing this fast-paced story with memorable protagonists.
And Postscripts #16:
If you want well-written fiction with touches of the horrific, then Postscripts #16 is a good example of how to do it right.
And finally Living With the Dead by Darrell Schweitzer:
Those expecting a more conventional story will be disappointed but those that are brave enough to take a dip into the waters of Schweitzer’s cerebral prose will be in for the ride of their life.
Ziv Wities of The Fix Online took a crack at Living With the Dead as well, and seems equally enthusiastic:
… a compelling novella, particularly for readers who want a strong experience and don’t mind getting one that’s more dependent on voice, style, and atmosphere than on more straightforward elements. Kudos, Mr. Schweitzer.
Over at Strange Horizons, novelist and historian Adam Roberts dons his critical hat for a look at Ian R MacLeod‘s Song of Time. He’s not gushingly enthusiastic, to be fair, but he has some positive points to make:
[Song of Time] is concerned with the ways memory shapes our life, and this Proustian theme keeps the novel’s focus always on the past as a function of the present. It doesn’t quite work, either as a novel or as a meditation, but it’s an ambitious piece of writing for all that.
[...] as the novel draws to its conclusion it accumulates a genuine, and affecting, emotional heft.
Also at Strange Horizons is… well, I guess it’s kind of a review, but it’s also a wildly creative piece of writing in its own right, and worth a read just for that. Lara Buckerton on Zoran Živković‘s Twelve Collections and The Tea Shop:
Živković‘s not really bothered with the half-assed enthusiasm of a cresting fad, or even with the evolution of enduring subcultures of enthusiasm. This is probably because even minor public eminence is likely to distract from what Živković really is interested in: the deep moral and political dynamics of Collecting Stuff.
[snip]
It’s a fine line between a sponge-bath and a bloodbath, and so on. I’ll add just one more interpretation, the one that really does it for me. Twelve Collections, under this last interpretation, is a satire of liberal society, but from a liberal perspective—albeit restless, anxious and full of doubts. The ideas Twelve Collections endorses are also the ones it criticises.
There’s much more like that, too – make yourself a cup of tea and take a look.
Elsewhere, Ed Ashby waxes lyrical on Robert Jeschonek‘s Mad Scientist Meets Cannibal:
Robert T Jeschonek is a writer I’ve come to appreciate from the three very good short stories he’s had published in PS Publishing’s Postscripts anthology. So I was delighted when PS announced he was to feature as the third in their Author Showcase series. Mad Scientist Meets Cannibal is more of the same, well-crafted and highly imaginative short stories taking a skewed approach to what at first appear to be fairly ordinary starting points. Sterling stuff, I’ll be looking forward to reading further stuff from Mr Jeschonek…
And finally, a brief look back at Jeff VanderMeer‘s The Situation by Ben Payne in the ‘Not if You Were the Last Short Story on Earth‘ LJ community:
It’s a fantastical exploration of workplace bullying and cliques, both original in its detail and convincing in its applicability to contemporary workplaces. Like most of Vandermeer’s work, it’s both unpleasant and at the same time an utter pleasure to read, engaging and emotionally powerful. Highly recommended.
All of these titles are still available in the PS Publishing Webstore, although the jacketed version of VanderMeer’s The Situation is long sold out; click through on the covers to go straight to the book in question. Or pop over and have a browse – pick out something special for the stocking of a bibliophile in your life, or maybe just for yourself!
Happy Cthulhumas! Cover art for Postscripts #17
Posted by Paul Raven on December 1st, 2008 at 10:40
Good grief – it’s December already! And so much still to do… Anyway, at least the encroaching Festive Season gives us a good excuse to post up the finished cover design for Postscripts #17, based on one of Les Edwards‘ paintings:
Everything goes better with cephalopods, so they say! But the contents are just as good – here’s the full list:
- Guest editorial by James Lovegrove
- Justin Cartaginese – “The Plot”
- Rhys Hughes – “The Gala of Implausible Songs”
- Tara Kolden – “Enquete Incisive”
- Ian MacLeod – “The Camping Wainwrights”
- Adam Roberts – “A Prison Term of a Thousand Years”
- Al Robertson – “Sohoitis”
- Douglas Smith – “Doorways”
- Vaughan Stanger – “Stars in Her Eyes”
- Jeff VanderMeer – “Why the Vulture is Bald”
- Marly Youmans – “Rain Flower Pebbles”
Some great fiction by some super writers, old and new – we don’t like to boast, but Postscripts has accrued a fair few awards for its diverse selection of stories. So pre-order your copy of Postscripts #17 by clicking through below:
- Postscripts #17 (paperback) – [ £6 / $9 approx. ]
- Postscripts #17 (hardcover) – [ £25 / $37.50 approx. ]
Or alternatively sort yourself out with one of our super Postscripts subscription deals!