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Archive for March, 2009
Announcement: PS Publishing and the British Fantasy Society’s Best Small Press Award
Posted by Paul Raven on March 30th, 2009 at 11:01
PS Publishing and the British Fantasy Society have an important announcement to make about the BFS Best Small Press Award. Here’s the press release, which should appear at the BFS website some time today:
For the past eight years PS Publishing has won the BFS Best Small Press award every year bar one (2005, when Elastic Press saw their hard work commended). Now, as the company reaches its tenth anniversary, Pete Crowther, PS founder and editor-in-chief has come to a decision: the company will no longer be eligible in the category.
“It wasn’t a decision made lightly,” he explains, “nor would I want anyone to think it represents an attitude of complacency on our part. When we started we published four books in a year; now that number is closer to forty. With the best will in the world, that’s not so small anymore! The support of the BFS membership has meant a great deal to us over those ten years but the time has come to stand to one side and instead help to acknowledge the great work being done by other imprints.”
With that in mind the BFS is joining forces with PS to rework the award. The PS Best Small Press Award will, as before, be voted on by the membership of the BFS and FantasyCon with the winner receiving not only their award but also a prize of £250 donated by PS.
“Running a small press can be a thankless and expensive task,” Pete comments. “Indeed, there have been many times for us when an extra £250 towards ever-increasing bills would have been a godsend. If our contribution helps in some albeit small way to maintain and promote the valuable work done by independent presses, then it will be money well-spent.”
I’ve spoken to Pete about this, and I know he’s very much looking forward to being able to support other small presses off the back of his continuing success with PS, as are the rest of us. We hope you’ll all play a part as well… by buying books from small presses, and by voting for them in the annual awards of whatever societies you are a member of!
Catastrophia anthology update – final deadline announced
Posted by Paul Raven on March 19th, 2009 at 12:57
Editor Allen Ashley has been busy reading and considering a large number of submissions for the exciting Catastrophia anthology, as originally announced last year on this very site. Here’s his latest progress report:
The Catastrophia concept seems to get more relevant every day and there has also been renewed interest in some of the old classic catastrophe stories from SF’s Golden Age. But I am continuing to look for modern, up to date work rather than pastiches. The standard has been very high and many stories have demanded several readings and much cogitation. I am still holding quite a handful for further consideration and hope to officially accept a few of these in the near future.
One thing I can confirm for definite is that I will be closing to submissions on 31st May 2009, as stated in all variations of the published guidelines. I am expecting a last minute rush – there is nothing like a deadline to hone the mind and hasten the hand. Authors please note, though: I will not be considering unsolicited submissions received after the cut-off date of 31 May 2009.
So there you go – best get your literary skates on, people!
Don’t forget to take a good long look at the submission guidelines for Catastrophia before sending anything to Allen; you want to make the best impression you can, after all. :)
Wednesday reviews roundup for 18th March
Posted by Paul Raven on March 18th, 2009 at 12:25
Wednesday means reviews roundup time here at the PS Newsroom, so let’s see what we have in the inbox this week.
First of all, out in the wonderful world of print that the ALA’s Booklist magazine assigns Carl Hays to look at Paul Witcover‘s collection Everland and Other Stories:
Three acclaimed novels, including the boldly original Dracula sequel Asylum (2006), have sealed Witcover’s reputation as a first-rate craftsman. With his first story collection, he scores another success by displaying a gift for blending a richly imaginative amalgam of horror, fantasy, and sf. His protagonists are often troubled souls, yearning to assuage a personal tragedy by following the trail of some exotic new circumstance. In “Mayaland,” a tourist in Central America, hoping to immerse himself in some esoteric Mayan culture, visits a remote village and quickly finds himself in over his head. “Lighthouse Summer” describes an adolescent’s encounter with an aged lighthouse keeper and the sea creature held prisoner in the keeper’s tower. Other tales explore a traveling circus’ dark secrets, a future American civil war involving devout fundamentalists, and a proofreader’s improbable skirmish with gods and demons. In every story, Witcover exhibits arresting images and clever turns of phrase and, from the opening paragraph, pulls readers into a spellbinding narrative.
Eric Brown at The Guardian also has good things to say about Everland:
Witcover’s first collection gathers 12 stories written over a period of 25 years, spanning the genres from fantasy, through horror, to magical realism and soft SF, and using a range of settings from a near-future US ravaged by civil war, revolutionary France and Central America.
What unites the disparate stories is a moody, elegiac prose style and an uncanny ability to communicate the intricate workings of the human heart and mind. These attributes come together in the volume’s finest story, the Nebula award finalist “Left of the Dial”, a haunting time-travel-cum-ghost-story about a bereaved man’s quest to lay the ghosts and the guilt of his past.
Also in print, this time in Energize (the official magazine of Sellafield Power Station, no less), Kelvin Knight takes a look at Garry Kilworth‘s collection Moby Jack and Other Tall Tales:
Before each of the 20 stories in this 298-page anthology, there is an apt introduction where Mr Kilworth is described as a “walking, breathing, living ideas factory.” This is a great strength; it could also be a downfall if you like reading clone stories. However, if you love stories that cannot be easily pigeon-holed, this book is a diamond in the rough.
[...]
The high point is “Bonsai Tiger”, about genetically modified mini-beasts which have had aggression doctored out of them so they make ideal pets. Think again! This futuristic love story gone wrong is as funny as it is poignant, reminding us no matter what our advances, we are still only human.
[...]
There is something special about this collection of stories that spans 20 years of a largely unknown author’s 35-year career. Many superlatives spring to mind, but, quite simply, Mr Kilworth’s imagination is a treasure to behold.
Last but by no means least, Ziv Wities of The Fix takes a look at Quentin S Crisp‘s new novella, Shrike:
… this is certainly a very different style of storytelling than what I’m used to seeing, and if the pool of readers who might appreciate the blending of Japanese and English literature is a tad small, perhaps the pool of those who would find this surreal introspection something new and novel is somewhat larger.
The Fix also deployed the fantastically-named Marshall Payne to interview Quentin about Shrike, and about his writing in general; it’s an interesting insight into the mind of a writer who is quite wilfully non-commercial in his aspirations, and refreshingly honest about his reasons for being so.
As always, click on the cover art to be taken directly to the catalogue page for any of the books above, or just pop over to the PS webstore to have a browse… don’t forget that we’ve added some brand new titles to our Anniversary Gift Box offers, so if you fancy a copy of Paul Di Filippo’s Harsh Oases or Zoran Zivkovic’s The Bridge with nine other books for a fantastically low price, be sure to make your order right away!
Award nominations for PS Publishing titles
Posted by Paul Raven on March 18th, 2009 at 11:45
We’re extraordinarily pleased to be able to announce that a PS Publishing book has made it through to the short list for this year’s Arthur C Clarke Award!
There were three of our titles in the long list; Matthew Hughes’ Template and Christopher Evans’ Omega fell by the wayside in the deliberations of the judges, but Ian R MacLeod’s Song of Time joins another five novels in what is sure to be a closely contested final line-up:
- Song of Time – Ian R. MacLeod [PS Publishing]
- The Quiet War – Paul McAuley [Gollancz]
- House of Suns – Alastair Reynolds [Gollancz]
- Anathem – Neal Stephenson [Atlantic]
- The Margarets – Sheri S. Tepper [Gollancz]
- Martin Martin’s on the Other Side – Mark Wernham [Jonathan Cape]
As always, I’d like to extend on behalf of everyone involved with PS Publishing our hearty congratulations to all the nominees, shortlisted or otherwise; the Clarke Award is a very prestigious institution for British science fiction, and it’s a great honour to be in the running. Here’s looking forward to the final decision in April!
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Douglas Smith’s Impossibilia collection is among the five titles shortlisted for the Long Form English category of the Prix Aurora Awards, the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association’s annual contest.
You can see all the nominees for all the categories at the Prix Aurora Awards website, but here’s the Long Form English category list in full:
- After the Fires – Ursula Pflug [Tightrope Books]
- Identity Theft And Other Stories – Robert J. Sawyer [Red Deer Press]
- Impossibilia – Douglas Smith [PS Publishing]
- Defining Diana – Hayden Trenholm [Bundoran Press]
- Marseguro – Edward Willett [DAW Books]
Again, congratulations are in order for one and all. Award nominations like these are a reminder that the faith we place in the works of our authors is vindicated by readers and critics alike – and that’s part of what makes working in publishing such a satisfying thing!
Wednesday reviews roundup for 11th March
Posted by Paul Raven on March 11th, 2009 at 13:18
Here at PS Publishing, we like to see our books being reviewed by all sorts of people; sure, we’re proud as punch when The Guardian or Strange Horizons writes about our titles, but the opinions of readers on the front lines mean just as much to us.
Which means we’re very pleased to see Joy Silence’s take on Quentin S Crisp‘s novella Shrike at the Darkling Tales LJ community:
I found Shrike a very interesting and unusual read. Fans of Crisp’s earlier works (such as his acclaimed anthology Morbid Tales) will recognize many familiar themes. Having spent some time in Japan himself, Crisp has set several of his tales there, and once again his thorough knowledge of the country and its traditions is in evidence. [...] Perhaps it is the blend of Brett’s exotic, twisting, sombre inner landscape and the ordered, formal world of the Kunisada household that causes Crisp’s writing to remind me of Nippon authors such as Yukio Mishima.
[snip]
All in all, if you enjoyed Crisp’s Morbid Tales then you should pick up a copy of this – while some themes are familiar and there is no sharp deviation from his earlier writing style, you don’t get the feeling that he’s treading over old ground either. It’s more a case of him developing ideas and imagery that he touched upon in his shorter fiction. At just ten quid for a hardback version with beautiful typography, it’s hardly a financial gamble either!
I’m sure Quentin will be more than pleased to be compared to Mishima – and I hope you’d agree that £10 for a limited edition hardback is indeed a great bargain. PS books may cost more than most, but we do everything we can to make them more than worth the price.
Reviews of Joe Hill’s Gunpowder are still coming in; here’s the latest from Blu Gilliand at Dark Scribe Magazine:
Joe Hill has made quite a name for himself writing stories with more than a hint of darkness. So it should come as no surprise that his first foray into Science Fiction, that world of gleaming metal and starlight, has more than its share of shadows. In Gunpowder, the shadows aren’t filled with ghosts and beasts, however; they’re filled with bad decisions, regret, and the inherent danger of power in the hands of children.
[...]
Hill has hinted that Gunpowder may be the first in a series of stories revolving around these psyformers, and the payoff of this novella certainly leaves that door swinging wide. But if he never revisits this world – which would be a shame, to be sure – there’s enough here to stand on its own. Gunpowder is a fine addition to Hill’s bibliography, and belongs on the shelf of anyone who likes a good story.
I’ve lost count of the number of reviews expressing a wish to see more fiction set in Gunpowder‘s world… maybe we should get cracking and commission one from Joe as soon as possible!
The forthcoming fifth issue of Dead Reckonings (the critical journal from Hippocampus Press) covers Ramsey Campbell’s “The Long Way” (the past year’s bonus chapbook for Postscripts subscribers, which we are planning to make available for purchase separately very soon):
I am unsure whether Peter Crowther of PS Publishing is attempting to revive the centuries-old tradition of the Christmas ghost story, but if so, he could hardly have chosen a more chilling and haunting tale than this specimen by Ramsey Campbell, which features many of those elements that have made his work immediately recognisable—an unflinching portrayal of urban blight and decay, a meticulous attention to prose that results both in the crisp etching of character and a powerful sense of cumulative horror, and a careful imprecision in the nature of the supernatural phenomenon that tantalises without lapsing into vagueness or obscurity.
I happen to know that Pete’s a great fan of the Christmas ghost story, so whether its revival is his intent or not, he’ll doubtless be very pleased to read that!
Dead Reckonings also tackles Darrell Schweitzer’s Living With The Dead:
The atmosphere of Darrell Schweitzer’s Living with the Dead is one that I have rarely, if ever, encountered in supernatural literature—a bizarre, seemingly irreconcilable, and yet highly felicitous fusion of the delicate fantasy of Dunsany with the grim morbidity of Bierce.
[snip]
… overall the execution is deft and evocative, and Schweitzer displays a fine penchant for prose-poetry and—surprisingly, given the relatively compressed nature of the narrative—the ability to create vivid and distinctive characters.
A quirky and distinctive story in a beautiful package – that’s pretty much the PS Publishing philosophy in a nutshell! If you’d like to be among the people who get a chance to review PS books ahead of publication, please drop as a line as suggested on our “advice for reviewers” page.
And, as always, click on the cover art to be taken directly to the catalogue page for any of the books above, or just pop over to the PS webstore to have a browse… we’ve just made some smashing new titles available for pre-ordering, including The Very Best Of Gene Wolfe!
Announcing The Very Best of Gene Wolfe, plus Secret Histories launches and gift box upgrades
Posted by Peter Crowther on March 10th, 2009 at 21:00
Hi everyone!
It’s a stripped-down-for-speed newsletter this time out, because we know you folks have things to do and places to be…
Announcing The Very Best of Gene Wolfe – available for pre-order now
Observant visitors to the PS Webstore should already have noticed the appearance of one or two new pieces of cover artwork over the past couple of weeks (Spook City, The Witnesses Are Gone, Mystery Hill, Starfall, and R.I.P. to name a few) but right now we’d like to draw your attention to just one of them — The Very Best Of Gene Wolfe.
Featuring gorgeous wraparound cover art from J.K. Potter plus the special inclusion of Gene’s masterful novelette Christmas Inn (which we put out as our very first Winter Chapbook, issued free to Postscripts subscribers) plus the fact that all copies are signed by Gene (with the deluxe edition additionally signed by introducer Kim Stanley Robinson) . . . well, we reckon this is going to be one to cherish.
The book is due in next month but from now until then, all pre-ordered copies will be post-free.
Don’t miss out! Click through below, take advantage of the savings and pre-order your copy right away!
- The Very Best of Gene Wolfe (hardcover) – £50 [ US$75 approx. ]
- The Very Best of Gene Wolfe (deluxe slipcased hardcover) – £100 [ US$150 approx. ]
Secret Histories launch events
The monolithic leviathan that is John Berlyne’s Secret Histories: A Bibliography Of The Works Of Tim Powers trundles on inexorably towards its launch at EasterCon in Bradford, England, where Tim will be guest of honour.
We’ll certainly have (from my mouth to God’s ear!) copies there of the trade edition, though the availability of the two-volume deluxe edition and the super-deluxe three-volume lettered edition (most of which are pre-sold) is frankly doubtful. We’ll do what we can but the signing sheets for the two top editions are still out… plus Tim is still busy drawing individual artwork for each of the lettered sets. So those who have pre-ordered copies will just need to be patient a few weeks longer – which, after eight years in preparation, shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Oh, and for those who can’t make it to Bradford, John Berlyne has persuaded Tim to come along to the next British Fantasy Society Open Night for a second celebration — the date is Friday 17 April and the venue is The George public house in Fleet Street (the closest tube station is Temple). Copies of the Secret Histories trade edition will be on sale for the one-off knock-down price of £35; there’s even a Facebook event page.
Anniversary Gift-Box upgrades – now including latest titles!
And finally, a word on our Anniversary Gift Boxes. To call them a resounding success would be understating the facts… so, in order to preserve dwindling pre-2008 stocks – and to avoid disappointment on the part of all those readers who want to read ten fabulous books for a fraction of their published cost – we’re sweetening the cake just a little.
From here on, each month we’ll be changing the line-up slightly: instead of ten pre-2008 titles, we’re altering it to nine pre-2008 titles… plus one of our latest books.
This month, for the two ‘novella’ Gift Boxes, it’s Zoran Zivkovic’s wonderful The Bridge and, in the two ‘novel’ Gift Boxes, we’ll be including Paul Di Filippo’s latest collection, Harsh Oases (which came in only last week).
Click through on the links below to grab yourself a real bargain before the month is out!
- Ten trade novellas, including Zoran Zivkovic’s The Bridge – £40 [ US$60 approx. ]
- Ten jacketed hardcover novellas, including Zoran Zivkovic’s The Bridge – £100 [ US$150 approx. ]
- Ten trade novels, including Paul Di Filippo’s Harsh Oases – £100 [ US$150 approx. ]
- Ten slipcased novels, including Paul Di Filippo’s Harsh Oases – £200 [ US$300 approx. ]
Inaugural giveaway winners
As promised, we drew two random email addresses from the PS mailing list last month and sent them some free special editions.
Mika Pehkonen from Finland snared a three-book Ray Bradbury gift set, and Nicholas Bergeron from Minnesota received the last slipcased deluxe edition of Joe Hill’s Gunpowder… just for receiving the PS newsletter once a month.
Will you be a winner this time out? We’ll announce the two lucky individuals in our next newsletter!
***
We’ve got more exciting news for you but it’ll just have to wait until April. Until then, look after each other… and happy reading.
Pete
Wednesday reviews roundup for 4th March
Posted by Paul Raven on March 4th, 2009 at 10:23
We’ve retrieved a trio of PS reviews from the far reaches if the intertubes this week; let’s see what we’ve got!
First of all, Fantasy Book Critic takes on Will Elliot’s The Pilo Family Circus, now going into its first North American paperback print run with Underland Press, but still available in special hardcover editions from us. Liviu C Suciu says:
I’m not really a fan of “pure” horror, but I was intrigued by the blurb to Will Elliott’s The Pilo Family Circus and decided to give it a try. From the book’s quite vivid first page, I was immediately hooked and knew that I had to read it. And indeed, The Pilo Family Circus turned out to be a wonderful novel, full of dark humor and grotesqueness. And while some horror elements are present in the novel, The Pilo Family Circus is really a mixture of genres and not that easy to categorize…
[snip]
A superb novel, Will Elliott’s The Pilo Family Circus is a page-turner that is impossible to put down and will at once horrify, entrance and amuse the reader.
Meanwhile, Charles Tan has continued exploring the oeuvre of Serbia’s best-kept secret, Zoran Živković, this time taking a look at the forthcoming The Bridge:
In terms of writing style, Zivkovic and Kafka are similar in the sense that there’s something impersonal about the tone in addition to the inclusion of the speculative element which the reader tends to shrug off as “normal”. Vladusic has an interesting discourse showing how the two authors are different but for me, the biggest difference between Zivkovic and Kafka is that the former’s writing is charming while the latter is alienating.
[snip]
Just when I thought I had Zivkovic figured out, I read The Bridge and it dispels any doubts that the author is a one-trick pony. While reading this book on the surface level is quite valid, the richness of Zivkovic is that there’s usually something underlying in his text and amplifies one’s engagement with the narrative.
And third of three, a review from a new website (new to us at PS, at any rate). Andrew Monge of Horror Drive-In gets to grips with Sebastien Doubinsky’s The Babylonian Trilogy:
There’s nothing more enjoyable than stumbling across an author who is new to you, and being blown away by what you find. As such, I owe a big “thank you” to PS Publishing for introducing me to the talented Sebastien Doubinsky and his upcoming novel, The Babylonian Trilogy.
The pleasure’s all ours, Andrew!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As I stated earlier, the [fragmentary] style may be hard for some people to come to grips with. But the reward is most certainly worth your reading time. The Babylonian Trilogy gets 9.5 out of 10 in my book…
Nine-and-a-half out of ten! That’s a pretty solid score right there, and a very satisfactory set of reviews in general. As always, click on the cover art to be taken directly to the catalogue page for any of the books above, or just pop over to the PS webstore to have a browse… new titles are being added all the time!
This month’s free newsletter giveaways
Posted by Paul Raven on March 3rd, 2009 at 20:02
Well, it’s the beginning of March, and it looks like we’re going to be a little late with the newsletter again.
What can I say? In order to keep the amount of emails we send out to a minimum, we think it’s sometimes better to wait until we have a green light on some open questions. That way you get the whole story first time, and none of that carrot-dangling marketing stuff.
What, that’s not reason enough to be cheerful? Well, how about looking at it this way: you’ve now got another whole week to sign up for the PS Publishing newsletter (if you’re not already), thus putting yourself in the running for winning some free books.
Oh yes, free books! Two randomly selected subscribers from the mailing list as it stands on Tuesday 10th March 2009 will each win one of the following:
- A copy each of all three trade editions of Stephen King’s The Colorado Kid (yes, all three editions)
- A slipcased two-book special presentation set of Ray Bradbury’s The Day It Rained Forever and Medicine For Melancholy (one of only 200 printed)
Not bad recompense at all for merely receiving a monthly newsletter email, wouldn’t you agree?
So, we’ll update you early next week. Until then, stay good!