Though we’ve been having mondo problems with our regular traycase manufacturer, we’re more than happy to say that the lettered edition of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, handbound by the incomparable Judi Conant, is in stock and will be packaged over the weekend. Everyone who has a copy on order — enjoy!

Over at thegraveyardbook.com, the site dedicated to Neil’s upcoming novel, we’re running a new competition, with Advance Reading Copies of the US Hardcover as prizes. Head over, take a look, sharpen your #2 pencil, and give our little gruesome challenge a go!

A number of titles are pre-selling so well that we don’t expect to have copies to fill orders from wholesalers or large online retailers, meaning that if you want to be certain of receiving a copy, your best bet is to order direct. The books include:

– Storm Front (Jim Butcher)
– Gardens of the Moon (Steven Erikson)
– The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman)

Also, preorders for our upcoming Orson Scott Card novella, Stonefather, have been so strong that it may well be out of print on publication. We’re just waiting on the last few Tom Kidd illustrations to be inked and then Stonefather will be ready to head to the printer.

Over at the Barnes and Noble website, Paul di Filippo recommends a number of new titles, Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy among them: “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.”

This just in, from Kage Baker’s review of Tim Powers’s On Stranger Tides, in Green Man Review: “The intricacies of handling a sailing ship are carefully and accurately represented, clearly well-researched. The supernatural elements in the story work exceptionally well. Powers is brilliant at describing consistent, plausible systems of magic, and pays close attention to folklore. As with any of his books, the pages are crammed with neat concepts, dazzling invention, secret history, exotic locales. It’s no wonder this book is a modern classic: after all, Powers revived and reinvented a genre defunct since Sabatini’s day.”

Note: Sorry, the Grab Bag special has ended.

With all the books we have shipping now and in the near future, we’re running one of our most popular specials.

For $99, you’ll receive a Grab Bag of 12 hardcovers, a mix of signed limited editions and trade hardcovers, including some titles never before offered as part of our specials.

The books we’re offering range from a number of just-published titles to classic SubPress offerings.

Each of these Grab Bags is guaranteed to have a value of at least $400, and we’re only selling 25 of them, so get your order in now if you’re interested.

Special shipping charges apply ($25 US, $50 Canada, $80 Rest of the World).

We are progressing quickly with Charles Ardai’s Fifty-to-One in order to meet our planned December release date. So you can see how lavish our edition is going to be, we’ve posted the designed signature sheets for Charles Ardai, Lawrence Block, and Stephen King as well as the full-color endsheets, which feature the covers of all of the previous Hard Case Crime books.

Fifty-to-One will be available in two unique editions: 500 cloth bound copies signed by the author, and a deluxe limited edition of 50 lavishly bound copies, housed in a handmade traycase, with over twenty full-color signature pages for most of the Hard Case Crime Authors, each hand-tipped front of the chapter that bears the title of one of their books.

We’ve just posted new copy — supplied by Charles de Lint — to The Onion Girl page:

As we published the start of Jilly Coppercorn’s story in Promises to Keep, it only seemed right that we do a special edition of The Onion Girl, perhaps the most important of the novels or stories to feature what may be Charles de Lint’s most beloved character.

This special edition will feature not only an original, exclusive introduction by Charles, but a full-color cover, endsheets, and a chapter head illustration by Mike Dringenberg, who contributed the striking cover to Promises to Keep.

The Onion Girl is set in the imagined North American city of Newford. It’s a place where magic lights dark streets, where myths walk clothed in modern shapes, where a broad cast of extraordinary and affecting people work to keep the whole world turning.

At the center of all the entwined lives of Newford stands a young artist named Jilly Coppercorn, with her tangled hair, her paint-splattered jeans, a smile perpetually on her lips–Jilly whose paintings capture the hidden beings that dwell in the city’s shadows. Long a supporting character in the Newford stories, The Onion Girl is Jilly’s own story. Behind the painter’s fey charm there’s a dark secret, and a past she’s laboured to forget. That past is coming to claim her now, threatening all she loves.

“I’m the onion girl,” Jilly says. “Pull back the layers of my life, and you won’t find anything at the core. Just a broken child. A hollow girl.”

She’s very, very good at running. But life has just forced Jilly to stop.

Mike Dringenberg is hard at work on the cover and interior for our special edition. We’ll be posting samples soon.

We continue to bring you new material for your online reading pleasure with the Summer 2008 edition of Subterranean Online. Our latest postings include a new bit of foolishness by Joe R. Lansdale, (”Big Man”), a new installment in Elizabeth Bear’s “Bear’s Examining,” and a dark John Farris tale of the Vietnam war, “Like Father”.

Remember to check Subterranean Online often as we add new material regularly!

We’re more than pleased to announce that, in addition to contributing an appreciation to our Jack Vance tribute anthology, Songs of the Dying Earth, Dean Koontz has agreed to sign the entire 500 copy limited edition in addition to the lettered edition.

If that’s not enough good news for one day, we also just received “Sylgarmo’s Proclamation,” a brand new novelette by Lucius Shepard for the book.