We now have a pretty good backlog at our printer, with seven titles ready to ship. They include (and the order in which they’ll ship):

– The Adventures of Langdon St. Ives (James P. Blaylock);
– The Best of Michael Swanwick (Michael Swanwick);
– The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox (Barry Hughart);
– Skeleton in the Closet and Other Stories (Robert Bloch);

Add to that the slipcases for The Best of Lucius Shepard (Lucius Shepard) and Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy (edited by William Schafer) are en route to our offices, and our shippers are going to remain very busy for the next two weeks or so. On thing we should note: Barry Hughart’s heartwarming trio of novels collected in The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox has presold so well that less than 10% of the print run remains unreserved. It may well be sold out by the time it hits the top of the shipping queue.

The Fall 2008 issue of Subterranean Online is well under way, with the serialized “Celestial Empire” novelette by Chris Roberson now complete, and a brand new review (of Kealan Patrick Burke’s excellent new novel, Master of the Moors) just posted. Head over and have a look.

We’ve just finished shipping all of the copies of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files novelette, Backup, so we’re turning our attention next to his novel, Storm Front, which is due back from the printer any day. We’ve already seen all of the elements of the book — the cover proof, a sample of the printed pages, and hardcovers — and approved them.

At this point, Storm Front is over 90% sold out, so we will not be offering it to any wholesalers or large online retailers. Your only way to get a copy is to order direct from SubPress. If you’re interested in collecting the Dresden Files limited editions — the second volume, Fool Moon, is nearly finished being proofed, with the finished art by Vincent Chong due soon — we suggest you preorder now, as those who snag a copy of Storm Front will have right of first refusal on the next volume.

Ray Bradbury’s “intoxicating” (Publishers Weekly, in a Starred Review) gathering of Green Town stories, Summer Morning, Summer Night, is in stock and shipping. We have orders for far more copies than we printed, so get your order in before we’ve finished shipping the wholesale and large online retail orders. Summer will be out-of-print within a week of the start of shipping.

Trade HC:

$35

We’re getting some long-awaited lettered editions out the door:

– Venus on the Half Shell (Philip Jose Farmer);
– The Kragen (Jack Vance)
– Lye Street (Alan Campbell)
– Hunter’s Run (George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois, Daniel Abraham)
– Fevre Dream (George R. R. Martin)
– Crooked Little Vein (Warren Ellis)

All of these should be on their way to customers no later than Tuesday. As soon as that’s done, we’ll begin shipping the 2000 copy print run of Summer Morning, Summer Night (Ray Bradbury), and then on to new books by Michael Swanwick and James P. Blayock.

Courtesy of this week’s Publishers Weekly, in our opinion, a much deserved starred review for Dan Simmons’s space opera novella, Muse of Fire: “Hugo winner Simmons (the Hyperion Cantos) combines his fine prose with a well-developed sense of wonder and love for reworked literary and mythological materials… This finely crafted novella is a perfect example of Simmons’s many strengths.”

We’ve just posted the third volume in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, Black Powder War, for preorder. We’re nearly done with this book and ready to send it to the printer — it’s been completely designed in two colors, and proofread, with a revised (from the British edition) dust jacket by Dominic Harman, and full-color interiors by Anke Eissmann. As soon as Naomi can fit the signature pages into her schedule — likely in the next six weeks — we’ll be sending the Black Powder War to the printer.

Join Captain Will Laurence and his dragon companion, Temeraire, as in this adventure they’re sent on an intrigue to collect three valuable dragon eggs from Istanbul and return home to England with them. Meanwhile, the once defeated and quite formidable white Celestial dragon, Lien, has vowed revenge on Temeraire and all that he loves.

We’ve just added China Mieville’s breakout novel, The City & the City to the SubPress store proper — previously, it was only available through our newsletter.

Note: Those who preorderd (or place a preorder now) for The Steel Remains by Richard Morgan are eligible for a discount on both China’s and Richard’s books. Don’t hesitate, we’ll be pulling this special offer in the next few days.

Our pal over at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist has just posted an excerpt from Robin Hobb’s new Farseer story, “Words Like Coins,” which will first see print in A Fantasy Medley, edited by our own Yanni Kuznia, and due out early next year. Enjoy.

Our shippers have just finished packing up the last of the orders for Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files novelette, Backup, which will be out the door later today. The over 10,000 copy first printing is sold out, but we are doing a second printing, for which we already have orders for more than 3,000 copies. It’ll take 3-4 weeks to get the additional books in our warehouse, but feel free to go ahead and place your order, which will ship as soon as Backup is in stock again.