We’re pleased to announce a new book by Alastair Reynolds, slated to be published later this year. Thousandth Night & Minla’s Flowers collects two of Al’s space opera novellas. Interested readers may want to jump on this one early, as his novella The Six Directions of Space was recently sold out on publication.

Here’s the lowdown on the upcoming title:

For many of us, the Ace Double Novels of the ‘50s and ‘60s have long been a source both of pleasure and nostalgia. This new double volume from Subterranean Press stands squarely in that distinguished tradition, offering a pair of colorful, fast-paced stories from the reigning master of the intergalactic space opera: Alastair Reynolds.

Thousandth Night, the genesis for the epic novel House of Suns, is quintessential Reynolds. A visionary account of intrigue, ambition, and technological marvels set within a beautifully realized far-future milieu, it combines world-class storytelling with a provocative meditation on the mystery, grandeur, and inconceivable immensity of the universe.

The masterful novella Minla’s Flowers features Merlin, a familiar figure to Reynolds’s readers. Diverted by technical difficulties to a planet known as Lecythus, Merlin finds himself forced to play a part in the moral and military dilemmas of a world on the verge of extinction.

Posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 8:51 am.