Illustrators are at work on a lot of SubPress projects at the moment. Just completed are the cover and interior illustrations for The Ebb Tide (James P. Blaylock), the first new Langdon St. Ives adventure in nearly two decades. Check out a few of the interior pieces (by J. K. Potter) at the book’s page.

Also in various stages of beginning or near completion are the art for Crimson Shadows (Robert E. Howard); Marionettes, Inc. (Ray Bradbury); Drood and The Terror (Dan Simmons); The Onion Girl (Charles de Lint); Wild Thyme, Green Magic (Jack Vance); The Other in the Mirror (Philip Jose Farmer); Dying of the Light (George R. R. Martin); The Dark Volume (Gordon Dahlquist); The Evil in Pemberley House (Philip Jose Farmer and Win Scott Eckert); Where Everything Ends (Ray Bradbury); Purple and Black (K. J. Parker); And We Are Everywhere and The Women of Nell Gwynne’s (Kage Baker); Thousandth Night and Minla’s Flowers (Alastair Reynolds).

As you can tell from just this partial list of artwork underway, we have a number of books deep in production we haven’t even announced yet.

Meanwhile, one set of signature pages is en route to Spain, traveling only in darkest night, for a project of which we cannot yet speak…

We’re in the homestretch for production on our massive (over 200,000 words, 632 pages) Jack Vance tribute anthology, Songs of the Dying Earth. The book’s page has been updated with the newly written flap copy, some sets of the signature pages are already nestled safely in our offices while others make rounds, and only late-arriving stories have yet to receive a final proofing by their authors.

Please note: We’ve pulled the limited edition from our site, as it was very close to selling out, and we didn’t want to oversell that particular state of the book. We may have a good handful of copies available for sale when the book is actually shipping. Meanwhile, the trade edition is now well over half sold out, meaning that if the trend of steady preorders continues, we may not have copies to supply our wholesale or large online retail accounts.

Wild Thyme, Green Magic is in a similar state, waiting only on Tom Kidd’s cover art before being ready for its summer release date.

This is Me, Jack Vance! has just been proofed, and is completely ready for publication.

We’ve just received the fully designed version of Richard K. Morgan’s epic (and controversial) fantasy novel, The Steel Remains, and will have it proofed in the next two weeks, then off to the printer the book will be sent. At 440 pages, printed in two colors throughout, with a knockout Vincent Chong cover and full-color endsheets (a different image for the front and back of the book), Steel is going to be one book where the production matches the excellent tale between its pages.

Still on the subject of epic fantasy, production of our edition of Gardens of the Moon (Steven Erikson) continues apace. All of the full-color artwork has been printed and is in the hands of our printer, who should be sending us the final set of proofs in the next week. With a little luck, only a few weeks past that we’ll be sending copies out to customers.

Monday (January 19) is the final day to have yourself listed as an extra in our new Stephen King collection, Stephen King Goes to the Movies. Vincent Chong has turned in the fake movie posters that illustrate each of five tales contained in the collection, as well as the full-color endsheets. You can see samples of all at the book’s page, as well as instructions on how to have your name listed as an extra in a special section at the back of the book.

We’d like to take a moment to spotlight a couple of other presses’ titles that are more than worth your time.

Our pal, Pete Crowther at PS Publishing has just released a dynamite science fiction novella (Gunpowder) by SubPress favorite, Joe Hill. Think Lord of the Flies in space, and get yourself to the PS site to snag a copy before they go the way of the dodo. The cover is by the always excellent Vincent Chong.

One of the first few projects from Neil Clarke’s Wyrm publishing is just out, Jeff Vandermeer’s Shriek: an Afterword, and it’s as nicely turned out as most presses fiftieth book, let alone their third. The writing, as Vandermeer’s many fans will suspect, isn’t too shabby either!

The newest issue of Library Journal contains a couple of short, positive reviews of one newly published (and already sold out) and one upcoming SubPress title.

On A is for Alien (Caitlin R. Kiernan): “…this collection of eight tales of sf/horror adds to Kiernan’s reputation as the inheritor of Lovecraftian creepiness.”

On The Six Directions of Space (Alastair Reynolds): “The Welsh-born author of the ‘Revelation Space’ series tells a tautly written tale of alternate and parallel universes, perfectly detailed and rich with character.”

The latest issue of Subterranean Online kicks off with a touch of mystery — in this case a new short story, “Clinic,” by Kristine Kathryn Rush wearing her “Kris Nelscott” hat, and Norman Partridge’s appreciation of Lawrence Block’s Hard Case Crime novels. Block’s novel Lucky at Cards, in particular, is not to be missed. Enjoy.

Our new Associate Editor, Cherie Priest, has passed the halfway point in her proofing of Stephen King Goes to the Movies, and Vincent Chong has just turned in the “fake” movie posters that will illustrate the stories contained in the book. (You can see one of the sample posters here, and another at the book’s page.) We expect this title to head to the printer in the next couple of weeks, after Cherie has finished the proofing, and Vincent turns in the endsheet art.

The cover for our latest Brian Lumley book, The Nonesuch and Others, has been on our site a while, but we’ve been remiss in posting it to our news page. This short sharp collection by Brian is an utter delight, with a number of creepy b&w interior ornaments and illustrations by Bob Eggleton. The Nonesuch has been fully designed, proofed, and the signature sheets are done. Everything’s set for a May release.

Our shippers are finally nearly caught up. Early this week they’re shipping out copies of Charles Ardai’s great throwback novel, Fifty-to-One, that celebrates the Hard Case Crime novels. As soon as they’re done with those, they’ll set to work on a ton of distributor and random individual orders, as well as copies of the lettered edition of Thumbprint (Joe Hill)

Speaking of Joe Hill. As we announced quite a while ago, there will be an unsigned trade edition of his Locke & Key limited edition, done Absolute Sandman style. To save a ton on our printing bill, we’ll be printing the trade edition at the same time as the limited, but sitting on them until the fall. There will be some significant differences in the editions — the trade won’t be signed by Joe, of course, or have the dust jacket and endpapers exclusive to the limited edition. The first printing of the trade edition will be limited to only 1000 copies. We’ll likely announce it later this spring when the limited edition is shipping.

Check out a brand new interview with Lewis Shiner, which focuses on his latest SubPress release, Black & White, while also touching on our plans to return his backlist to print. One of our major books for 2009 will be his nearly 500 pages (including 41 stories, one original) Collected Stories.

The trade edition of Black & White is sold out — we’ll be releasing a trade paperback in the fall — but we do have copies of the limited edition still available, which comes with a chapbook, Shades of Grey, that contains a number of stories that won’t be in his collected stories volume.