Announcing HARD LUCK DIGGINGS by Jack Vance
We’re pleased to announce a new collection, Hard Luck Diggings, by SF Grandmaster Jack Vance. This collection gathers stories from the early years of his career. We already have the fully-designed book, and have sent it out for proofreading, so we should have little trouble meeting its March 2010 publication date.
Those interested in the signed edition of the book should note that only the 26 copy lettered edition bears Mr. Vance’s signature.
A legend has to start somewhere…
As so many writers have said, it’s in the shorter and mid-length work that the storytelling craft is best learned. Hard-Luck Diggings brings together fourteen such pieces from the first twelve years of Grand Master Jack Vance’s genre-defining career, from back when he first worked to pay the mortgage, buy the groceries, travel the world, eventually building his own private “dream castle” and starting a family.
Like any writer serious about staying in the game, we see him targeting the markets of the day, doing what was needed to meet the tastes of editors and their readerships while at the same time perfecting his own special way of doing things so that his name, his distinctive voice, stood a chance (in modern marketing parlance) of becoming a viable “brand.”
Hard-Luck Diggings brings that fascinating process to life in fine style. As well as serving up vintage entertainment from one of the field’s genuine masters, it provides an illuminating armchair tour of how the Jack Vance enterprise came to be, full of zest and life, the thrill of the upward climb and of so much more to be done. This is a book to be savoured with a twinkle in the eye, a knowing smile, but most of all, with a love of adventure and high romance firmly in place.
We also have available signed editions of a couple of Mr. Vance’s earlier Subpress titles, including the limited and lettered editions of The Jack Vance Reader, and the lettered edition of Wild Thyme, Green Magic.