Subterranean Press Featured Title

We’re pleased to announce that we’re continuing our relationship with China Mieville, with a signed limited edition of his upcoming novel, Railsea. As with most of our other Mieville limiteds, Vincent Chong will be providing a full color cover. Look for our edition to be published this summer.

Welcome to the Railsea, a vast conglomeration of interconnected railroad tracks reaching to the limits of the known world. This brilliantly imagined setting stands at the heart of one of China Mieville’s most extraordinary accomplishments.

A host of memorable characters move through these pages, among them a “bloodstained boy” whose adventures form the armature of the narrative, a brother and sister determined to complete their parents’ unfinished journey, and a one-armed captain relentlessly pursuing her “philosophy:” the great almost-white mole known as Mocker Jack.

Railsea is a novel about the power of obsession, about the human longing for completion, about narrative itself. But it’s also a captivating story that overflows with wonders and strange terrors, with pirates and scavengers, monstrosities and prodigies. And so much more. Filled with humor and great narrative energy, and written in a language so vivid it virtually leaps off the page, it is at once an utterly unique creation and a classic re-imagining of a classic tale. Railsea shows us China Mieville at the top of his game. It’s going to be around for a very long time.

Limited: 500 signed numbered hardcover copies: $75
Lettered: 26 signed leatherbound copies, housed in a custom traycase: $250

Michael Bishop’s mammoth career retrospective, The Door Gunner and Other Perilous Flights of Fancy, is in stock and shipping. Mike’s collection stands as a high point in our ongoing series of Best of short story collections. I’ve been reading him since I was seventeen, and can tell you that culling his oeuvre down to a representative 200,000 words was an act of editorial alchemy. Our thanks to Mike and Michael H. Hutchins for that, and to Bill Sheehan for the illuminating flap copy.

Here’s part of the flap copy, to give you a sense of the collection:

In the course of a distinguished career now entering its fifth decade, Michael Bishop has amassed a large body of fiction notable for its intellectual range, narrative sophistication, and sheer stylistic elegance. This massive new retrospective, The Door Gunner and Other Perilous Flights of Fancy, amply celebrates that career, offering one example after another of Bishop’s unique—and characteristic—virtuosity.

Bob Eggleton has just turned in an epic dust jacket for Philip Jose Farmer and Christopher Paul Carey’s omnibus, Gods of Opar, which features three novels, including the previously unpublished novel, The Song of Kwasin, and, exclusive to the lettered edition, a bevy of related related information: glossaries, an outline, and a calendar.

For those of you who can’t wait, you might want to check out a long interview with Christopher Paul Carey, over at the Official Philip Jose Farmer website.

SubPress’ Director of Production Yanni Kuznia is going over the final files, readying Terry Brooks’ Shannara novella, Indomitable, for the printer. Sales of this one definitely crept up on us. We’ve increased the trade print run, but will still not have enough orders to fill all the wholesale and large retail account orders flowing in. If you’re of a mind to snag a copy, ordering now is a great idea.

Sayeth Library Journal about Glen Cook’s new collection, Winter’s Dreams: “Whether set in a fantasy world (’Winter’s Dreams’; ‘Darkwar’) or spanning four decades in the real one (’The Waiting Sea’), the 14 stories in this volume showcase the variety and depth of Cook’s (’Chronicles of the Black Company’ series) mastery of the short form.”

Jack Vance’s upcoming Dream Castles just picked up some more good words, this time from Library Journal: “…this collection of Vance’s early short fiction features some of the many worlds created by one of the genre’s most beloved authors… Strong and varied tales from a wordsmith without peer…”

We’ve just finished shipping a pair of new trade and limited editions.

• The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine (Peter Straub) is one helluva dark ride. Peter’s new novella has drawn praise from Publishers Weekly, made Ellen Datlow’s Best of the year anthology, and graced Locus magazine’s Recommended Reading List. Our stock is pretty low, and we’ll fill all remaining wholesale and large online retail account orders in a week, so you might want to get your order in.
• We seriously underprinted the trade hardcover of Gothic High-Tech (Bruce Sterling), and have turned away orders for 600 or so copies. We still have copies of the signed limited edition available, so please consider picking up a copy. Bruce’s short fiction may just be better than his acclaimed novels.

We have a limited stock of Catherynne M. Valente’s wonder-laced new novella, Silently and Very Fast, en route to us. This signed hardcover edition is limited to only 500 numbered copies, bargain priced at $25, so you might want to get your order in early, or risk missing out.

In his year end summation for Locus, Gardner Dozois called Cat’s tale, “The strongest novella chapbook of the year, by a good margin…”

Here’s a description of Silently and Very Fast to whet your appetite:

Fantastist Catherynne M. Valente takes on the folklore of artificial intelligence in this brand new, original novella of technology, identify, and an uncertain mechanized future.

Neva is dreaming. But she is not alone. A mysterious machine entity called Elefsis haunts her and the members of her family, back through the generations to her great-great-grandmother—a gifted computer programmer who changed the world. Together Neva and Elefsis navigate their history and their future, an uneasy, unwilling symbiote.

But what they discover in their dreamworld might change them forever…

We have a double shot of new fiction over at Subterranean for you.

First up is Joe R. Lansdale, who has a most excellent new novel, Edge of Dark Water, due soon. His tale for us, “The Drunken Moon“, isn’t a long one, but shows off a deft poetic touch.

Next up is “Seeräuber” by Maria Dahvana Headley, a writer who was new to us just a few months ago. Maria’s debut novel, Queen of Kings, isn’t your usual vampire fare. None other than Peter Straub wrote “Queen of Kings is a miracle, a marvel. Nothing on earth could make me read a novel about Cleopatra, but this book reeled me in almost instantly and kept me in suspense, charmed, and astonished all the way to the amazing ending.”

We’re proud to announce the signed limited edition of Paolo Bacigalupi’s third novel, The Drowned Cities, which will be printed in two colors throughout, on 80# Finch, with a full-color dust jacket and a pair of full-color interior illustrations by Jon Foster.

In Ship Breaker, award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi introduced readers to a bleak, dystopian future as convincing and vividly rendered as anything in recent popular fiction. Now, Bacigalupi returns to that world in The Drowned Cities, an independent narrative as memorable and viscerally exciting as its distinguished predecessor.

Two very different characters dominate the novel’s war torn landscape. Tool, a figure familiar to Ship Breaker’s many admirers, is an “augment,” a genetically altered creation—part animal, part human—designed to serve as the perfect killing machine. Mahlia is a “war maggot,” a crippled, castoff teenager left behind by the Peacekeepers, who tried—and failed—to impose some sort of order on the fragmented, increasingly violent society known as the Drowned Cities. Mahlia’s relationship with her newly acquired “family”—a doctor who teaches her the art of healing and a young boy named Mouse who once saved her life—keeps her connected, however tenuously, to the world of human values. When devastation descends on her village and disrupts those fragile connections, Mahlia finds herself in an unlikely alliance with Tool, who may represent her last, best chance to save a friend—and preserve her own humanity.

The Drowned Cities is a story of love, war, loyalty, and survival. More importantly, it is an unforgettable portrait of a society that has lost its way, in which natural and man-made disasters have combined to leave chaos and destruction in their wake. Though aimed primarily at younger readers, this is a novel that virtually annihilates the distinction between YA and so-called “adult” fiction, offering a powerful, deeply affecting experience that will appeal to—and resonate with—adventurous readers of every age.

Limited: 300 signed numbered copies, fully bound in cloth: $125

Lettered: 26 signed copies, leatherbound, housed in a custom traycase: $250

Matching Set of Signed Numbered Editions of Ship Breaker and The Drowned Cities: $250