The Magic of Recluce (The Saga of Recluce #1):

Young Lerris is dissatisfied with his life and trade, and yearns to find a place in the world better suited to his skills and temperament.

But in Recluce a change in circumstances means taking one of two options: permanent exile from Recluce or the dangergeld, a complex, rule-laden wanderjahr in the lands beyond Recluce, with the aim of learning how the world works and what his place in it might be. Many do not survive.

Lerris chooses dangergeld. When Lerris is sent into intensive training for his quest, it soon becomes clear that he has a natural talent for magic. And he will need magic in the lands beyond, where the power of the Chaos Wizards reigns unchecked.

Though it goes against all of his instincts, Lerris must learn to use his powers in an orderly way before his wanderjahr, or fall prey to Chaos.

The Subterranean Press edition of The Cold Commands features a full-color dust jacket and full-color endsheets by Vincent Chong, and is printed in two colors throughout.

One day, a girl named Rose Franklin stumbles upon a giant metallic hand covered in intricate carvings buried near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota. Seventeen years later, Rose is still trying to solve its mysteries, now as a physicist in charge of a top secret team determined to unlock the secrets this technology holds. As she and her team get closer to assembling the truth—a robot buried in pieces around the globe—new challenges appear that may threaten the fate of the world.

Will the team’s discovery be a means of peace or a weapon of mass destruction? If robots take over the Earth, can it be retaken? And what part will Rose play in the ultimate outcome?

In the groundbreakingly inventive three volumes of The Themis Files —Sleeping Giants, Waking Gods, and Only Human—acclaimed author Sylvain Neuvel tells a gripping story of the fight for humanity’s future by blending in interviews, journal entries, transcripts, and news articles for an unforgettable experience.

Sylvain Neuvel:

The Themis Files:

Dust jacket by Edward Miller

With the publication of his first story, “The Coldest Place”, in 1964 Larry Niven launched one of the most important careers in the history of science fiction. Over the next decade his stunning hard science fiction won four short fiction Hugo Awards and both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for his all-time classic novel, Ringworld.

But it was the short stories that amazed and astounded first. Stories like “The Coldest Place”, “Becalmed in Hell”, “Neutron Star”, and “All the Myriad Ways”set the boundaries for ‘Known Space’, one of science fiction’s grandest future histories, while Niven also explored the classic tavern story in his ‘Draco’s Tavern’ sequence and even fantasy in his ‘Magic Goes Away’ stories.

Astoundingly, there has never been a single compendium the focused solely on Niven’s best short fiction until now. The Best of Larry Niven collects no less than twenty seven stories written over a period of thirty-five years, bringing together some of the best-loved stories in science fiction for the first time, along with some overlooked classics. Whether this is your first time in Known Space or you’re visiting old friends in Draco’s Tavern, The Best of Larry Niven is unforgettable.

Properties of Rooftop Air

Full color dust jacket and interior illustrations by David Palumbo.

Tim Powers makes a triumphant return to the setting of The Anubis Gates with a tale that features the beggar clown Horrabin, and one who opposes him.

In the slum known as the St. Giles rookery in 19th century London, the beggar guild run by Horrabin the Clown is the last resort of the down-and-out. Horrabin is rumored to maim his people to make them more effective mendicants, and when dimwitted beggar Isaac Fairchild is summoned by the clown, he fears the worst.

But in the subterranean chamber known as the Nursery, Fairchild learns that Horrabin’s purpose is to greatly increase his intelligence, by grafting his rudimentary mind into the group mind shared by Horrabin’s gang of Spoonsize Boys—alchemically-hatched homunculi, two-inch-tall men employed by the clown for subtle thefts and assassinations.

Fairchild yearns to be able at last to think clearly, understand conversations—read books!—but there’s a cost.

Limited: 474 signed numbered copies, bound in leather, housed in a custom, foil stamped slipcase

Medusa’s Web:

Dust jacket and interior illustrations by J. K. Potter

The last will of their suicide aunt requires that Scott and Madeline Madden return to Caveat, the vast old Hollywood Hills house they grew up in—and they soon learn that what they had thought was a shared childhood nightmare twenty years ago is in fact all too real.

Their strange, reclusive cousins, Claimayne and Ariel, are deeply involved in using a form of the Medusa—living two-dimensional psychoactive patterns known as “spiders”—to prolong their own lives and even hijack the lives of others…

Scott and Madeline are tumbled into the Medusa's web, and find themselves struggling in a tangle of lives and deaths extending back to the earliest days of Hollywood, fracturing timelines in the past and fleeing from predators in the present, inexorably bound for a showdown with the voracious ghost of their aunt and the entity which is the oldest and most powerful of the spiders.

Oversize, with a dust jacket and number of illustrations by J.K. Potter, housed in a custom slipcase.

Limited: 474 signed numbered copies

Alias Space and Other Stories by Kelly Robson

Alias Space and Other Stories is the first fiction collection from Nebula Award-winning writer Kelly Robson, who vaulted onto the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror stage in 2015, earning spots in multiple Year’s Best anthologies.

This volume collects Robson’s best stories to date, along with exciting new work, and notes to accompany each piece.

Robson’s stories are noted for their compassion, humanity, humor, rigor, and joy.

This volume includes the chilling gothic horror “A Human Stain,” winner of the 2018 Nebula Award; the madcap historical fantasy “Waters of Versailles,” which was a finalist for both the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards; and science fiction stories such as the touching “Intervention,” chilling “The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill,” obscene “What Gentle Women Dare,” heartbreaking “Two-Year Man,” and many others.

These fourteen stories showcase Robson’s whip-smart richness of invention, brilliant storytelling, deep worldbuilding, and devilish sense of humor.

Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies

Mike Resnick has been nominated for 37 Hugo Awards—a record for writers—and won five times. Except for 1999 and 2003, he has received at least one nomination every year from 1989 through 2012; then, after dropping off the ballot for 2 years, he was nominated again in 2015.

He is first on the Locus list of all-time award winners, living or dead, for short fiction, and 4th on the Locus list of science fiction's all-time top award winners in all fiction categories. Resnick’s daughter Laura is also an acclaimed SF author.

Dust jacket by Bob Eggleton

Theodore Roosevelt: president, naturalist, explorer, author, cowboy, police commissioner, deputy marshal, soldier, taxidermist, ornithologist, and boxer. Everyone knows about that.

But how about vampire hunter?

Or African king?

Or Jack the Ripper's nemesis?

Or World War I doughboy?

Mike Resnick (the most-awarded short story writer in science fiction history, according to Locus) has been the biographer of these other Teddy Roosevelts for almost two decades. Here you will find a familiar Roosevelt, but in unfamiliar surroundings -- stalking a vampire through the streets of New York, or a crazed killer down the back alleys of Whitechapel, coming face-to-face with the devastation of 20th Century warfare, waging an early battle for women's suffrage, applying all his skills to bring American democracy to the untamed African wilderness, or coming face-to-face with one of H. G. Wells' Martian invaders in the swamps of Cuba.

And, as Winston Churchill said of the Arthurian legends if these stories aren't true, then they should have been.

Enjoy.

Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies

Dust jacket illustration by Bob Eggleton

After his ‘ Adventures' in Africa, his ‘Exploits' in Asia, and his ‘ Encounters' in Europe, everyone’s favorite man of the cloth is back to tell you about the ‘Hazards'  he encounters in South America.

They include the terrifying Island of Annoyed Souls, the discovery of the Lost Continent of Moo (spelled correctly for a change), a battle with safari ants that even Charlton Heston wouldn’t want any part of, and a pair of Bird Girls who live in matching Chartreuse Mansions.

You’ll meet some old friends such as Capturin’ Clyde Calhoun, old heartthrobs such the Scorpion Lady, old rivals such as Major Theodore Dobbins and Rupert Cornwall, an old nemesis (the remarkable Erich von Horst), a pair of naked high priestesses (or goddesses, take your choice), the sinister Dr. Mirbeau, the incredibly wealthy and incredibly undesirable Baroness Schimmelmetz, and a score of others–-including Bubbles, an anaconda with an attitude.

And making his way through these hazards is the irrepressible Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones. So come along–you don’t want to miss the fun!

Limited: 1250 signed hardcover copies

Dust jacket illustration by Bob Eggleton

Lucifer Jones is back—and on the run again. Having been barred from the United States, Africa (Adventures), Asia (Exploits), Europe (Encounters), and South America (Hazards), he is island-hopping his way across the Pacific to Australia, the one remaining continent that will tolerate his presence.

Seems like it should be an idyllic trip, but then, nothing is ever quite idyllic where Lucifer is concerned. He meets a rather large, rather unhappy couple when he encounters King and Mrs. Kong; he comes across a hermit with an opera singer’s name who has four gorgeous servants—Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; he falls in with an arduous collector—of heads; he gets passage aboard a ship whose crazed captain is in maniacal pursuit of the Puce Whale; and he eventually tops General MacArthur’s list of least favorite people.

During the course of his voyages he and the reader encounter old friends such as Capturin’ Clyde Calhoun (who brings ’em back alive; not intact, but alive), Erich von Horst (a con man’s con man), and Inspector Willie Wong (who has so many sons he has run out of names for them and uses numbers instead), as well as some new and equally memorable characters.

Join five-time Hugo winner Mike Resnick as he brings you more episodes from the life of his favorite creation, the Right Reverend Honorable Dr. Lucifer Jones (“Weddings done cheap, with a group rate for funerals.”).

Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies  

In his long and storied career, Mike Resnick has won all of science fiction's most prestigious awards. He has won the Nebula, the Hugo, and numerous readers' awards. He has won the Japanese Hugo, as well as major awards in Spain, France, Poland and Croatia.

The Incarceration of Captain Nebula and Other Lost Futures focuses on Mike's most recent award-winners and nominees with the exception of heartbreaking 'The Last Dog,' Mike s very first award-winning short story and his multi-award-winning classic 'Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge.'

From examinations of life and death to questions of eternity, Mike's short fiction explores the range of the human experience--even though his characters include dogs, robots and aliens.

This collection has everything to appeal to the most devoted Mike Resnick fan, including a never-before-seen-in-print novella, 'Six Blind Men And An Alien.' The story, set in Africa like so many of Mike's award-winners, is one of his most spectacular works to date. The Incarceration of Captain Nebula and Other Lost Futures shows why Mike Resnick is one of science fiction's most treasured writers--and one of its most beloved.

Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies  

We have to call out the publication of the massive ‘Best of' Alastair Reynolds collection. Subterranean have done a number of ‘best of editions’ and we have many of these but this one is really imposing and check out the four page foldout artwork!

With a career stretching back more than 25 years and across fourteen novels, including the classic ‘Revelation Space’ series, the bestselling ‘Poseidon’s Children’ series, Century Rain, Pushing Ice, and most recently The Medusa Chronicles (with Stephen Baxter), Reynolds has established himself as one of the best and most beloved writers of hard science fiction and space opera working today.

A brilliant novelist, he has also been recognized as one of our best writers of short fiction.  His short stories have been nominated for the Hugo, British Fantasy, British Science Fiction, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial, Locus, Italia, Seiun, and Sidewise Awards, and have won the Seiun and Sidewise Awards.

The very best of his more than sixty published short stories are gathered in Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds, a sweeping 250,000 word career retrospective which features the very best stories from the ‘Revelation Space’ universe like “Galactic North”, “Great Wall of Mars”, “Weather”, “Diamond Dogs”, and “The Last Log of the Lachrymosa” alongside thrilling hard science fiction stories like Hugo Award nominee “Troika”, “Thousandth Night”, and “The Star Surgeon’s Apprentice”. Spanning more than fifteen years, the book also collects more recent stories like environmental SF tale “The Water Thief”, powerful and moving YA “The Old Man and the Martian Sea” and the brilliant “In Babelsberg”.

Limited: 350 signed numbered copies, in slipcase, with an exclusive dust jacket by the author  

Songs of the Dark:

Dust jacket illustration by Kevin Zamir Goeke.

Interior illustrations by Anthony Ryan.

An oversized collection of all four novellas from the world of Anthony Ryan's Raven's Shadow trilogy, including a new introduction and black-and-white interior illustrations by the author.

“Heard whispers of the Dark all my life. It’s a strange feeling when a whisper becomes a shout.”

Centuries before the rise of the Unified Realm, the final battle looms between the city-state of Kethia and the Volarian Empire. As told by Imperial Chronicler Lord Verniers, this terrible event is shrouded in many secrets and, some say, wrought by servants of the Dark.

When word reaches the north of a fresh outbreak of the dreaded Red Hand, Brother Sollis, the finest swordsman in the Sixth Order, leads a small band to a long-abandoned castle in search of a potential cure but discovers a far greater threat lurking in the mountains.

A quest for bloody vengeance forces Derla, a skilled and deadly veteran of the Varinshold underworld, into the service of the arch schemer King Janus.

Veteran Realm Guard Jerhid, newly appointed Lord Collector of the King’s Excise, finds himself battling ruthless smuggler gangs and worse on the wild southern shore of the Unified Realm.

Four compelling tales of mystery, magic, intrigue, and battle presented in one volume for the first time—featuring all-new introductions and black-and-white interior illustrations by the author.  

Limited: 400 signed numbered hardcover copies

A Pilgrimage of Swords:

Dust jacket illustration by Didier Graffet.

ENTER THE EXECRATION, WHERE THE DAMNED AND THE DESPERATE

COME TO PRAY TO THE MAD GOD…

It is two hundred years since the deity known as the Absolved went mad and destroyed the Kingdom of Alnachim, transforming it into the Execration, a blasted wasteland filled with nameless terrors. For decades, desperate souls have made pilgrimage to the centre of this cursed land to seek the Mad God’s favour, their fate always unknown.

Now a veteran warrior known only as Pilgrim, armed with a fabled blade inhabited by the soul of a taunting demon, must join with six others to make the last journey to the heart of the Execration. Allied with a youthful priest, a beast-charmer, a duplicitous scholar, an effete actor and two exiled lovers, Pilgrim must survive madness, malevolent spirits, unnatural monsters and the ever-present risk of treachery, all so that the Mad God might hear his prayer and, perhaps, grant redemption.

But can sins such as his ever be forgiven?

Subterranean Press - signed limited edition

The Kraken's Tooth

THE GREAT MERCHANT CITY OF CARTHULA—RAISED FROM THE BONES OF A KRAKEN ON THE WHIM OF A GODDESS

WHERE NOBLE HOUSES CALL UPON DARK MAGIC TO TRIUMPH IN THEIR ENDLESS AND DEADLY GAME FOR DOMINION…

Landless one-time king Guyime, once called Pilgrim but known to history as the Ravager, has survived the fall of the Execration - an event that set him on a path to find the legendary Seven Swords.

Guided by sorcery, Guyime journeys to Carthula in the centre of the First Sea to claim the mythical blade known as the Kraken’s Tooth. Aided by three companions - the beast charmer Seeker, a powerful sorceress and a scholarly slave - Guyime ventures into Carthula’s perilous underbelly to secure a prize guarded by ancient magics, cursed spirits, and lethal traps.

But can he survive an ultimate ordeal crafted from his worst nightmares?

Continuing the epic story begun in A Pilgrimage of Swords, The Kraken’s Tooth is a fast-paced tale of low intrigue and grand adventure

Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies

The Seven Swords Series:

City of Songs

Dust jacket illustration by Didier Graffet.

ATHERIA - THE FABLED CITY OF SONGS

THE SHINING JEWEL OF THE THIRD SEA

WHERE THE MASKED EXULTIA CASTE HOLD SWAY AND VIE TO OUTDO EACH OTHER IN THEIR PATRONAGE OF THE ARTS,

SOMETIMES WITH DEADLY CONSEQUENCES…

Guyime, wandering, dethroned King of the Northlands, is drawn to the Atheria by his quest for the Seven Swords, the demon cursed blades of legend. But to claim the next sword he must first solve a seemingly impossible murder - a puzzle that, once untangled, will unveil secrets so dark they could bring the City of Songs to utter ruin.

Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies

To Blackfyre Keep by Anthony Ryan

Dust jacket illustration by Didier Graffet.

GUYIME—DEMON CURSED WIELDER OF THE NAMELESS BLADE—FOLLOWS THE TRAIL OF THE FABLED SEVEN SWORDS INTO THE TROUBLED NORTHLANDS, A REALM WHERE HE WAS ONCE CALLED KING…AND RAVAGER.

Magically guided to enlist in the retinue of a lovesick knight, Guyime and his companions journey to the haunted ruin of Blackfyre Keep, a castle legend tells cannot be held. But a far deadlier threat than mere ghosts awaits. An ancient evil has been conjured and to defeat it Guyime may be forced to become the monster he used to be—the Ravager reborn.

Continuing the epic adventure of The Seven Swords, To Blackfyre Keep is an enthralling tale of creeping menace and pulse pounding action from New York Times bestselling author of the Raven’s Shadow and Draconis Memoria trilogies.

DJStories: The Best of David J. Schow

Once upon a time, there was a writer named David J. Schow.

One of his specialties was the tale of unsettlement, unease, looming fear, straight-up gross-out, unnerving spookiness, gallows-humor black satire, heart-rending loss, the conte cruel, the ironies of fate, and the seductive sorcery of the otherworldly—in a word, horror.

This was by no means his only specialty.

He wrote short stories, then novels, then TV, then movies, fiction and non. He won various awards for this pursuit, including the World Fantasy Award, the International Horror Guild Award, the Twilight Zone Dimension Award, and the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award.

As you read this now, he’s been engaged in this activity professionally for forty years.

Call him a modern fantasist, a black magic realist, an acerbic satirist, a splatterpunk, a caustic comic, an “urbanized Cormac McCarthy” (John Farris), “smart, scathing, and verbally inventive to an astonishing degree” (Peter Straub), a “literary gunslinger” (Richard Christian Matheson), “the Duke of the Dark” (Mick Garris), “deeply felt but truly chilling” (Weird Tales), “remarkably talented; edgy, insightful, and fearless” (Joe R. Lansdale), a “gifted storyteller” (Robert Bloch), a “cleverly metaphoric literary chameleon” (T.E.D. Klein) … you get the general drift, right?

As Michael Marshall Smith said, “Be prepared to be dragged to some very dark places, and to love every step of the way. Like being punched in the face by a poet.”

DJStories is Schow’s first “greatest hits” album, covering four decades of his efforts to shake you up, shock you awake, tweak your sensibilities and gun down your preconceptions. Thirty stories— count ‘em, thirty!—that cover the entire spectrum of what you may find frightening.

Monsters. Lovers. Spirits. Allies. Killers. The earthly and unearthly. The insane and the too-sane. The dead, the living and the in-between. Fictional folks who just might have an impact on your real, waking life.

This story does not have a happy ending. Guaranteed.

Shepard, Lucius - The Dragon Griaule

More than twenty-five years ago, Lucius Shepard introduced us to a remarkable fictional world, a world separated from our own “by the thinnest margin of possibility.” There, in the mythical Carbonales Valley, Shepard found the setting for “The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule,” the classic account of an artist—Meric Cattanay—and his decades long effort to paint—and kill—a dormant, not quite dead dragon measuring 6,000 feet from end to end. The story was nominated for multiple awards and is now recognized as one of its author’s signature accomplishments.

Over the years, Shepard has revisited this world in a number of brilliant, independent narratives that have illuminated the Dragon’s story from a variety of perspectives. This loosely connected series reached a dramatic crossroads in the astonishing novella, “The Taborin Scale”. The Dragon Griaule now gathers all of these hard to find stories into a single generous volume. The capstone of the book—and a particular treat for Shepard fans—is “The Skull,” a new 40,000 word novel that advances the story in unexpected ways, connecting the ongoing saga of an ancient and fabulous beast with the political realities of Central America in the 21st century.

Augmented by a group of engaging, highly informative story notes, The Dragon Griaule is an indispensable volume, the work of a master stylist with a powerful—and always unpredictable—imagination.

The Best of Michael Marshall Smith

In 1990, British-born author Michael Marshall Smith burst on to the literary scene with his first story “The Man Who Drew Cats.” It won the prestigious British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction, and he went on to win the award again the next year. In a career that has now spanned three decades he has written nearly 100 short stories, published more than a dozen best-selling novels around the world, and scripted numerous movie and television projects.

Now, to celebrate his three decades as a writer, 'The Best of Michael Marshall Smith' brings together thirty of his most emotive and powerful stories (including all his award-winning short fiction), along with extensive story notes by the author.

Featuring evocative heading illustrations by Les Edwards, this career-spanning collection includes such memorable tales as “Hell Hath Enlarged Herself,” “More Tomorrow,” “To Receive is Better,” “What You Make It,” “Later,” “The Dark Land,” “What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night,”  “Always,” and many others, in their definitive versions.

By turns touching, disturbing, and frightening, these stories are not limited by theme or genre, but reveal a writer always in command, and whose imagination knows no bounds. 'The Best of Michael Marshall Smith' is the ultimate compilation of the author’s work, and stands as a testament to his mastery of, and commitment to, his craft.

Subterranean signed limited first edition hardcover with bonus book and slipcase. Additionally we have a trade, unsigned edition available

The Unorthodox Dr. Draper by William B. Spencer

Dust jacket illustration by David Ho.

A number of these tales are cautionary ones. After reading “The Tenth Muse,” you might not wish to interview a reclusive writer who wrote one wildly popular novel and has been silent for decades, even if your father was his closest friend.

You might not wish to become a writer at all. “The Indelible Dark” portrays one lost in a dystopian novel he is writing, coming to the slow and unsettling discovery that he carries his own darkness into the mundane world.

These monsters aren’t metaphors. Alcoholism might be the monster in “Penguins of the Apocalypse,” but the disease has its own familiar, a creature born in folklore, nothing as warm as that oversized rabbit that Jimmy Stewart talked to in “Harvey.” And it’s got your son.

“Stone and the Librarian” isn’t a monster story. It is the story of an unhappy young man who is trying to find his place in a Robert E. Howard world of swords and sorcery but is constantly dragged back to the effete world of his pale and sickly classmates. They read a book by some famous guy, a book called The Catcher in the Rye, in which a kid named Holden keeps going on about how phony everything is. Stone’s book report begins, “If I met Holden Caulfield in an alley, I would kill him with a rock.”

In “The Unorthodox Dr. Draper,” a psychologist has abandoned the strict rigor of his professional life for something more improvisational with a client who tells him, “I know when they follow me. I am like a mouse that knows the shadow of the owl because the mouse must be quick or she is dead.”

If this is your first encounter with Mr. Spencer’s stories, it is a good introduction. If you have read other books by him, The Unorthodox Dr. Draper and other stories is essential.

Limited: 750 signed numbered hardcover copies

Best of Michael Swanwick

It's here at last--the first comprehensive overview of the extraordinary career of master storyteller Michael Swanwick. Covering over a quarter of a century, from his first two published stories--both of them Nebula finalists--to his most recent, these works bear witness to one of the most vivid and far-ranging imaginations in contemporary fiction. From the hardest of hard science fiction to the purest of core fantasy, from the heartwarming to the despairing, these are works incandescent with literary brilliance.

In these pages, Janis Joplin is worshiped as a god, teenagers climb down the edge of the world, zombies are commodified, a vengeful man tracks a wizard across the surface of a planet-sized grasshopper, dinosaurs invade Vermont, a train leaves New York City bound for Hell, and those lovable Post-Utopian con men, Darger and Surplus, seek their fortunes in Buckingham Labyrinth.

Michael Swanwick is one of the most acclaimed and prolific writers of his generation, as well as being the only person ever to win five Hugo Awards for fiction in the space of six years. All five of those stories are included here--plus much, much more, all of it beautifully written, critically acclaimed, and deeply satisfying to read.

Dust jacket illustration by Lee Moyer.

Trade hardcover edition

The Postutopian Adventures of Darger and Surplus by Michael Swanwick

The world is grown strange.

Gloriana, the six-brained Queen of England, squats in her throne room at the center of Buckingham Labyrinth. In Paris, the glowing Seine may, or may not, conceal the disassembled remnants of the Eiffel Tower. A dragon haunts the high passes of the Germanic states, swallowing travelers whole for purposes impossible to understand. All these signs and portents together mean but one thing to the forgettable-faced Aubrey Darger and his humanoid canine partner Surplus.

There is money to be made.

Here are five novelettes and four never-before-collected vignettes that describe episodes from the careers of those most charming of con artists, Darger and Surplus, spiritual heirs to Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser and unwitting agents of change in a world where ancient artificial intelligences scheme to destroy the descendants of their makers. The comrades’ adventures across a wildly detailed world by turns astonish and delight.

The Hugo Award-winning “The Dog Says Bow-Wow” tells the tale of the redoubtable pair’s first confidence game, played out at the dizzying heights of English society. In “The Little Cat Laughed to See Such Sport,” Surplus works to overcome his prejudice against Darger’s new lover, a member of that most contemptible and capricious of races, cats. Gods walk a future Arcadia in “Girls and Boys Come Out to Play,” tables are turned by the formidable woman who lends her name as title to “Tawny Petticoats,” and Darger and Surplus are separated as each attempts to thwart the machinations of a most unique AI “There Was an Old Woman,” which debuts herein.

The collection closes with “Smoke and Mirrors,” four brief episodes that lend nuance to all that has come before, expanding our understanding and appreciation of this world and of these unforgettable roguish characters.

Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies

How the World Became Quiet by Rachel Swirsky

After a powerful sorceress is murdered, she’s summoned over the centuries to witness devastating changes to the land where she was born. A woman who lives by scavenging corpses in the Japanese suicide forest is haunted by her dead lover. A man searches for the memory that will overwrite his childhood abuse. Helios is left at the altar. The world is made quiet by a series of apocalypses.

From the riveting emotion and politics of “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window” (Nebula winner) to the melancholy family saga of “Eros, Philia, Agape” (Hugo and Theodore Sturgeon finalist), Rachel Swirsky’s critically acclaimed stories have quickly made her one of the field’s rising stars. Her work is, by turns, clever and engaging, unflinching and quietly devastating—often in the space of the same story.

How the World Became Quiet: Myths of the Past, Present, and Future collects the body of Swirsky’s short fiction to date for the first time. While these stories envision pasts, presents, and futures that never existed, they offer revealing examinations of humanity that readers will find undeniably true.

Limited: 750 signed numbered hardcover copies    

The Old Man's War series

You're seventy-five years old, your wife is dead, and your life is winding down. What do you do next? If you're John Perry, the answer is  simple: You join the military. The Colonial Defense Forces take Earth's senior citizens and retrofit them young, strong bodies—and then throws them into the unending war humanity is waging against other civilizations up there among the stars.

John Perry is in the middle of it all and learning fast to survive, because the alternatives—for him and humanity—are grim. And it's in the middle of this struggle for survival that Perry meets a woman who seems achingly familiar…