Whilst the UK basks in some welcome sunshine . . .

I'm sorry to report that Pete is a little under the weather at the moment and so has handed over the reins for this week's newsletter. Fear not PSers, its nothing life threatening, probably just a touch of 'man flu'  or a mild case of exhaustion from a maelstrom of creativity that has reached unprecedented levels of late, enough to explode the brains of lesser beings. Hopefully, once the drugs kick in, and we've loosened the restraints, he will be rampaging around the corridors of PS Towers whipping up storms once more.

In the meantime . . .

GREAT NEWS . . . Shirley Jackson Awards nominees for three PS titles

In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson's writing, and with permission of the author's estate, the Shirley Jackson Awards have been established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.

We're delighted to hear that three PS titles have been given the vote in this year's nominees announcement.

Congratulations go to Steve Rasnic Tem for his subtle and profound tale set around a fabulous museum devoted to H. P. Lovecraft, IN THE LOVECRAFT MUSEUM, and Elizabeth Hand for her beautifully written story of the mysterious death of one of the founding musicians in a British acid-folk band holed up at WYLDING HALL, an ancient country house with its own dark secrets. Both have been voted nominees in the category of Novella.

Meanwhile, and hot on the tails of last week's announcement of Black Wings V,  S. T. Joshi's  2015 collection of Lovecraftian inspired stories, BLACK WINGS IV has been voted a  nominee in the category of Edited Anthology.

The awards ceremony will take place at Readercon 27 (www.readercon.org) on Sunday morning, July 10. Here at PS Towers, fingers, toes and tentacles are crossed for all three.

in the meantime, you can pick up a copy of any of these three award nominees POST FREE anywhere in the world, but just for this weekend.

This week, Hugo-award winning author, Mary Robinette Kowal's "My Favorite Bit" Blog features Deborah Biancotti talking about WAKING IN WINTER. You can read her guest piece in full here:

http://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/favorite-bit-deborah-biancotti-talks-waking-winter/

Meanwhile, Stephanie Gunn, frequent Aurealis Awards judge, and past Australian Shadows Awards judge, gave WAKING IN WINTER  a five star review on Goodreads, concluding:

"This is the kind of story that's perfectly suited to novella length. There's enough detail to ground the reader into the claustrophobic nature of living in the base station, with enough left unsaid to echo the fear of the unknown. This would be an ideal gateway for someone who's a fan of cinematic science fiction, but not quite ready to jump into some of the door-stop length space operas, or for someone who's read a lot of other speculative genres, but little science fiction. And if you haven't read any Biancotti yet (And if you haven't, you're truly missing out), this is a good place to start."

You can read the full review here: www.goodreads.com/book/show/29440029-waking-in-winter

And finally . . .

Just this afternoon we took delivery of the unsigned edition of POSTSCRIPTS #36/37 - THE DRAGONS OF THE NIGHT. This bumper anthology (the final double-sized Postscripts before EXTRASOLAR) is packed with twenty-four new stories from twenty one of today’s finest speculative fiction writers including Darrell Schweitzer (who penned the title story), Brian Aldiss, Lavie Tidhar, Lisa L. Hannett, John Grant, James Copper and many others.

It's a handsome volume but . . . Is this our best POSTSCRIPTS edition yet? Well that's for you to decide. But just so you can check out the predecessors, here's a little deal to help you make up your minds.

The last four volumes MEMORYVILLE BLUES, FAR VOYAGER, BREAKOUT and DRAGONS are  yours for just £69 plus postage. And if you've already pre-ordered DRAGONS, heck why wouldn't you!, the three previous volumes could be winging their way to yours truly for a measly £39 plus postage. This offer is just for this weekend mind (I'll be taking it down first thing Monday morning), so take advantage while you can. I've got all four of them in front of me as I write this and they do look absolutely stunning as a 4 book set. How could anyone not want them on their bookshelves?

Which just leaves me to say, get well soon Pete, take the rest of day off (tee hee, I've been itching to say that!).

Have a fantastic weekend, look after each other and (as if I really needed to say this) happy reading.

Mike

PS

Nicky has asked me to explain the FORTHCOMING TITLES section on our website as we appear to have caused some confusion as to what is actually 'in stock' and what is not. So, just to clarify:

FORTHCOMING TITLES ARE NOT IN STOCK BUT ARE AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER  

The website has to show a stock level (hence 'in stock') otherwise you would not be able to order in advance and we would not be able to ensure we don't over sell the limitation.

All the books in this section are in production but we are awaiting delivery from the printers. This usually happens within a month of the order page going up but signed edtions or those requiring a slipcase or traycase, or some other post production finishing process will take longer to arrive than unsigned editions.

The anticipated release date is stated in the description of each title but for regular updates about all our scheduled titles the NEWSLETTER will generally be the first port of call.