Well, it's fair to say that FantasyCon has whipped up a storm of activity at PS Towers, and thankfully, pallet loads of books for the launches we've promised are beginning to land at our new warehouse. You'd think that would be a cue for a slow down. Not a chance! There are still a frightening number of non FantasyCon projects on the go, not least the deluxe oversize editions of 20th CENTURY GHOSTS, SOMETHING WICKED, 'SALEM'S LOT, SKELETON CREW and THINNER. Plus, there's some exciting news heading your way with regards to our DIP paperbacks, but I'll let Pete fill you in on the detail when he and Nicky get back from visiting family.

In the meantime, the finishing touches are being applied to our long awaited trade paperback edition of A IS FOR ALIEN. Each story in Caitlín R. Kiernan's collection is now accompanied by Vince Locke's illustrations (from the original publication by Subterranean Press) Plus, we've included four additional stories in our edition (also illustrated by Vince).

And, Robert tells me he's making headway in the design of Paul Park's OTHER STORIES collection whilst applying some last minute tweaks to Kelly Barnhill's novella, THE UNLICENSED MAGICIAN, which will feature some stunning Ben Baldwin cover art. Here's a taster . . .

WHITE SPAWN by Marc Laidlaw

Marc Laidlaw's novella WHITE SPAWN arrived on Thursday and boy, it looks terrific!

Marc Laidlaw began publishing in 1978, and spent the next couple of decades writing novels and short stories. In 1997, his supernatural horror novel, The 37th Mandala, won an International Horror Guild Award. Around this time, he joined Valve Software, where he has worked ever since. He helped design the landmark Half-Life series, famous mainly for its lead character who never speaks, and more recently served as lead writer on the multi-player phenomenon, Dota 2, with its hundred-plus characters who never shut up. A resident of Washington State, he still writes short fiction, but mainly plays games clearly designed for the reflexes of much younger people.

"Abrim with creeping dread redolent of Lovecraft and Machen, White Spawn is a modern wonder of naturalist horror. Laidlaw depicts the damp and the dark of a primeval Pacific Northwest with real artistry." —Laird Barron

"White Spawn is both a chilling, beautiful love story and a relentlessly eyelid-stripping look at families, clans, and wisdom taught and learned. Like all unforgettable stories, there are images that swim up the stream of consciousness." —Anna Tambour

"White Spawn is my favorite kind of story: it combines the pleasures of pulp fiction—in this case, an Innsmouth-like community struggling to survive in the Pacific Northwest—with a narrative about the implacable yearnings of the human heart. Touching and unnerving in equal measures, this is Laidlaw in top form." —Nathan Ballingrud

Adolescence can be terrifying. The monsters under the bed that frightened us in childhood are replaced by deeper fears, monsters all the more terrible because they just might be real. Kayla’s family has moved to a rural community, and things aren’t great at home. She feels cut off from the real world, and she’s always fighting with her new stepfather. Then one day she discovers a dying salmon on the bank of a stream. It’s diseased, rotting, its symptoms recalling those suffered by an old man who disappeared before her arrival.

But this find leads to another. A white-haired boy named Thor, who lives with his grotesque grandmother in a trailer, far off in the rank forest. As Kayla’s friendship with Thor deepens, she begins to understand the monstrous truth behind him and the backwoods community to which he belongs . . .

Cunningly constructed and powerfully felt, Marc Laidlaw’s menacingly resonant novella leads us through woods half recognised from fairy tale and nightmare, to locations truly dark and strange.

WHITE SPAWN is available as an unsigned jacketed novella for £15; a signed edition limited to 100 copies is also available at £25.

PAPERBACK OFFER

With Pete and Nicky away for a few days it would be remiss of me not to sneak in an offer or two. As I hinted earlier, we'll be making some announcements about new titles for our DRUGSTORE INDIAN PRESS paperback range in the not too distant future—new titles, old favourites —but as I said, I'll leave that for Pete to fill you in on the detail. 

So, on with the offers. I've kept them simple this time with four paperback bundles to tempt you:

• John Gribbin earned his PhD in astrophysics at Cambridge and in two compelling tales, has married science fact with science fiction to great effect. TIMESWITCH explores time travel incorporating the latest scientific thinking about the Multiverse. In THE ALICE ENCOUNTER, aliens in the DM world, more advanced than we are, have discovered the trace of 10 per cent “normal” matter in “their” universe. And have come to investigate it. And you can investigate both of the these gems for just £10 plus postage.
• Michael Coney's HELLO SUMMER, GOODBYE is a minor classic of the SF field. Set on a planet whose elliptical orbit creates intense summers and long, cold winters, it tells of the love between Drove and the girl Pallahaxi-Browneyes, whose affair is set against civil war and the dread approach of winter. I REMEMBER PALLAHAXI is the sequel set hundreds of years after the events recounted in Hello Summer, and is a murder mystery on one level, and on another, a mystery about the origins of the native aliens. And to complete the trio; FLOWER OF GORONWY is a mystery of intrigue and subtefuge as human colonists vie with the indigenous, but ultimately doomed, race. All three are on offer for £15 plus postage.
• Collected together in three paperback volumes are all the supernatural and macabre short stories and novellas of legendary British writer Basil Copper and you can have all three DARKNESS, MIST AND SHADOW volumes for £15 plus a one off postage.
• Finally, we have a trio of award winners. In 2013 Joel Lane won "Best Collection" at the World Fantasy Awards for WHERE FURNACES BURN which offers a glimpse of the myths and terrors buried within the industrial landscape. In the same year EXOTIC GOTHIC IV, an anthology of short fiction in the gothic horror and fantasy genres edited by Danel Olson won "Best Anthology". Winner of the 2009 Arthur C. Clarke award, Ian R. MacLeod's SONG OF TIME takes place near the end of the 21st century, as an aged concert violinist, about to pass into a virtual afterlife, discovers a half-drowned man on a Cornish beach. Described by the Guardian as "a slow, sensitive first-person account of what it means to be human and vulnerable". Once again, all three are avialabe for £15 plus the postage.

That's all for this week folks. Pete will be back in the chair next time around.

In the meantime, enjoy your weekends, preferably with a DIP paperback at hand.

Mike