Tuesday, 12 August 2025

Some new books

 I'll shortly be rattling the can for my Cardiff Half Marathon cancer research sponsorship, but in the meantime here are a few new things worthy of mention.

The two Revelation Space short story collections I mentioned last time are now out in the world, and it's very nice to see them. As indicated, these gather all the stories previously compiled in the two collections Galactic North and Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days, as well as the material I've written since those two books: Monkey Suit, Open and Shut, The Last Log of the Lachrimosa, Night Passage and Plague Music. I've no immediate plans for anything else in the RS universe so, for now at least, these two collections are complete. Obviously if you're a completist, and you've already got the two earlier collections, you'll be in the annoying position of having to shell out for one or both of these, but it would have been a bit unsatisfactory to orphan these newer stories in a separate collection, I feel, as they would have needed to be padded out with non-RS material. I know how it feels as I've been there myself with other authors and musicians.




As always, I feel the need to add that, although I'm done with the RS stuff for now, that's not because I got fed up with it or exhausted, just that I'd like to explore fresher creative pastures while I can. At least there's a good chunk of material already written, for those who enjoy rummaging around in future histories. And speaking of which, this summer has also seen the publication of Subterranean Press's gorgeous special edition of ABSOLUTION GAP, following on from their equally lovely renditions of REVELATION SPACE and REDEMPTION ARK. I'm really thrilled and flattered by the attention to detail in Sub Press's books and consider myself very fortunate indeed for their enthusiasm and care.

ABSOLUTION GAP is a divisive book (I know!) but the one thing we can all agree on is that it's a big beast; by my recollection it's around 275,000 words and I've not written anything anywhere near as long since. The Sub Press edition is accordingly quite a bruiser of a book:



It features some stunning and evocative artwork (I'll just offer a teaser here):



By the brilliant Marc Simonetti. Once again Subterranean Press has produced a phenomenal item, and I'm eternally grateful to Bill and everyone at Sub Press for their continued support. Thank you so much.

Also from Subterranean, but not arriving until October, is my standalone novella THE DAGGER IN VICHY, which I'm also very pleased with, and Sub Press has come up with a beautiful quasi-medieval look for the thing, fully in keeping with the narrative.




The cover is by Andrew Davis, and the editor on this title was the formidable Jonathan Strahan, another much appreciated and long-time supporter of my work.

Ordering details for these books, and many others, may be found here:

https://subterraneanpress.com/

There's another North American limited edition in the pipeline, too - something a bit different - which I'll talk about nearer publication.

Many thanks,

Al R





10 comments:

  1. Subterranean Press’ books are abolutely beautiful and well worth the money. The care that goes into the production of these books as well as shipping is not matched by other large publishers. I actually received my copy of the «Dagger in Vichy » last week (Canada) will get to it soon!

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    1. They do great books, indeed. Thanks for ordering Dagger...

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  2. My copy of "The Dagger in Vichy" also arrived recently (USA) - #173

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  3. Those RS illustrations are fantastic! Scorpio looks appropriately intimidating, and I'm guessing that's Clavain and Khouri with him?

    Just a heads up for my fellow 'Mericans, if you don't want to wait (or are planning to get the print edition regardless), The Dagger in Vichy is available on Kindle.

    It's my next read as soon as I finish Peter Hamilton's Exodus. Which is also awesome, by the way. The worldbuilding is extraordinary even by Hamilton standards, and it explores asymmetrical human evolution in a way similar to the Corpus Humans of his Salvation trilogy.

    Thanks for the update, AR.

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    1. Yes, Scorp, Clavain, Khouri, and great illustrations throughout.

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  4. Loving the attention to detail on these hardcovers. Will there be an audible version of Vichy? The prose in Eversion + performance by Harry Myers was so good.

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    1. Don't think there are plans for an audio version right now.

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  5. Ordered Dagger as I loved Eversion. Didn't realize Subterranean Press was just across the border from us in Michigan. So close to Canada.

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    1. Yeah, I visited Sub Press one cold winter a decade or so ago. Great people.

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  6. Dang! I was just going to tell you with a hard to find copy of "The Six Directions of Space" i've just got 25/25 of your works in hard copy...(Belladonna nights was also tricky). what a journey it has been. Love your storytelling and I've rarely encountered such a consistent quality of short stories from a single author. I had a chat with Harry Harrison once and he said he'd never sell the screenrights to a story again after "Soylent Green's interpretation of Make Room Make Room. How bout you?

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