In 2000, Subterranean Press published Triskell Tales– 22 Years of Chapbooks, by noted fantasy author Charles de Lint. This book collected together for the first time a series of chapbooks that de Lint had self-published, many as Christmas letters, from 1974 to 1999. It was a hefty book—over 500 pages— published as a signed, limited edition of 2,000 copies, at a cover price of $40.
In 2006, Subterranean Press published the “sequel,” Triskell Tales 2, containing six more years of chapbooks. The trade hardcover edition was listed at $40, and a deluxe limited edition at $125, all for a much slimmer book. In retrospect this seems like a money-grab, but I’ve never been too fond of the multiple state business plan for small press books. Either publish them without signatures in a moderate number of copies, like Arkham House or Golden Gryphon (usually around 2,000 copies), or a smaller set that’s signed by the author. The idea of “numbered, lettered, limited” variations just comes across as annoying. Do they need the more expensive books to subsidize the lower priced ones? Is it just a way to bump up profits? Don’t know, but I still find it annoying.
For many years I owned a copy of the first volume of Triskell Tales. When copies of the second book appeared for sale, they were usually well above my price point. A few weeks ago I came across a copy of the trade edition of Triskell Tales 2 at a reasonable price. There are seven tales in the book, along with an introduction. Two of the stories have brief “author’s notes” at the end.
Looking back, 2006 seems a long time ago now. Much has changed in the world since then, in real life as well as in publishing. Are there other “triskell tales?” Perhaps. Will they appear in collected form like these two books? Perhaps not. The past few years de Lint has experienced some personal issues, with his wife falling ill in 2021, then passing away in 2024 after many years battling the Powassan virus.
There’s been a vast gap of almost two decades since I last read any of my many de Lint books, and while I believe I possess more than half of his books, there’s still a vast number of them yet to find. Maybe his stories belong to a different time, a happier age, both in terms of fiction and reality. They are hopeful stories, serious stories, a type of fantasy unique to the late twentieth century.
Even though there are nine Borderlands Press little books that I don’t have, all of which are either insanely hard to find, or far beyond prices that I’m willing to pay, I continue to buy new books in their series. The latest book in their “Past Masters of Horror & Fantasy Series,” of which this is their first in “Series V,” is a collection of stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. Entitled A Little Orange Book of Odd Orchestrations and limited to 500 copies, their choice of authors continue to surprise me.
I bought this copy from the publisher, who charges a premium for shipping the book in what’s basically a padded envelope mailer. C’est la vie. Still, I’d rather support the publisher, whenever possible, since that will help them to keep publishing books in this series.
My copy is numbered #17 of 500, and signed by the editor. With four more books in Series V before they either switch to a different theme, or decide to continue with “Past Masters” one wonders who is next on the list. Kipling, maybe? I expected Clark Ashton Smith (CAS), since they’ve published H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, but so far that hasn’t happened. Hello, BP, I’m willing to edit any Jack Vance or CAS collection…
Between 2003 and 2008, Subterranean Press published three books by the noted fantasy writer, Charles de Lint, collecting many of his early stories. These books, A Handful of Coppers, Quicksilver & Shadow, and Woods & Waters Wild, were a few of the many de Lint books published by Sub Press around that time. Until recently, I’d remained ignorant of these books (strange, given the fact that I was a huge de Lint fan since the early 1990s). Over the years, I’d picked up only a couple of de Lint’s Sub Press books: Triskell Tales (2000) and The Road to Lisdoonvarna (2001), probably because the price at the time was “right,” of I found them in person at a convention (at that time I didn’t really buy books online). More than two decades passed before I bought any other of de Lint’s Sub Press books.
All of de Lint’s Sub Press books went out of print fairly quickly. Checking their web-site after the fact resulted only in regret and envy. Recently, as I’ve started looking more at the secondary market to find some out of print books, I’ve become aware of the other Sub Press de Lint books, copies of which now are available to purchase from online resellers. In some cases, the prices are beyond the original cover price, and a choice must be made. In other cases, I “go for it” and hold my breath as I await the shipment to see if the books matches the online description.
I bought the first two “early stories” books last year (2023), inspired as I was while in the midst of re-reading some de Lint novels. For many years I bought any paperback or hardcover de Lint book I could find in local stores (when that was an option, before the internet and bad business decisions killed several physical stores), then I took a break from SF and fantasy books. In the past couple of years I’ve looked back at favorite authors and tried to find books that I missed. Hence, the search for some de Lint books. Then, a few days ago, tempted by a huge discount, I bought Woods & Waters Wild, the last of the three collections of early tales.
All three books in this series that I now own are signed by de Lint. They’re not “limited” in the sense that they are numbered or granted some special format. The “signed, lettered editions” were listed at $175, $200, and $200, respectively, as stated inside the covers of my books.
Who pays such a price, I thought? Is a number in a book worth far more than $20, or the then original cover price of $40? To someone, sure. To me? Not so much. I have no idea how many copies were published in these states. They do say “signed, limited edition” in the jacket flap, but there’s no indication as to the limitation number. It would have been nice to see something, maybe on the last page of the book, stating that it was limited to X number of copies, whether that was 1,000 or 2,000 or other.
There are still quite a few of de Lint’s Sub Press books that I don’t own. Some are less tempting than others. I’ve already acquired Eyes Like Leaves and Promises to Keep. Some of these books appear to be aimed at the juvenile market. If the right opportunity arises, maybe I’ll try to get more of his books. There’s a measure of regret in any current purchase actions, as I’m not benefitting either the author or publisher. Either you jump right away and buy what the publisher offers, or you look for a dealer who bought books at a discount who now sells them at a premium, or a prior buy offloading their copies. Sometimes you get lucky and the seller offers the book at a discount. Buy it then, reader, buy it then.
My only quibble is that the publisher wasn’t consistent in their font and format used for these three books. This is a pet peeve of mine: if a publisher knows they are planning a series of books by the same author, don’t freakin’ change the format, especially on the spines, of the books in that series! Even the font inside the books is different. You’d think that different artists, editors, typesetters were hired with each book, and every one of them said, “let’s do something different!”
Subterranean Press for many years has published “best of” collections. These are massive books, 500, or 600 pages long, spanning the career of a specific author. As with most Subterranean Press books, they tend to sell out quickly.
Recently I picked up a pair of these collections, The Best of Gregory Benford and The Dark Ride: The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel.
Published in 2015, The Best of Gregory Benford collects 38 soties out his more than 200 published short fiction. I read several Benford books in the 1990s, but I don’t think I’ve read any of his short fiction. His novels embody the essence of “hard SF.” The titles of some of his novels are as inventive and powerful as the content, from Against Infinity, In the Ocean of Night,Across the Sea of Suns, and more. Once, again at some point in the 1990s, I had dinner with Benford and a bunch of others, and also was involved in the Prometheus Award ceremony where he presented an award. He signed some paperback and hardbacks that I owned at the time. He was gracious, witty, and personable. I look forward to reading these stories. This Subterranean Press edition was published in a trade and limited edition, and I picked up the trade edition from a local dealer, Lawrence Person, a few months ago.
In contrast to not having read Benford’s short fiction, I have read a handful of John Kessel short stories, all from a collection published by Arkham House in 1992, called Meeting in Infinity. I read those stories probably back when I bought that book in the early 1990s, so I remember nothing about them; my excuse is that I’ve read too many books since then.
Published in 2022 this collection, entitled, The Dark Ride, appears to only have been issued in a limited edition of 1,000 signed and numbered copies. I came across it in a local used book store. Shocked that anyone would sell a signed, numbered book, I picked it up at once. Although slightly longer than the Benford collection, Kessel’s book contains fewer stories—only 20.
Short story collections usually don’t sell many copies (something writers usually complain about in their introductions to their own collections). In that sense, they are ideally suited for small press publishers, who’ll run off a few copies at prices twice (or more) what you would pay for a regular hardcover by a traditional publisher like BAEN or Tor (although they do occasionally publish collections).
The starting price for most of these Sub Press editions is usually $40 or more. For the Benford book in 2015, the low end edition was $40. Meanwhile, in 2022, the signed edition from Kessel was only $45. And yet, these books tend to sell out right away, which means there are readers who want to buy short fiction between hard covers, not just in magazines. I’ve seen others listed for slightly less, or, in the case of signed limited editions, for a lot more, from Sub Press itself. On the secondary market, well, it’s whatever people thing it’s worth.
A look at Sub Press’s catalog reveals a situation that’s both good and bad. Michael Swanwick: out of print; Nancy Kress: out of print; Kage Baker: out of print; Gregory Benford: out of print; Lucius Shepard: out of print. The list goes on and on… If you’re looking for any of these books now, your only option is book dealers who snapped up copies to sell, with a slight (or more than slight) profit to themselves. Good luck out there. Find a collection from a writer you like, and you’ll see their career in highlights.
Charles de Lint is prolific writer whose books have become harder to find. In the 1990s and early 2000s, paperback copies of early de Lint books were still available, as well as newer ones in hardcover, at least in the local new and used bookstores. Even though I dislike beat-up books, or books with cracked spines, I bought any de Lint book that at the time I didn’t own, regardless of condition. For a long time I mostly owned de Lint paperbacks. I slowly started accruing some hardcover editions when those appeared. Then, shortly after the year 2000 the number of books I bought dropped sharply. Reading habits changed, kids came into my life, I moved cities, and a host of other things happened around the same time. I looked at my de Lint books recently, and compared to his published output, although I own close to 30 of his books, that’s maybe around half his published books.
These days, as I’m trying to fill in a few gaps with books from favorite writers that I’ve missed over those “lost” years, de Lint’s books are high on my list. It seems that a fair number of his books in the 2000s were published in limited editions by Subterranean Press. These all are now out of print. Looking at the list of books under his name from that publisher, it would take a fair amount of money and effort to collect them all. But, I’ve slowly started to pick up a few of them.
First of these was Promises to Keep (Subterranean Press, 2007 – trade hardcover edition). This slim novel features an early tale from a character that has appeared in other de Lint stories, Jilly Coppercorn. With over two decades since I last read anything by de Lint, I don’t remember having previously encountered her. (Note: glancing through my stack of paperbacks I see that Jilly appears in Dreams Underfoot, a collection of linked stories. I’ve this book for many years, and I think I read some—or all—of the stories at some point.)
Next, Eyes Like Leaves (Subterranean Press, 2009 – signed, not numbered hardcover). This is early novel. It was first finished in 1980, but as de Lint explains in his introduction, his then editor cautioned against publishing it, as she felt it would pigeon-hole him as a “secondary world fantasy author.” At the time, he had already published a few novels, and was moving into a more contemporary fantasy genre, so he set aside the manuscript. Prompted by the release in book form of some earlier short stories (see below), he dusted off this book, cleaned it up a bit, and so we have a “lost” novel from de Lint, set in a magical world in an imaginary land.
Then, The Wind in His Heart (PS Publishing, 2018, signed and limited, #214 of 500 copies). This book, which I read in March 2024, is set far away from his usual imaginary city of Newford in Canada, and in the afterword de Lint mentions that the market for his adult books disappeared, and for years he had to write young adult stories. This probably explains one of the reasons in my gap of de Lint books. Still, I’m maybe part of the reason of that disappearing market, as until quite recently the last de Link book I bought was back in 2002; looking at an online bibliography, he published over 25 books since that 2002 purchase.
A Handful of Coppers (Subterranean Press, 2003 – signed, not numbered hardcover), contains some of the earliest de Lint stories. Every new writer needs to read a book like this, if only to remind themselves, as de Lint writes, that whether or not the stories he wrote back then are good or not (and writers mostly look back at early fiction and cringe), they were the best that they could be at the time. Many a new writer has looked at his or her first few stories and given up, seeing only rough, misshapen plots and characters. It takes time, work, effort, and someone like Charles de Lint put in a ton of effort to become a great writer, something evident even in his early stories.
Quicksilver & Shadow (Subterranean Press, 2005 – signed, not numbered hardcover) follows with more early tales. While the stories in A Handful of Coppers are mostly in the fantasy genre, the ones in this collection are described as “contemporary, dark fantasy, and science fiction.” Subterranean Press published a slew of de Lint books over the years, so I now feel the pressure to find the other collections and novels. Maybe it’s time to re-read some of the ones that I read so many years ago, as well.
I’m a huge fan of Tim Powers, but not mad enough to spend $300 for this limited edition of the collection short stories of Tim Powers, from Subterranean Press. Limited to only 124 copies, it’s already sold out, anyway. Maybe some day it will filter down to a less limited edition, as it contains at least one new story.
Tim Powers fans rejoice! Subterranean Press is publishing a new, 21,000 word novella called Salvage and Demolition. Apparently the limited edition is already sold out, and no doubt the trade edition shortly will follow suit. The brief description sounds like classic Powers stuff:
Richard Blanzac, a San Francisco-based rare book dealer, opens a box of consignment items and encounters the unexpected. There, among an assortment of literary rarities, he discovers a manuscript in verse, an Ace Double Novel, and a scattering of very old cigarette butts. These commonplace objects serve as catalysts for an extraordinary—and unpredictable—adventure.
Subterranean Press is one of the best modern small press publishers, with gorgeous covers, a wide range of authors, and a steady stream of new and classic books of fantasy, mystery, science fiction and horror. Their latest Jack Vance re-issue, Desperate Days, collects three Vance mysteries. Two of these are set in an imaginary county in northern California, and the third about a young woman on a steamship bound for Europe. Each of the books are virtually impossible to locate today; the first two might show up in a used mystery store or online, and the third appeared in two fairly limited publication runs. Kudos to Subterranean Press for re-issuing these books, and for their on-going effort to publish some of the earlier and harder to find Vance stories.
