During the era of Covid-19, I haven’t announced many new book publications, because the bulk of Fantastic Books‘s publicity engine runs through in-person science fiction conventions (where we also make a significant percentage of our sales), so I’ve taken the company into semi-hibernation: still doing business, but cutting back to maintain the company’s health.

But now, as the pandemic drags on, I’m looking for ways to get the business going again in this new (and hopefully temporary) world. We’ve got a couple of reprint novels lined up, and I’m planning how to release a couple of original titles that I put on hold back in March. Today, I’m pleased to announce our republication of Margaret Cavendish’s classic novel The Description of a New World called The Blazing-World. This proto-science fiction novel—by one of the first female authors to write under her own name—is set in a utopian world. The Blazing-World is parallel to the Earth we know, entered via a passage at the North Pole. The story tells of the invasion of our world led by the empress of the Blazing-World, a refugee from our own.

Originally published in 1666, Fantastic Books’s 2020 edition includes an introduction by, well, me. Check it out!