Today’s the final day! If you want to get a jump on the time travelers, if you want to sign up for the ebook at the cheapest it will ever be, you have to get your pledge recorded by the end of today! If you back the Kickstarter campaign for Three Time Travelers Walk Into… in the next 11 hours, you can get an electronic copy of the anthology (when it’s published) for a scant $5. And if you’re interested in some of the other rewards, we’ve still got some great Tuckerizations available, and the truly awesome opportunity—for one person only—to tell Peter David what story to write for the book! Check it all out at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/667435382/three-time-travelers-walk-into . And then remember to tell your friends.
fantastic books
Historical Trio 4?
Amelia Earhart, Queen Victoria, and Marie Curie hanging out at Coachella: what a day! Check out Three Time Travelers Walk Into… on Kickstarter. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/667435382/three-time-travelers-walk-into
Historical Trio 3?
Jesus, Mary Shelley, and Josef Stalin painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel: what will it look like and how will it affect us? Check out Three Time Travelers Walk Into… on Kickstarter. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/667435382/three-time-travelers-walk-into
Historical Trio 2?
Groucho Marx, Karl Marx, and Richard Marx at the signing of the Declaration of Independence: what do you think would happen? Check out Three Time Travelers Walk Into… on Kickstarter. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/667435382/three-time-travelers-walk-into
Historical Trio?
Theodore Roosevelt, Mae West, and P.T. Barnum on Marco Polo’s voyage to China: would you write that story? Check out Three Time Travelers Walk Into… on Kickstarter. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/667435382/three-time-travelers-walk-into
Time Machines Through History
An interesting bit of synchronicity that I completed missed: on August 17, 1960, George Pal’s classic film The Time Machine (based on the iconic novel by H.G. Wells) debuted in New York City. On August 17, 2021, Fantastic Books’ Kickstarter campaign for Three Time Travelers Walk Into… debuted. And in one scant day, we’ve got 19% of the campaign’s goal already pledged. Thanks, everyone!
Three Time Travellers Walk Into…
After being nearly somnolent for a year and a half due to the pandemic, Fantastic Books is roaring back into activity. We published Horror for the Throne last month, announced the forthcoming On Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren edited by Bill Wood and Sanctuary by Allen Steele, and now we’ve launched our first Kickstarter campaign in a long time.
Michael A. Ventrella returns to the Fantastic Books fold, editing the anthology Three Time Travellers Walk Into…. The authors were told simply “take three unconnected historical figures, throw them together, and see what fun/mayhem/pathos/what-have-you ensues.” Please check it out at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/667435382/three-time-travelers-walk-into, and tell your friends. (I clicked the “launch the campaign” button minutes ago, and before I could post here, there were already five backers. I’m very excited!)
PW recommends On Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren
I’ve mentioned before that Fantastic Books will be publishing a massive non-fiction volume dedicated to Samuel R. Delany’s classic novel, called On Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren. The book doesn’t arrive until September, but the first of the reviews is now available. Publishers Weekly says, among other things, “Samuel R. Delany’s influential and divisive 1975 novel Dhalgren gets a full critical treatment in this immersive and comprehensive collection,” and “Fans of Delaney’s classic will want to snap this up.” To read the full review, see this link. And to read the full book, keep your eyes open for the September 9th publication date.
Gimme Sanctuary
Fantastic Books is excited to be publishing three-time Hugo Award-winner Allen Steele’s new novel, Sanctuary, in November.
Imagine a world without plastic.
Imagine a world where something in the environment eats plastic.
Imagine arriving on such a world in a space ship.
The human colonists in Allen Steele’s Sanctuary don’t have to imagine it—they have to survive it.
After traveling light years to the Earth-like planet of Tau Ceti-e, they have only minutes to abandon ship before the native plastic-eating organism turns their space ship into a death trap of orbiting debris.
Now they’ll have to survive an 18th-century way of life with the forbearance of the not-exactly hostile—but definitely not friendly—natives.
Why do the native Cetans keep humanity confined to one poor island? Why do they so hate and mistrust the humans? What is going on?
Private eye Jeremy Crowe finds himself caught up in the underground search for the truth, stuck on a middling rung in the modern caste system, and struggling to not make humanity’s desperate situation any worse. Fighting for his life may turn out to be the easy part.
Fantastic Books will publish three-time Hugo Award-winner Allen Steele’s new novel, Sanctuary, on November 2, 2021. The book will appear in simultaneous hardcover and trade paperback formats.
Hardcover: 308 pages, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-5154-4773-3
Trade Paperback: 308 pages, $15.99, ISBN 978-1-5154-4774-0Sanctuary—and all Fantastic Books books—are distributed via Ingram. Review copies are available upon request.
A wonderfully horrific day!
Today is publication day, and Fantastic Books is horrified to announce the arrival of Horror for the Throne, the third in the popular series of genre-specific anthologies of short fiction.
After an interminable delay brought about by the horror of the pandemic, Fantastic Books is getting back into gear in a big way with this thrilling collection of short stories guaranteed to scare… it right out of you. Editors James D. Macdonald, Tom Easton, and Judith K. Dial have selected forty little gems that’ll get your blood pumping and tickle the tiny hairs on the back of your neck.
You’ll probably want to read it with the lights on.
Amazing Stories said the first volume (Science Fiction for the Throne) is “not a book to try and read in one sitting (as I largely did). It is what I sometimes refer to as ‘a dipping book:’ for maximum effect, you should read a story or two here, a story or two there, a story or two somewhere else.” Hugo-winner Allen Steele said “For the bathroom, for the bedroom, for the bus to work, for that chair in the department store where bored spouses sit while their wives or husbands try on new clothes… this is a perfect way to entertain yourself during idle moments in a way that won’t rot your mind. Read this and have fun.”
Asimov’s Science Fiction said the second volume, Fantasy for the Throne, is “a fun collection, exactly right for those moments when you have just a few minutes to read.” While Analog Science Fiction and Fact called it “a little gem. Or rather, here are 40 little gems by as many authors, all packaged in one sweet volume.”
Horror for the Throne is now available in trade paperback and hardcover formats—and will soon be available as an e-book—through all your major online retailers. It is distributed to all physical book stores through Ingram: just ask!
With an introduction by Bruce Coville, Horror for the Throne features the horrific stylings of: E.C. Ambrose, Colleen Anderson, Kevin David Anderson, Diane Arrelle, Stewart C. Baker, T.L. Barrett, James Blakey, Bruce Boston, Michael Bracken, Tiffany Michelle Brown, Elliot Capon, Jeff C. Carter, Gregg Chamberlain, Brenda Clough, Ian Creasey, Randee Dawn, Steve Dillon, Stephanie Ellis, Kevin M. Folliard, Eric J. Guignard, Liam Hogan, Emma Johnson-Rivard, Daniel M. Kimmel, Chris Kuriata, Geoffrey A. Landis, Sharon Lee, Gordon Linzner, Nicola Lombardi, Linda Silverman McMullen, Gregory Nicoll, Brian Rappatta, Gary L. Robbe, Chuck Rothman, Steve Rasnic Tem, Mark Towse, Mary A. Turzillo, Douglas A. Van Belle, Marie Vibbert, Dawn Vogel, and Marcia Wilson.
Get it now, before it gets you!
Horror for the Throne: One-Sitting Reads
edited by James D. Macdonald, Tom Easton, and Judith K. Dial
introduction by Bruce Coville
Fantastic Books. 176 pages.
trade paperback: $14.99. ISBN: 978-1-5154-2409-3.
case laminate hardcover: $22.99. ISBN: 978-1-5154-2410-9.
Ian Randal Strock 