Over-Booked (10) – The Subterranean Press Edition

Welcome to Over-Booked, my book haul post where I share recent book acquisitions, whether it be purchases, review copies, or contest winnings! I’m happy to be linking up with Stacking the Shelves over at Tynga’s Reviews and The Sunday Post at the Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

This week I received my highly anticipated Subterranean Press “Grab Bag,” which I ordered over a month ago. If you aren’t familiar with Subterranean Press (and why aren’t you?), they are a high quality, small press genre publisher that mostly publishes special signed editions of some of the top names in science fiction and fantasy. Their books almost always become collectible, and while they are certainly not cheap, they are so gorgeously produced that they are worth every penny. Every so often they decide to clear out some of their back-stock and offer customers grab bags for a fixed price. This time around the cost of the grab bag was $150.00 (I know it sounds like a lot, but just wait!). For that amount, you are guaranteed at least thirteen books at a value of at least $475.00. You won’t know what you get until you open the box, hence the “grab bag” part of the deal. Such excitement! This was my first grab bag purchase, but hopefully not my last. Because I started working full-time, this was the first time in a long while that I had an extra $150 to spend on books. I received fourteen books in my box!

And here they are spread out so you can see the beauty of the artwork:

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz by Garth Nix. Signed by the author and numbered. Dust jacket artwork by Tom Canty. This beautiful and slim story is “for adults only.”

Jack in the Green by Charles de Lint. Signed by the author and numbered. Dust jacket artwork by Charles Vess. This novella is a tale based on the Robin Hood tale.

Sergeant Chip and Other Novellas by Bradley Denton. Signed by the author and numbered. Dust jacket design by Jason Gurley. Three novellas by an award-winning writer.

Jewels in the Dust by Peter Crowther. Signed by the author and numbered. Jacket artwork by Edward Miller. This is a book of short stories by a guy who is well-known in the genre world for not only writing but also as the guy behind PS Publishing, another small, high-quality genre publisher.

Hot Times in Magma City 1990-95 by Robert Silverberg. Sans dust jacket. It looks like Subterranean is compiling all of Silverberg’s short stories. This book says “Volume Eight” on the cover, so I’m guessing he’s got quite a bunch of stories under his belt!

The River of Souls by Robert McCammon. Jacket artwork by Vincent Chong. I haven’t started this series yet, but McCammon is one of my all-time favorite writers. He’s mostly known for his horror stories, but this is historical mystery, and I hear these books are quite good. This just happens to be #5 in the series, so I will need to go back and pick up the first four books!

Balfour and Meriwether in The Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs by Daniel Abraham. Jacket artwork by David Palumbo. Abraham has won many awards for his writing, but I’ve never read him before. I’m loving the artwork on this cover:-)

Book of Iron by Elizabeth Bear. Signed by the author and numbered. Jacket artwork by Maurizio Manzieri.  Elizabeth Bear is a force in the SF/Fantasy world, and here she writes a prequel to her novella Bone and Jewel Creatures.

Stranger Things Happen and Origin Stories by Kelly Link. Signed by the author and numbered. Jacket artwork by Kathleen Jennings. These books came packaged together, and Origin Stories is not available in any other format. I already own (and have read) a different edition of Stranger Things Happen. Link is an amazing short story writer, and if you love quirky and magical and surreal stories, you should try her. These books are simply beautiful. Heavy, gorgeous paper and line drawings inside!

Baba Yaga’s Daughter and Other Tales of the Old Races by C.E. Murphy. Signed by the author and numbered. Jacket artwork by Tom Canty. I’m not familiar with this author, but these short stories are about characters from another book of hers. Looks interesting!

Forbidden by Kelley Armstrong. Signed by the author and illustrator and numbered. Leather-wrapped and full of gorgeous artwork by Lisseth Kay. Wow, this is my favorite book of the bunch! It’s simply beautiful. I love Kelley Armstrong to begin with, and I’ll definitely read this. I wish I could let each of you hold this and look at it in person. Here’s what the inside cover looks like:

The Gist written by Michael Marshall Smith, translated by Benoît Domis, re-translated by Nicholas Royle. This is an unusual short story about a book, but it gets stranger. The first part of the book is the story itself. Then we get a French translation of the story. Then it is re-translated from the French back into English! Awesome.

The Last Full Measure by Jack Campbell. Jacket artwork by David Palumbo. This is a short alternate history novella that sounds pretty good. Here’s another author I haven’t read before, but I feel like I should!

So that’s my Subterranean Grab Bag! Since many of these are very short, I’m hoping to read them soon and sneak in some unscheduled reviews. I also received a very exciting review book in the mail this week, but I’m going to save it for next week’s Over-Booked:-) What books did you get this week?