Happy Labor Day! Today is for me the fourth of a four-day weekend, so I feel I’m doing the holiday justice—though I have been engaged more than usual in the work of self-promotion over the course of it, which is in itself laborious. Ah, well. Let’s get to it:
Imprimis, the Hardcover Twentieth Anniversary Edition of Vol. 1! What else is anyone talking about? The test prints have arrived, and exceeded expectations:
If you’d like a closer look, here’s a few more snaps of the ceremonial unboxing. This edition will be released on Tuesday, October 13th, and is currently priced at thirty-seven dollars US, though between tariff wars on Canadian paper and Dutch gold fleeing the country, who knows how stable that price will turn out to have been; for the moment, though, pre-orders are available directly through me, at twenty-five dollars, which you might note is nearly a third off that retail price. (Plus shipping and handling, of course.)
Item. the Cover Reveal: no. 48 has a cover!
I’d had another image ready to go, but late in the process was struck by the possibility of something else, and so I went and got the shot and then as time was tightening tried various cheats to get the sort of effect I’m usually after with these things, but nothing quite worked as well as the laborious method of hand-drawn clipping paths, and so: there was a brief hitch in the usual schedule when the text was ready, was pretty much locked, but the cover was still in process. But here we are, and it looks pretty good, I think?
Item. the Chapbook. With the text complete and the cover done, that means, of course, that no. 48 is now available! Patreons and Comrades have received their electronic copies, and paper ’zines of nos. 47 & 48 will be in the post this week; if you’d like your own copy, paper is available here, and electronic copies are available via itch.
Item. Re-runs & premières. Ever since the redesign, that first week of January, 2025, we’ve been re-running the issues, chapters, installments, feuilletons, e-zines, novelettes, episodes, whatever we ought to be calling them, on the regular Monday–Wednesday–Friday schedule, two weeks per, and it’s been just about 88 weeks since then: no. 44, “That was the river—”, is just about done, with the final fit set to appear on Friday the 11th. That’s the end of volume 4, the finale of season two, the last of the previously freely available installments to be re-run, which means next week, Monday the 14th, will see the free world première of no. 45, the first installment of season three! To be followed, of course, by nos. 46, 47, and 48, in regular succession, and then we’re back on the old routine of new installments appearing here for free a month or so after they’re finished.
Item. What’s Next. I need to finalize and normalize all the various ebook editions running around out there in the world, to make sure they’re all taking advantage of all the bells & whistles, and to deal with the aftermath of losing Smashwords, make sure library access is unimpeded, all that sort of pesky nonsense, which shouldn’t I don’t think take too long, which is good, because I’m eager to get to this:
I mean, dang. Isn’t that gonna be pretty?
Oh! And also, of course, the writing of the next novelette, and the one after that—we’re coming up on no. 50 in the next few months, which is a milestone sitting right up there with a twentieth anniversary.
Dang.
Posted 2 days ago.
