Twelfths and Quarters

I'm working on a book review post. Honestly I am.

In the meantime, on with the plugging. Here's the updated cover of A Romance in Twelve Parts, due from Obverse Books on 31 May:



















Note the rather lovely use of the blended-case font last used back in 2003-04 by Mad Norwegian for the titles of This Town Will Never Let Us Go and Of the City of the Saved....

You may also wish to speculate about what kind of animal that skull might belong to.

In other Obverse news, Stuart Douglas has recently announced a really exciting new venture -- periodical anthology series, the Obverse Quarterly, aimed at genre fans with eclectic tastes. Subscribers will receive four marvellously eclectic collections of short stories each year. (Individual titles can be bought separately, but as far as I can see the quirky mixture of styles and sources is part of the charm.)

The first four volumes are:

• a collection of original horror stories edited by up-and-coming author Johnny Mains;
• a volume of spin-off stories featuring Iris Wildthyme's Mexican wrestler pal Señor 105, edited by his creator Cody Quijano-Schell and featuring several of the same splendid contributors as A Romance in Twelve Parts;
• a reprint of the short stories of Fitz James O'Brien, an early author of proto science fiction who even I've never got round to reading;
• a collection of new stories featuring the classic pulp villain Monsieur Zenith the Albino, edited by Stuart and featuring stories from Paul Magrs, George Mann and -- deep breath -- Michael Moorcock.

All of which sound fantastic in their respective ways. The only one of those which doesn't immediately appeal to me is the horror anthology, but the pricing structure cleverly means it's £1.97 cheaper to subscribe to a year's worth of titles than to buy three individual ones.

I should clarify that I've no personal investment in any of these four volumes (although I've hopes of becoming involved in future years, naturally) -- I just think that this is a fascinating project for a contemporary small press to be embarking on, and want to publicise it as widely as I can. Which means telling all of you lovely people about it.