Subterranean Press has announced that they've sent the Jack Vance tribute anthology (co-edited by me and Gardner Dozois), SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH to the printers.

This is the illustrated edition, with gorgeous interior artwork by Tom Kidd. The lettered and numbered states are sold out, but copies of the trade remain available at the SubPress website.

Here's the lineup:
- Thank You, Mr. Vance, Dean Koontz
- Preface, Jack Vance
- THE TRUE VINTAGE OF ERZINE THALE, Robert Silverberg
- GROLION OF ALMERY, Matthew Hughes
- THE COPSY DOOR, Terry Dowling
- CAULK THE WITCH-CHASER, Liz Williams
- INESCAPABLE, Mike Resnick
- ABRIZONDE, Walter Jon Williams
- THE TRADITIONS OF KARZH, Paula Volsky
- THE FINAL QUEST OF THE WIZARD SARNOD, Jeff VanderMeer
- THE GREEN BIRD, Kage Baker
- THE LAST GOLDEN THREAD, Phyllis Eisenstein
- AN INCIDENT IN USKVESK, Elizabeth Moon
- SYLGARMO'S PROCLAMATION, Lucius Shepard
- THE LAMENTABLY COMICAL TRAGEDY (OR THE LAUGHABLY TRAGIC COMEDY) OF LIVAL LAQAVEE, Tad Williams
- GUYAL THE CURATOR, John C. Wright
- THE GOOD MAGICIAN, Glen Cook
- RETURN OF THE FIRE WITCH, Elizabeth Hand
- THE COLLEGEUM OF MAUGE, by Byron Tetrick
- EVILLO THE UNCUNNING, Tanith Lee
- THE GUIDING NOSE OF ULFANT BANDEROZ, Dan Simmons
- FROGSKIN CAP, Howard Waldrop
- A NIGHT AT THE TARN HOUSE, George R.R. Martin
- AN INVOCATION OF INCURIOSITY, Neil Gaiman

It's going to be a real Jack Vance extravaganza over at Subterranean, since they are also rolling to press with his autobiography, IT'S ME, JACK VANCE, and the collection WILD THYME, GREEN MAGIC. You might want to pick up copies of those two as well... and hey, my own "Ace Double" book, STARLADY and FAST- FRIEND, remains available as well.

The good folks at Green Ronin Games have been busy of late, with two new releases that should be of interest to my readers.

For all the Wild Cards fanatics out there, they have just released Wild Cards: All-In, A Mutants & Masterminds Adventure Anthology, with four all new ready-to-play adventures in the world of aces, jokers, and aliens. All-In should be on sale now at your favorite gaming store, and is also available as a PDF, direct from Green Ronin. Bill Bodden, Dwayne Butchino, Steve Kenson, John Polojac, and Mark Santillo were the authors. Here's your chance to have your own characters join the exalted ranks of Dr. Tachyon, Modular Man, the Great and Powerful Turtle, and other Wild Card favorites.

Ah, but that's just the appetizer. For the main course, Green Ronin has rolled out its long-awaited and much- anticipated Song of Ice & Fire Role- Playing Game! The hardcover of the core book is now on sale at game stores all over the country, and a PDF is also available from Green Ronin's website.

"Based on George R.R. Martin's fantasy epic, A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying gives you everything you need to play and run games in the Seven Kingdoms using an all new and easy to learn game system specifically designed to evoke the atmosphere of these best-selling novels," Green Ronin declares in their news release. "You and your fellow players take on the roles of key members of a noble house. Opportunities abound under the new king and as old loyalties die and new ones are born, your house is poised to claim its place alongside the Great Houses of Westeros. Should you succeed in your efforts, you might find yourself among the Starks and Lannisters, gaining the favor of the king, and securing your place in history. Should you fail, your rivals will destroy you on their own desperate climb to greatness. Seize your birthright in Green Ronin's A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying!"

For more information on both the Wild Cards and Song of Ice and Fire games, check out Green Ronin's own website. And happy adventuring.

Look up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a blimp!! No, it's FIVE blimps strung together!!! And here comes Jetboy...

That was how the Wild Cards series began, way way back in 1987 before some of you were born. Here we are in 2009, and the series is still going strong. The new books, INSIDE STRAIGHT and BUSTED FLUSH (and don't forget SUICIDE KINGS, coming this December from Tor) have drawn a lot of new readers to our world of aces and jokers, and many of them have been emailing me to ask where they can find the old books. But with the original series long out of print, the best I could do was suggest that they search on ebay and ABE in hopes of turning up some used copies at a not-too-outrageous price.

Well, all that is about to change. I'm pleased to announce that the response to the new Wild Cards books has been strong enough that our friends at Tor Books are going to start doing new editions of the original series—starting right at the beginning with the first three volumes: WILD CARDS, ACES HIGH, and JOKERS WILD. Our first triad.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but we're talking about bringing the books out as hardcovers (the old editions from Bantam and Titan were paperback originals, though the Science Fiction Book CLub did reprint volumes one through six as hardcovers)and possibly as omnibus editions. Details on that remain to be explored, but I'll be sure and keep you posted.

But that's not even the best part yet.

Longtime fans of the series may recall that the first book, WILD CARDS, was our historical volume, with stories that took us all the way from Dr. Tachyon's arrival on Earth in 1946 right up to the Wild Card "present," which back then was 1986. We had forty years to cover, and I like to think we covered it pretty well... but of course, there were gaps. Years and even decades of Wild Card history that we simply did not have the space to dramatize.

Tor's new edition will help rectify that. We're not just reprinting the original WILD CARDS, as it was first published; we're adding three brand-new, original, never-before-published stories set during some of the "lost years" we couldn't cover last time around. So this edition of WILD CARDS will be the director's cut, if you will, fortified and expanded with original content, extra fiber, and three news tales:

- Michael Cassutt will take us back to 1956 with, "Captain Cathode v the Secret Ace,"

- David D. Levine will visit 1960, to tell us about "Powers," and,

- Carrie Vaughn will show us 1981, as "Ghost Girl Takes Manhattan."

We think these will be three terrific new additions to the Wild Cards saga, and we're excited about the chance to present them to you. Look for the new expanded WILD CARDS some time in 2010. More details when I have 'em.

We can't die yet. We haven't seen THE JOLSON STORY.

WARRIORS, the huge ambitious original anthology that I've been co-editing with my friend Gardner Dozois, has been completed and delivered to our editors at Tor books.

This one is a monster, a gigantic "event" anthology in the tradition of such landmarks as Robert Silverberg's LEGENDS and Harlan Ellison's classic DANGEROUS VISIONS books, with an all-star lineup of writers, almost all of them award winners and bestsellers in their own fields. The theme of the anthology is war and the warrior ethos... but what makes WARRIORS different from all the military SF anthologies that have gone before is that this one is a cross-genre anthology, featuring original stories from top writers in half a dozen categories of fiction. Fantasy, SF, historical fiction, suspense, mainstream, romance, and more, all of it was welcome here.

We want to show the readers that it's the story that matters, not the label.

Our final lineup:

Introduction: "Stories from the Spinner Rack," by George R.R. Martin

"The King of Norway," by Cecilia Holland

"Forever Bound," by Joe Haldeman

"The Triumph," by Robin Hobb

"Clean Slate," by Lawrence Block

"And Ministers of Grace," by Tad Williams

"Soldierin'," by Joe Lansdale

"Dirae," by Peter S. Beagle

"The Eagle and the Rabbit," by Steven Saylor

"Seven Years from Home," by Naomi Novik

"The Custom of the Army," by Diana Gabaldon

"The Pit," by James Rollins

"Out of the Dark," by David Weber

"The Girls from Avenger," by Carrie Vaughn

"Ancient Ways," by S.M. Stirling

"Ninieslando" by Howard Waldrop

"Recidivist" by Gardner Dozois

"My Name is Legion," by David Morrell

"Defenders of the Frontier," by Robert Silverberg

"The Scroll," by David Ball

"The Mystery Knight," by George R.R. Martin

There's twenty stories, all original and never before published, including a Forever Peace sequel from Joe Haldeman, a "Lord John" novella by Diana Gabaldon, an Emberverse tale from Steve Stirling, and a major new Dunk & Egg novella from yours truly. Vikings, doughboys, Roman legionaries, knights, Buffalo soldiers, cybernetic infantry, WASPs, Cossacks—you'll find them all in the pages of WARRIORS.

No publication date has been announced for the book yet, but look for it in late 2010 or early 2011, in hardcover. Watch this space for further announcements.

Suicide Kings, the third and concluding book in our new Wild Cards triad from Tor, has been completed and delivered to editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden. The book has not yet been scheduled, but look for it in late 2009 or early 2010.

This latest installment in the Wild Cards saga concludes the "Committee" arc that began with Inside Straight (now available in paperback at a bookstore near you) and continued with Busted Flush (released in hardcovers in December). As with the climactic volumes of past triads, Suicide Kings is a full mosaic novel, a single continuous narrative featuring six protagonists, whose stories are interwoven throughout the book. It's a form unique to Wild Cards, and a demanding one, but we think the results are worth it. In some ways, it is similar to what I've done with my Ice & Fire fantasies, but with each viewpoint character written by a different author.

This time around the contributing writers are Ian Tregillis, Caroline Spector, Melinda Snodgrass, Victor Milan, S.L. Farrell, and Daniel Abraham. Rustbelt, the Amazing Bubbles, Double Helix, the Radical, Gardener, and Jonathan (Bugsy) Hive provide the threads for our tapestry in this tale of love, war, revenge, and madness in the heart of darkness... but other Wild Cards favorites will also appear, including Cameo, Hoodoo Mama, Lohengrin, Dr. Finn, Popinjay, and many more. Not to mention the usual host of new characters, in parts both large and small.

Originally launched in 1987, Wild Cards has outlasted all the other shared worlds of the 80s to become the longest-running such series in the history of our genre. Suicide Kings is the twentieth volume of the overall saga. If you haven't tried Wild Cards yet, check out the sample on this website, where you'll find an excerpt from Melinda Snodgrass's interstitial for Busted Flush, featuring Noel Matthews, aka Double Helix, shapechanging teleport and assassin for Her Majesty's Most Puissant Order of the Silver Helix. Just click on the blue and white shield on my home page.