The Merry Blacksmith Press

Now available for order! The Night the Music Ended, The Station Nightclub: March 2000 – February 2003 by Marilyn Bellemore looks at The Station nightclub’s history, its place in the community, the tragic fire and its aftermath. In addition, Marilyn takes those years in which she was a reporter for the Kent County Daily Times and shares numerous interviews with some of the bands who performed at The Station including Quiet Riot, The Dave Davies Band, The Tubes, Warrant, and more.

As we approach the tenth anniversary of that tragic night, we put this book out to both celebrate the special community that formed around The Station and to remember the tragic passing of so many victims of the fire. With that in mind, a portion of all sales will be donated to The Station Fire Memorial Foundation.

This book is available for order here, through Amazon.com, and will be available in various locations around Rhode Island. There are a number of events being planned for the release of this special book, the first being a meet-the-author and signing event at the Cowesett Inn in West Warwick (across the street from the former location of The Station nightclub and the new location of the memorial) on December 15, 2012 from 11:30am to 1:30pm.

There are other events coming up. Stay tuned for more announcements as they develop.

As you may be away, the Merry Blacksmith is also an art studio in addition to being a publisher. While we’re in the process of setting up a distinct online presence for the studio side of things, we’ll still have some crossover twixt there and here.

On such item is an announcement that we have some great wall space over at the South County Artisans Market located in the Fantastic Umbrella Factory in Charlestown, RI. We have a number of original paintings and photos up for sale at some very friendly prices. The gallery will be open from Wednesday-Sunday from 10am to 5pm every week until the end of December. There will be an Open House this Saturday (October 27) from 12-5 in which you can meet the artists, have a little food, and enjoy a little music. Yours truly will likely be bringing his banjo, and will–most certainly–be playing the tune “The Merry Blacksmith” at some point or another.

Other artists present include Jon Campbell, Sarah Campbell, Nancy Cook, Jennifer Farmer, Brad Sherman, Tom Rose, Jan Doyle, and many others. Some folks will be added along the way, I’m sure, and the selections will likely shift a bit as well over the months as current pieces are sold and more pieces go up in their place. Right now we’re featuring the paintings and photographs we have, but we’ll be adding a few more items including books by Rhode Island authors.

Check it out. There’s lots of great stuff there… not just ours, but a wide variety of arts, crafts, and more.

We have a lot of titles being prepped for a January Arisia release. Among those new titles will be a collection of Chris Reilly and Darron Laessig’s Punch and Judy series. This omnibus edition will include all of the comics from the first Comical Tragedy collection, the Grand Guignol, and Twice Told Tales.

All there.

Between Reilly’s twisted insight into this iconic character, and Laessig’s distinctive and imaginative artwork, you’ll be taken on a roller coaster ride to surprising heights and shuddering depths… with a lot of dark, very dark laughs along the way.

This ain’t no kids’ puppet show. This is Mr. Punch, and … friends?

Now that convention madness has passed–at least until January–we have time to get our next crop of books ready. So what’s coming?

Glad you asked.

We’ve got a number of great titles on tap. Some we can’t announce just yet until the i’s are crossed and t’s dotted. Some of the upcoming books–hopefully all available in time for holidays–include:

Nitebox by Uncle River. A simple, honest hermit finds himself the controlling owner of a revolutionary new technology. Suddenly he is thrust into a world he’s not lived in for a long time to deal with lawyers, reporters, and various con men. He has help along the way, but is it enough?

The Nex by Tim Pratt. Teenager Miranda Candle finds a mysterious necklace and is suddenly transported to The Nex, the bizarre city at the center of all possible universes, where she falls in with a pair of would-be revolutionaries–the skinshifter Howlaa and the bodiless Wisp–fighting the oppressive regime of the city-state’s Regent and his army of steam colossi, cynical cyborgs, and the depraved royal orphans.

Somewhere There’s a Cartoonist Making Fun Of Us by Timothy C. Lockley. This is our second collection of hilarious, clever, witty, and thoughtful cartoons by a master of the craft. Terrific wordplay. Cutting commentary on life in our times.

Tuners by Matt Howarth. Afterburn is a pirate radio station struggling to entertain and reunite the post-holocaust human survivors in a savage wasteland full of mutants and crazies. When a Quiet Man attack wipes out their Tribe, a group of orphaned youths embark on a pilgrimage in search of the hidden pirate radio station. Along the way they will encounter a mysterious prairie traveler and his opinionated two-headed cat…and adventure, monsters, romance, and deadly threats.

Past Masters by Bud Webster. A new collection of columns by the one and only last word in SF history. These columns examine the lives and careers of the master writers who shapes the field of science fiction and fantasy into what it is today.

We’re also looking at another Matt Howarth novel, comics collections by Chris Reilly, Ben Towle, Steve Ahlquist, Gus Fink, and others. Also in the dugout, waiting to hit another home run (is this baseball metaphor working for you?) is  Antiquities and Tangibles, a brand new collection of short stories by Tim Pratt.

And there’s more! No, we can’t tell you yet, but we will as soon as we can.

The rest of the year is looking good and busy. And 2013 is going to make 2012 look like 1918. (yeah, we went there.)

I’m back from the 70th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) held for the seventh time last week in Chicago (Chicon 7). All in all it was a highly successful trip. As The Merry Blacksmith Press, we did a respectable amount of business in the dealers room–dare I say among the best business among the small presses–which was no wonder given some of the special new titles available including Tobias Buckell’s Nascence, Connie Wilson’s Hellfire & Damnation II, TA Pratt’s Bone Shop and Grim Tides, Matt Howarth’s My Name Is Lesion, and our special 50th anniversary edition of The Proceedings: Chicon III (as is being held by Chicon 7 Guest of Honor Mike Resnick).

I’ll be writing up little bits here and there about the trip, but will likely be giving a longer, more comprehensive trip reports via one of my favorite fanzines. I’ll post the info when it becomes available.

In short, though, I met with a lot of fantastic folks both on the fan side of things and the pro side of things and those special folks who straddle the line. Did I do business of other sorts? You bet! Look for news on some exciting upcoming projects for the next year. We have books coming up that will include riveting new SF novels by Matt Howarth, graphic novels by Chris Reilly, comics by Tim Lockley, a collection of short stories by Tim Pratt, and a number of surprise projects I’m not at liberty to announce just yet.

Trust me, though. We have such awesome stuff coming up that you could put it on ice cream and call it an Awesome Sundae.

Stay tuned for more news over the coming week.

Cheers!

We’re gearing up for our Chicon 7 appearance. We’ll have all your favorites, old and new, plus four new titles making their debut!

First up is our flagship release specifically for Chicon 7. It’s the 50th anniversary edition of The Proceedings: Chicon III. This is a limited edition – 100 copies, hand numbered and stamped. This will be available at our dealers table at Chicon and when we run out, we run out. Should we have any left over, we’ll make them available again, and we’ll have a general release edition as well. What is it? It’s a complete transcript of the events at the 1962 Worldcon–back when it was single-track programming.

You are there to witness the words of such folk as Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber, Leigh Brackett, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Willy Ley, Jerry Pournelle, Frank Robinson, and many more. Witness, through these pages, Heinlein’s grandiose entrance at the Hugo Awards ceremony. These proceedings are as complete as they’ll ever be, with an introduction by Chicon VII Guest of Honor Mike Resnick, and an all-new Afterword by Earl Kemp.

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We’re also pleased to present the next volume of Connie Corcoran Wilson’s infernal cycle of stories, Hellfire & Damnation II. Once more Connie delves into the dark circles of the human psyche with these chilling tales that are all too real.

Features an introduction by noted author and editor Jason V Brock. As 5-time Stoker(R) winner Gary Braunbeck said: “I really don’t know how she managed to do it, but Wilson surpasses her previous Hellfire & Damnation collection with its sequel. Her writing is stronger, streamlined, and often lyrical, despite the nastiness her words describe. This is another impressive collection of tales from a writer I could very well learn to hate if she gets much better. Seriously, Connie, can’t you write just one stinker so the rest of us will feel a little bit better?”

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Next up is another fine print edition from the wildly popular Marla Mason series by TA Pratt. Bone Shop is a prequel novel about the early adventures of Marla Mason, heroine of the wildly popular urban fantasy novels: Blood Engines, Poison Sleep, Dead Reign, Spell Games, Broken Mirrors, and Grim Tides.

“Meet Marla Mason and the city of Felport. In this volume, mysteries are addressed and foreshadows are cast. This is an enjoyable addition to the Marla Mason universe.”

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And we’re particularly pleased to at New York Times-bestseller Tobias Buckell to the Merry Blacksmith roster with this print edition of Nascence: 17 Failed Stories and What They Taught Me.

In Nascence, Buckell reprints 17 failed stories written from 1996-2004 and details some of the major failings of the stories that led him to abandon them, and what he learned from those failures moving forward. Nascence isn’t just a look at how stories fail, but also a look the beginnings of Buckell’s fictional worlds and the stories he was trying to tell at the very start.

“ I found Nascence to have more impact upon me than, say, Stephen King’s On Writing.” –Escape Pod

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So, yeah… we have some great books in store for you. Come check us out in the dealers room, and you can order most of these now online either through our website or on Amazon. (Check for the general release edition of the Proceedings after Labor Day)

Cheers!

Cover art by Gail Cross.

Big news. We’re setting up yet another Worldcon release and we’re very pleased to announce that it will be a print edition of Nascence by Tobias Buckell! Released last year as a highly successful e-book, there have been many requests for a print edition. We are more than happy to oblige.

From the author’s website:

New York Times Bestseller Tobias S. Buckell has published 45 short stories in various magazines and anthologies. But in the process of learning how to sell those 45, he wrote over 100 short stories that failed in a variety of ways while learning the craft.

In Nascence, he reprints 17 failed stories written from 1996-2004 and details some of the major failings of the stories that led him to abandon them, and what he learned from those failures moving forward.

Nascence isn’t just a look at how stories fail, but also a look the beginnings of Buckell’s fictional worlds and the stories he was trying to tell at the very start.

Stay tuned for more details as they develop.

While both of these books are now available for order here and on Amazon, you can also acquire these in person this weekend at Readercon–their first appearances at a convention dealer room.

Cover art by Lindsey Look

In Grim Tides, the latest novel in the Marla Mason series by TA Pratt: Marla Mason, ousted chief sorcerer for the city of Felport, is languishing in exile on the island of Maui with her best friend, the psychic (and rather hedonistic) Rondeau. Driven from the city she loves, Marla is adrift, nearly friendless, and stripped of almost all her power and resources.

It’s the perfect time for old enemies to try and kill her.

Don’t forget to check out the previous title in this series, Broken Mirrors. (Also available this weekend.)

My Name Is Lesion features eight dread-filled tales written and drawn by Matt Howarth–tales that will haunt your dreams in a way Lovecraft only wished he could in his darkest nights.
You may know Matt already as the creator of Those Annoying Post Bros, Savage Henry, Keif Llama: Xenotech, and DC’s Star Crossed. You may also know him from his two Merry Blacksmith novels, Red Sky Radio and The Eden Retrieval. (Yes, we’ll have copies of both of those as well.)

See you this weekend!

Readercon is coming up this weekend and I couldn’t be happier about it. This is going to be a great convention. Guests of Honor will be Peter Straub and Caitlin Kiernan, and the Memorial Guest will be Shirley Jackson. Not enough? Check out their Guest page for a list of some of the great authors, editors and artists who will be attending this weekend.

Among the guests will be Merry Blacksmith author Don D’Ammassa, author of the incredible Translation Station collection of fine science fiction short stories.  You can order it from here, Amazon, or–better yet–buy a copy at the Readercon dealers room.

It’s all good.

See you there!

My Name Is Lesion: A Collection of Unhealthy Tales

by Matt Howarth 

Much anticipated… it’s now out and available for order. This will shatter your universe and give you a reason to worry about what goes bump in the night, what goes thump around the corner, and what goes crunch from just behind you.

Order here, or check it out on Amazon.com or your local bookseller. Additional distributors will be announced as they become available.

But why wait? Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!