Below, in all its glory, is the cover of Magic Dirt: the best of Sean Williams. Classy, huh? The photos are taken by Mike Mission, whose extraordinary "asphalt archaeology" snapshots from Manhattan Island were recently featured on Boing Boing. There's a much larger version of the cover here, if you want to see the pictures we've chosen in more detail.

I'm also very pleased to reveal that intro to the book is written by John Harwood, author of the brilliant The Ghost Writer (winner of the International Horror Guild Award for Best First Novel and the Dracula Society's Children of the Night Award, also listed in the very credible Miles Franklin Award and Commonwealth Writers Prize) and the forthcoming The Séance. Because I love the intro so much (and am immensely flattered by the things he says) I've pasted a paragraph below the cover.

The book itself is available in limited and numbered editions through Ticonderoga Publications and will be launched at Swancon. Comes with free haiku!



"Reading these stories is like lucid dreaming, in which you dream that you’re lying awake in your own bed; the room is exactly as it would be in waking life, until the impossible intrudes. Sean Williams doesn’t simply stay one step ahead of his reader; he knows how to make you believe you know exactly where he’s going, while steering you down a far more sinister path. The immediacy of the action is never compromised, but there’s an unnerving resonance, a shadow cast (shadows often carry a particular charge in his work) which doesn’t quite match up with the object supposedly casting it."

I am very pleased to announce that Ticonderoga Publications will be releasing a hefty tome in March that contains the very best short stories I've ever written. This is it. The definitive collection, covering everything of note from 1992's WOTF prize-winning "Ghosts of the Fall" all the way to 2007's "The Seventh Letter." If it's won or been nominated for the Ditmar, Aurealis or Seiun Awards, it's in here.* If it's been recommended by Locus or any of the various Year's Bests, ditto.** Some of the stories have been reprinted before, but many of them haven't. One has never been on paper at all. Covering science fiction, space opera, fantasy, horror and mainstream (and maybe even a little haiku, if I can twist Russell's arm), with story notes and an introduction, this is huge. I am very excited.

There's more detail here and Ticonderoga's online store is here. There will be two versions, including an uber-special signed and numbered edition. The cover is still on its way, but I assure you it'll be beautiful.

Not only is this the definitive collection of my short stories, but it will most likely be my last. At the rate I'm writing them, it'll take me another fifteen years to fill another.

* Well, most of them. The good ones, anyway.
** Well, ditto again.

I have a new book coming out this month. Not a novel, but a collection of short stories from my early days as a writer, covering science fiction, horror and even a weird attempt at erotic humour. Some of the stories have been collected in the past; some are being reprinted for the first time; one, the seed story for The Crooked Letter has never been published before. Two of the stories deal with d-mat technology from The Resurrected Man. One, a prequel to my first novel Metal Fatigue, has been out of print for years.

If that's not enough, there's also an introduction by Rob Hood and a foreword by Shane Dix. And each story comes with (brief) notes from me, explaining where they came from and why I picked them for this book.

But wait. That's not all! The publisher, Altair Australia, is offering signed pre-release copies of Light Bodies Falling at a 10% discount. Follow the link below for more info on that, and for a full list of the stories.

I'm excited about this release because it gives some of my riskier, more experimental ideas another jog around the park. Most of them come from the early to mid 1990s, when I was still trying to find my voice, or muse, or whatever it was I stumbled across that's enabled me to write over twenty books since.

It also brings that one, special story out into the light for the very first time. Whether you like The Crooked Letter or hate it, or are just curious to see how little a finished work actually relies on its core idea, it's definitely worth a read.

I reckon so, anyway. But I might be just a tiny bit biased. :-)

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