The Alchemy Press has moved

I began this blog back in 2009 and it's served me well. However, in order to better present Alchemy Press publications I have now moved to a new site. This current blog will remain static from now on. For news and information about our titles, visit:

alchemypress.co.uk

New titles

The Alchemy Press is in negotiation with certain people with a view for future publications. Watch this space.

Now on Twitter

The Alchemy Press can now be followed on Twitter: @alchemy_press

Five star review for Sailors

Sailors of the Skies is available as a Kindle eBook. It's received a five star review: "I LOVED this story and can't wait for the authors to write more about Damian Paladin and his beautiful associate." Read the full review here. But of course, you can read more of Damian's adventures: check out The Paladin Mandates. 

Contact the Alchemy Press

If you want to get in touch about any Alchemy Press publication, email alchemypress [at] gmail.com.

Buying Alchemy Press books

I haven't been able to install a functioning PayPal button on this site just yet. If you are interested in buying anything please email me, and I'll send you price details and/or an invoice.

Wild Stacks online magazine to be launched

The Alchemy Press is proud to announce Wild Stacks, The Library Of The Imagination. The first issue of this online magazine will be posted in a few months. Meanwhile, issue 0, the pre-launch issue, is already available. Wild Stacks will publish stories from all corners of the fantasy world.

We are also keen to include artwork. Please contact us if you would like to contribute.

Shadows of Light and Dark by Jo Fletcher

Shadows of Light and Dark is a poetry collection by award-winning poet Jo Fletcher. The book was co-produced by the Alchemy Press and Airgedlamh Publications in 1998 in a limited edition of 250 copies (cover price £12.99), signed by Jo Fletcher, Neil Gaiman (introduction), Les Edwards (front cover artwork), Seamus A Ryan (back cover photograph) and Michael Marshall Smith (book designer). The book collects 32 poems, including reprints and originals. Copies of this book are still available via Oldhaven's Abe bookstore for the reduced price of £10.00.

The Return of the Barbarians!

Swords Against the Millennium, edited by Mike Chinn, was co-published by the Alchemy Press and Saladorth Productions in 2000. The anthology demonstrates that heroic fantasy fits the short story format as well as novel length -- Mike Chinn and I were thinking of Robert E Howard, Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Michael Moorcock... writers and stories of that ilk. To this end, Mike collected together eleven stories (including just two reprints):

"An Embarrassment of Champions" by Chris Morgan

"Manslayer" by Simon R Green *

"The Stages of the God" by Ramsey Campbell *

"The Seventh Sigil" by Cherith Baldry

"Dark Destroyer" by Adrian Cole

"The Taking" by Stan Nicholls

"Demon Slayer" by Pauline E Dungate

"Act of Sacrifice" by Paul Lewis

"To Catch a Thief" by Lisanne Norman

"Nyalis and the Cloud Raiders" by Anne Gay

"The Hunger of the Leaves" by Joel Lane

*reprints

The cover painting was by Bob Covington, with interior artwork by David Bezzina, Alan Hunter and Jim Pitts.

The Joel Lane story was selected for the year's best anthologies for horror (edited by Stephen Jones) and fantasy (edited by David G Hartwell).

The anthology was published in paperback (£9.95) and as a hardcover, signed and limited to 200 copies (£25.00). The limited edition is signed by all the writers, artists and the editor -- a fabulous book. However, you can still get new copies of this book for £8 and £20 respectively including UK postage (alchemypress@gmail.com) or via Oldhaven Book's Abe Store: just put in the title and away you go. Or click here to go directly to the title.

Where the Bodies Are Buried

Kim Newman's Where the Bodies Are Buried was co-published in 2000 by the Alchemy Press and Airgedlamh Publications.

ISBN 978-0-9532260-2-3

The book collects the four "Bodies" stories:

"Where the Bodies Are Buried"
"Where the Bodies Are Buried II: Sequel Hook"
"Where the Bodies Are Buried 3: Black and White and Red All Over"
"Where the Bodies Are Buried 2020"

The book is topped and tailed with an introduction by Peter Atkins and a Dramatis Personae, which nicely links this collection to many of Kim's other works. Sylvia Starshine painted the cover and Randy Broecker the interior artwork.

Where the Bodies Are Buried was published as a signed (by Kim Newman, Peter Atkins, Sylvia Starshine and Randy Broecker) hard cover with dust jacket, limited edition of 500 copies. The cover price was £17.50. New copies are still available from The Alchemy Press for £15.00 inc postage in the UK. Or via Oldhaven Books on Abe and Amazon.co.uk.


Where the Bodies Are Buried won the BFS Award for the Best Small Press!

Joel Lane said: "Meet Rob Hackwill, folk demon. A blackmailer killed by his victims, returning to expose what they are really made of. Or so the script goes. But then Hackwill slithers out of film into reality. Where the Bodies Are Buried is a heady brew of pulp horror, political satire and twisted technology. These four stories deconstruct the myths of the late twentieth centry -- with a hatchet. Prepare to laugh. Prepare to shudder. Prepare to find out Where the Bodies Are Buried."

Beneath the Ground edited by Joel Lane

The aclaimed anthology BENEATH THE GROUND, edited by Joel Lane, includes thirteen stories of the mystery and terror that wait beneath the ground. Here are tales that explore the transition between our world and the tunnels and mines beneath. Tales that reveal what creatures dwell far from the light of day. And tales that explore the far reaches of human destiny in the unlit land of the dead.


Prepare yourself to take the first steps ... beneath the ground.

Contents:

"Introduction: No Map and No Guide" by Joel Lane
"The End of a Summer's Day" by Ramsey Campbell
"In the Tunnels" by Pauline E Dungate
"Tomb of the Janissaries" by David Sutton
"The Empty Room" by Tim Lebbon
"'Where Once I Did My Love Beguile'" by John Howard
"Going Underground" by Mike McKeown
"Lost and Found" by Simon Avery
"Grendel's Lair" by Paul Finch
"From the Hearth" by D F Lewis
"Nights at the Regal" by Jason Gould
"Empty Stations" by Nicholas Royle
"The Stone Man" by Derek Fox
"To Walk in Midnight's Realm" by Simon Bestwick

Cover illustration by Jim Pitts; frontispiece by Dave Carson.

Originally published at £10.99, the Alchemy Press still has new copies available at £9.00 including UK postage. You can pay via PayPal. Please email alchemypress@gmail.com for payment instructions. Or you can buy via our Oldhaven Books Abe bookstore.

The Paladin Mandates

Discover how Damian first met Leigh in the story "Good Evening, Princess". This and another five Paladin stories -- featuring monsters, heroics and biplanes -- are available in THE PALADIN MANDATES by Mike Chinn.

Mixing in generous dollops of The Scorpion, The Shadow and Dominic Fortune, with a childhood fascination for old airplanes, a taste for '30s detective fiction, and the simple desire to tell a creepy tale, resulted in the first Paladin story: "The Death-Wish Mandate" (revised in this book as "I've Got You Under My Skin"). Pulp heroics at its best!

The Paladin Mandates is now out of print from The Alchemy Press. Copies may still be available via third-party dealers. Or buy the Kindle version from Amazon -- details here.

"Ace in the Hole" (see our previous post) is a sample story from THE PALADIN MANDATES. Enjoy!

Cover and interior illustrations by Bob Covington.

ISBN 978-0-9532260-0-9