Tombs To Be Out in New Alien Buddha Edition

Comes the time, all too often, when books go out of print — how well that’s known here! And for TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH, my 2017 Elder Signs Press novel-in-stories (cf. July 15 2019, et many al.), with even the publisher gone defunct only one year after its publication, the problem had become acute. Even my personal stash of copies — that is, ones that I might sell by hand — had dwindled down to only about twelve!

Time to do something.

So, call it a New Year’s resolution of sorts if one will, I decided I would. Saturday, January 11, I sent out the pitch: The attached, TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH, like VAMPS last year, has been out of print for some years, but is one I’d like to bring back in a new edition. It is prose, however, not poetry — two of the stories in fact, “The Last Dance” and “Carnival of the Animals,” are also reprinted in AVOID SEEING A RAT — and is set up as a novel-in-stories as seen through the eyes of a late survivor of the last days of Earth, or at least that part comprising the “New City,” its surrounding ruins in which are found eaters of the dead, and the ever-expanding necropolis serving the city, the “Tombs.” This followed by quotes from the back-cover blurb, an Amazon review, you get the idea. . . . The lucky recipient (you may be ahead of me on this, given the mention of last year’s VAMPS), Alien Buddha Press.

Wednesday, the 15th, came the reply (the Alien Buddha being known for, as they say, not letting much grass grow under its feet): Hi James

I would be happy to work with you again.

Currently at 6.2×9.2 you are a little under 300 pages. Do you think we should cut some, or keep it like that?

There was also a question about a cover so yesterday, Thursday, I sent back a copy of the existing Elder Science one along with some suggestions, as well as my thanks for a quick and affirmative reply. And a go-ahead for the full ([n]early 300 pages is pretty big, but . . . it’s a “big” story too in a sense) edition.