New Releases by John Clute

The first known dust-jacket to appear on a book in the UK dates from 1819. Sadly, almost none of these jackets have survived. The one institution primarily responsible for this vandalism is the British Library, which removed dust-jackets from every book it accessioned, and destroyed almost all of them. As a result, almost no hardbound book accessioned by the Library after the middle of the nineteenth century was in fact presentable in a visual context: no dust-jacket artwork survived to brighten the theatre of the book; no flap copy to articulate the rituals of expectation and entry that coded successive unveilings of this transgressive literature. In The Book Blinders, distinguished critic, editor and novelist John Clute looks at 115 books whose jackets have survived out here in the real world. They escaped the burning. Each has a story to tell.

Pardon This Intrusion gathers together 47 pieces by John Clute, some written as long ago as 1985, though most are recent. The addresses and essays in Part One, "Fantastika in the World Storm", all written in the twenty-first century, reflect upon the dynamic relationship between fantastika - an umbrella term Clute uses to describe science fiction, horror and fantasy - and the world we live in now. Of these pieces, "Next", a contemporary response to 9/11, has not been revised; everything else in Part One has been reworked, sometimes extensively. Parts Two, Three and Four include essays and author studies and introductions to particular works; as they are mostly recent, Clute has felt free to rework them where necessary. The few early pieces - including "Lunch with AJ and the WOMBATS", a response to the Scientology scandal at the Brighton WorldCon in 1987 - are unchanged.

For more than 50 years John Clute has been reviewing science fiction and fantasy. Look at the Evidence is a collection of reviews from a wide variety of sources - including Interzone, the New York Review of Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Weekly - about the most significant literatures of the twenty-first century: science fiction, fantasy and horror: the literatures Clute argues should be recognized as the central modes of fantastika in our times. It covers the period between 1987 and 1992.

For more than 50 years John Clute has been reviewing science fiction and fantasy. Strokes is a collection of reviews from a wide variety of sources - including Interzone, the New York Review of Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Weekly - about the most significant literatures of the twenty-first century: science fiction, fantasy and horror: the literatures Clute argues should be recognized as the central modes of fantastika in our times. It covers the period between 1966 and 1986.

Stay gathers together 100,000 words of reviews, plus short fiction by John Clute, and was originally published to coincide with Loncon3 (the 2014 World Science Fiction Convention) at which he was one of the Guests of Honour. Also included is a complete reprint of the text of The Darkening Garden.

For more than 50 years John Clute has been reviewing science fiction and fantasy. As Scores demonstrates, his devotion to the task of understanding the central literatures of our era has not slackened. There are jokes in Scores, and curses, and tirades, and apologies, and riffs; but every word of every review, in the end, is about how we understand the stories we tell about the world. Following on from his two previous books of collected reviews (Strokes and Look at the Evidence) this book collects reviews from a wide variety of sources, but mostly from Interzone, the New York Review of Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Weekly. Where it has seemed possible to do so without distorting contemporary responses to books, these reviews have been revised, sometimes extensively. 125 review articles, over 200 books reviewed in more than 214,000 words.

Canary Fever is a collection of reviews about the most significant literatures of the twenty-first century: science fiction, fantasy and horror: the literatures Clute argues should be recognized as the central modes of fantastika in our times. The title refers to the canary in the coal mine, who whiffs gas and dies to save miners; reviewers of fantastika can find themselves in a similar position, though words can only hurt us.

Author, critic, and scholar John Clute has assembled exclusively for Payseur & Schmidt this dictionary of horror motifs. Thirty entries unravel the hidden meanings and dark secrets of horror literature. Entries such as Vastation, Double, Appointment in Samarra, and Cloaca, to name a few. Each is explored in-depth, with cross-references to Clute''s Encyclopedia of Fantasy and a forthcoming encyclopedia of Horror.An addition, each entry is accompanied by a brand new illustration by one of thirty hand-picked artists. Cover and endpapers illustrated by Jason Van Hollander. Artists include:Adam GranoAndrio AberoArt ChantryCarson EllisChanda HelzerCorey LunnDiana SudykaDirk FowlerGuy BurwellHeiko MullerJacob CoveyJason Van HollanderJay RyanJeff KleinsmithJesse LeDouxJessica LynchJon DalyJulie MurphyKaela GrahamKaren KirchoffLesley ReppeteauxLittle Friends of PrintmakingMartin OntiverosMeg HuntMichael Michael MotorcycleMike KingS. BrittShawn WolfeSteven WeissmanTara McPherson165 pages. Signed and numbered limited hardback first edition of 500. Deluxe embossed and stamped cover with screen-printed sash.

Winter 2002

Using the TV show Millennium to focus on the larger millennial cultural drama through which we are living, this text combines selections from the literature and art of the apocalypse with a narrative musing upon the paradox that is the millennium.

Opulentes, reich ausgestattetes Werk, das einen umfassenden Einblick in das Science-fiction-Genre vom 18. Jahrhundert bis heute bietet. Die Schilderung utopischer Visionen und der historische Kontext (Themen und Zeittafeln) stehen am Anfang, die Literatur (Magazine, wichtige Autoren und ihre Werke, klassische Titel, graphische Werke) bilden den Hauptteil, am Schluß stehen Kino und Fernsehen. Für ein übersichtliches Konzept und kenntnisreiche, sehr informative Texte bzw. Bildlegenden sorgte der renommierte englische Journalist Clute (immerhin seit über 30 Jahren mit SF beschäftigt), für die Qualität der zahlreichen aussagekräftigen Illustrationen bürgt der Name Dorling Kindersley. Auch wenn die deutsche SF-Szene kaum zu existieren scheint (dafür gibt es das wesentlich trockenere ''Lexikon der Science-fiction-Literatur'', zuletzt BA 7/88), kann dieses in jeder Hinsicht anschauliche, auch exzellent aufgemachte Werk (das seinen Preis wert ist) für alle empfohlen werden. (1).

An encyclopedia of science fiction magazines, authors, classic titles, graphic works, genre films and television programs, and the effect history has played in relation to this genre.

Gregory Smythe, powerful ship-owning tycoon, manipulates and represses his children, who are the results of various adulterous liaisons, hating them obsessively in his insane need to remain young. It is mainly through the bizarre fantasies of Jocelyn, a daughter, that the plot is revealed in an atmosphere of incest and androgyny and foreboding. Her frantic attempts to maintain a fragile sense of reality (and to retain the affection of her father) directly lead to at least three pointless deaths. And it is under darkening clouds of mania and dissolution that all the players interact and come together in Aspen, Colorado, to perform and witness the final scenes of the "disinheriting party."