And this just in: the advanced uncorrected proof of Mirror Kingdoms, the Peter Beagle ‘best of’ collection that I edited, dropped through the mailbox today. I’m delighted! Subterranean will publish it early 2010 with a cover by Wm. Michael Kaluta. The table of contents is over on the Subterranean website and, even if I do say so, this is a very fine book.  Beagle, who has always been one of our finest novelists, has developed into one of our finest short story writers too.

Lou Anders and I delivered our fantasy anthology, Swords and Dark Magic: The New Swords and Sorcery to HarperCollins in New York several weeks ago. We needed to finalise a few details first, but we’re now ready to announce the final table of contents for the book.

1. Introduction, Lou Anders & Jonathan Strahan
2. “Goats of Glory”, Steven Erikson
3. “Tides Elba:  A Tale of the Black Company”, Glen Cook
4. “Bloodsport”, Gene Wolfe
5. “The Singing Spear”, James Enge
6. “A Wizard of Wiscezan”, C.J. Cherryh
7. “A Rich Full Week”, K. J. Parker
8. “A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet”, Garth Nix
9. “Red Pearls: An Elric Story”, Michael Moorcock
10. “The Deification of Dal Bamore”, Tim Lebbon
11. “Dark Times at the Midnight Market”, Robert Silverberg
12. “The Undefiled”, Greg Keyes
13. “Dapple Hew the Tint Master”, Michael Shea
14. “In the Stacks”, Scott Lynch
15. “Two Lions, A Witch, and the War-Robe”, Tanith Lee
16. “The Sea Troll’s Daughter”, Caitlin R Kiernan
17. “Thieves of Daring”, Bill Willingham
18. “The Fool Jobs”, Joe Abercrombie

While  there’s always someone else who could be in a book like this, we’re delighted with the quality of the stories we received, grateful to the authors for being involved and to our publisher for supporting the book.  It’ll be out next July and is fabulous!  Oh, and there’ll be a limited edition done by Subterranean Press too, which should be awesome in its own right.

ETA: And Lou’s announcement is here.