Our latest title is now available to order in Hardcover – an expanded edition of one of Rhys Hughes’ greatest collections, Sangria in the Sangraal, containing two new stories.
http://www.eibonvalepress.co.uk/books/books_sangria.htm
This book is an entire story-cycle in miniature. One thousand years of the remarkable magical history of a secret region of Spain where few people venture even now. Albarracín is a rose-red town tucked away in the mountains of Lower Aragon. Once the seat of an independent taifa during the dominance of the Caliphate of Cordoba, it remained saturated with ancient mystery long after the separated kingdoms of the peninsular were forged through conquest into the single nation we know today. In Albarracín still lurk the djinn of the wondrous past in their dusty bottles and the ghosts of heroes and villains locked in the crucibles of a rogue alchemist.
As Alarcon once wrote, “A happy time it was when our land still remained in peaceful possession of all the spider’s webs, dust, woodworm, respect, faith, traditions, uses and abuses sanctified by the centuries!”
Above the roofs of the crumbling town serenely float the clouds; but these are not mindless puffs of vapour. On the contrary, they control the destinies of those who dwell below. In a modern world where the East is trying too hard to become the West, only Albarracín has successfully reversed the trend; for in this place the West always was the East; and the true flavour of Oriental magic remains bright on the tips of the swords, in the pulse of the hearts and on the rims of the cups of the men and gods who enter therein.
This new edition contains two stories not included in the original – Señor Chimera’s Hysterical History and The Bone Throwers.
Click here to order a copy: http://www.eibonvalepress.co.uk/books/books_sangria.htm
A few months ago, I embarked on a series of revisions of existing eibonvale titles – mostly with the aim of fixing some of the earlier cover art, which was starting to feel a little green, and also to address some specific issues that had been bugging me. One of these was Allen Ashley’s collection Once and Future Cities. In the image above, you can see the before and after of this project. As you can see, the primary goals were 1) to switch over from gloss to a matte cover, and 2) to get rid of the clumsey and overwhelming grey and replace it with something warmer and more uniform. The new book is much more in keeping with Eibonvale’s more recent titles, I think.
