Beware Us Flowers of the Annihilator – A First Look

I now have in my hands the first copy of Zelenyj’s collection Beware Us Flowers of the Annihilator, which will be officially launching in just one day now. I’m very happy with how this one has come out – a big, dramatic and very rich collection of stories. The book will be launching at the Weird Windsor event at Windsor Ontario. Anyone able to get there should definitely pay a call – there will be numerous authors, visual artists and musicians involved and admission is free. Being on the other side of the world, I won’t be able to be there myself, alas, but I’ll be with you in spirit!

This also means you have just one day left to take advantage of our pre-order special. Order the book by and including the 16th November and you will receive an exclusive free hardcover chapbook, Beware Us Flowers of the Devil, containing three extra stories. These chapbooks will only ever be available through this offer and orders will be shipped out as soon as the design of that book is complete, which should be fairly soon now. Click here for more info and to place an order: http://www.eibonvalepress.co.uk/books/books_Annihilator.htm

This is also one of the first times I have ever directly used paintings by a living artist on an Eibonvale cover, with two beautiful and moody works by Canadian artist Carl Lavoie. These became centrepieces in a paper-and-metal collage and I love the way they look. Maybe this is something I will come back to.

A few early reviews, which I will present in more detail later:

https://www.horrordna.com/books/beware-the-flowers-of-the-annihilator-alexander-zelenyj-book-review

https://gnofhorror.com/alexander-zelenyj-beware-us-flowers-of-the-annihilator/

https://thebedlamfiles.com/fiction/beware-us-flowers-of-the-annihilator/

A Website Revamp and Some New Imprints

There are various items of Eibonvale news that I need to share, all at once. If you’ve been to the website ( http://www.eibonvalepress.co.uk/ ) in the last few days, you will have noticed that I have given the ageing and somewhat murky design a refresh. The new layout should be much clearer and easier to read. The new version comes with a lot of tweaks and changes, better info and a more streamlined layout, so if you find anything not working, do let me know!

More importantly, you may have noticed some entirely new pages on there. I have started a new branch of the press for photobooks, since I made up my mind to release Kessingland Autumn. There is nothing there yet, as I have yet to even start designing that one – but watch this space. Maybe one day I can even start opening up to other people’s ideas as well.

There is also an entirely new book imprint that has been brought into the fold – Somniatis Press. A Latin term that roughly translates as “You Dream”. This is a weird one, and basically, if Eibonvale is a bit of a fringe press – or fringe of the fringe – then Somniatis is the fringe of the fringe of the fringe! It’s a place for books that are even weirder, wilder, more experimental and maybe more dangerous than Eibonvale itself. It will be an occasional press, unlikely to release that many titles – but every so often, something will come along that will fit there.

The titles will also be limited editions, unlike Eibonvale. Not signed and numbered limited editions, but still a set number of copies that will eventually go out of print. I would very much like to do signed and numbered, but that would mean distributing them myself and the basic fact is that international postage costs have become so apocalyptic that I would rather keep the books as accessible as possible and use the existing international systems.

Somniatis press is very much in its infancy and for now, there is just one book currently available – from Eibonvale regular Alexander Zelenyj. His Hammer-Fights is a tiny yet brutal work. An illustrated mini-book of hammer-blows revealing the darkness that lies beneath the facades of our lives. This is a dark and experimental illustrated collection of micro-fictions and vignettes where Bizarro meets horror meets… something unexpected. See here for more: http://www.eibonvalepress.co.uk/somniatis/Hammerfights.htm

Meanwhile, the next titles to be released from Eibonvale itself will be D F Lewis’s novel Nemonymous Night and the revised and much-expanded edition of my own (David Rix’s) What the Giants were Saying. Thank you for your patience as we (Alice and myself) pick away at the many many different tasks that all this entails!