"The Croning" by Laird Barron

[Sam]

The time is drawing nigh... Laird Barron's first full-fledged novel is about to be unleashed. Coming in May from our good friends at Night Shade Books:

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Strange things exist on the periphery of our existence, haunting us from the darkness looming beyond our firelight. Black magic, weird cults and worse things loom in the shadows. The Children of Old Leech have been with us from time immemorial. And they love us... Donald Miller, geologist and academic, has walked along the edge of a chasm for most of his nearly eighty years, leading a charmed life between endearing absent-mindedness and sanity-shattering realization. Now, all things must converge. Donald will discover the dark secrets along the edges, unearthing savage truths about his wife Michelle, their adult twins, and all he knows and trusts. For Donald is about to stumble on the secret... ...of The Croning. From Laird Barron, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of The Imago Sequence and Occultation, comes The Croning, a debut novel of cosmic horror.

Mr. Barron himself described it this way on his website back in 2009:

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The novel is called THE CRONING. It’s kind of like ON GOLDEN POND, if Henry and Jane Fonda were preoccupied with black magic, machetes, and cosmic horrors.

Hardcover, 320 pages. $24.99 direct from Night Shade or $16.49 from Amazon. Night Shade does not have a pre-order option up yet, but I plan to hold out and order from them; I'd guess they get more of the money that way, and Amazon's packaging can be pretty dicey. (I like my new books to actually be in new condition when I get them.)

Speaking of, the collector scum in me is hoping for some kind of deluxe limited edition. If anyone has any knowledge of such a volume, please do share...

[nomis]

Quote Originally Posted by Sam

Speaking of, the collector scum in me is hoping for some kind of deluxe limited edition. If anyone has any knowledge of such a volume, please do share...

I would have to assume there is no limited edition coming from Nightshade. Otherwise, wouldn't they mention it?

Does Nightshade still do limited editions? It's been so long since I bought a new book from them.

[mgriffin]

Nightshade doesn't seem to do special deluxe editions lately. The fact of another press (Subterranean) recently doing a special deluxe edition of a book originally released by Nightshade (Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi) makes me think Nightshade doesn't plan to do this kind of thing any more.

I'd pay more for an "extra evil" version of The Croning. For that matter, I'd pay more to get it 9 weeks early!

[slayn666]

Two or so years ago Nightshade announced they would no longer be doing limited editions. If anyone wants to search for the news item, it involved their announcement that SubPress would be taking over on the limited edition of Perdido Street Station.

[MadsPLP]

I'm happy that they've stopped making limited editions. Not that I have anything against it per se (I admire quite a few specialty presses who make only limited editions), but I prefer not stressing too much over such a thing. I prefer availability over limited editions (although both can, of course, co-exist).

I've pre-ordered this one. I rather dislike the cover, and I am worried about it being a novel, since weird fiction in my opinion usually (with some rare exceptions) doesn't work in novel length. That being said, writing in novel length can be viewed upon as an artistic challenge, as well as a way of reaching a larger audience Either way, Laird Barron wrote it, and it's therefore of huge interest to me, worries or not.

[Michael]

I tend to agree that horror works best in the short form but having just finished Barron's long work "The Light is the Darkness" and seeing him knock it out of the park, I have real high hopes for "The Croning." I can't wait til it is released.

[Professor Angell.]

For my wallet, a usual trade edition of a writer is more than welcome (however, I hold the few limited editions I own very close to heart) - it's an expensive habit, this collecting of books.

Really looking forward to a novel-length project by Barron - a majority of the genre as I know it is short stories, but I've been very satisfied with what I've read so far in terms of novels (Joseph Pulver's "The Orphan Palace", Michael Cisco's "The Tyrant" and so on).

I agree, the cover isn't the best - will look odd next to the greenish, grim "Imago Sequence" and the dreamy "Occultation" cover - but hey, it's what inside that counts! (or, is it?)

[nomis]

Have to admit: I love the cover. Anyway, once you put the volume on your shelf, all that really matters is how the spine looks.

"The Croning" is definitely going to cause some eyes to open when people get a chance to read it. I'm pretty excited to see the reaction.

[mgriffin]

I was surprised by the cover when I first saw it. Quite a change from the more atmospheric covers of IMAGO SEQUENCE and OCCULTATION. I like both those covers very much.

Still, the more character-focused, dynamic and confrontational cover art seems suitable, and the image is quite a grabber.

[JadedFool]

I love the cover. It's definitely different from Imago and Occultation's covers, but a good different. It's eye-catching and should appeal to a wider audience.

Been looking forward to this for a while and I don't doubt it'll be worth the wait.