Take this one!

A few days ago we received a twenty-first birthday card noted inside thus:

“Happy 21st Birthday, 31 March 1999—31 March 2020”) with the additional inscription “To Pete, Nicky, Mike, Sheryl, Tamsin and all the authors and artists, copy editors and proofreaders at PS . . . love from ** *****’"

There’s the rub. Who sent it? Hey, don’t get me wrong—I’m all for anonymity and even more for surprises but I’m intrigued. So please please PLEASE drop me a line and let me know. The only proof I’ll need is what you wrote in the ‘Love from' sign-off . . . just two words. And then we’ll swap things around and instead of you giving US a present, we’ll give one to you. So don’t forget to include your address . . . and warn your mail person that something’s coming.

Heh, I’d forgotten all about the 21 years we’ve been doing this—thanks a bunch. And I guess I need to send many happy returns to my old chum Simon Conway, the original ‘S’ in PS Publishing, before Simon flew the coop to the USA where he is now a talk-show host for Iowa station WHO-AM.

So. a happy birthday to you, too, Simes. Have a great weekend.

THE RETROSPECTIVE, the second volume of Ramsey Campbell’s & OTHER PHANTASMAGORICAL STORIES with interior illustrations by PS fave, Glenn Chadbourne.

The funny thing about Ramsey—actually ONE of the funny things about Ramsey (he’s a great friend and Nicky and I spend a lot of time with him and Jenny) is that you think you know all of his stuff, both stories and novels, but then whoa, Nellie. And that is nowhere more apposite than right now and right here. I would have sworn that I’ve read all of his stories, any of them more than once or twice but nope.

Like this opening from "The Alternative"

Highton was driving past the disused hospital when the car gave up. On the last fifty miles of motorway he had taken it slow, earning himself glances of pity mingled with hostility from the drivers of the Jaguars and Porsches. As he came abreast of the fallen gates the engine began to grate as though a rusty chunk of it were working itself loose, and the smell of fumes grew urgently acrid. The engine died as soon as he touched the brake.

A wind which felt like shards of the icy sun chafed the grass in the overgrown grounds of the hospital as he climbed out of the Vauxhall, rubbing his limbs. He was tempted to leave the car where it was, but the children who smashed windows were likely to set fire to it if he abandoned it overnight. Grasping the wheel with one hand and the crumbling edge of the door with the other, he walked the car home through the housing estate.

All the windows closest to the hospital were boarded up. Soon he encountered signs of life, random windows displaying curtains or, where the glass was broken, cardboard. A pack of bedraggled dogs roamed the estate, fighting over scraps of rotten meat, fleeing yelping out of the communal entrances of the two-storey concrete blocks.

Or this, from "Going Under"

Blythe had shuffled almost to the ticket booth when he knew he should have sent Lydia her money. Beyond the line of booths another phalanx of walkers, some of them wearing slogans and some not a great deal else, advanced towards the tunnel under the river. While he’d failed to pocket the envelope, he never left his phone at home, and given the pace at which walkers were being admitted to the tunnel, which was closed to traffic for its anniversary, he should have plenty of time to complete a call before he reached the wide semicircular concrete mouth, rendered whiter by the July sun. As he unfolded the phone and tapped his home number on the keyboard the men on either side of him began jogging on the spot, an action which the left-hand man accompanied with a series of low hollow panting hoots. The phone rang five times and addressed Blythe in his own voice.
    “Valerie Mason and Steve Blythe. Whatever we’re doing, it’s keeping us away from the phone, so please leave your name and number and the date and time and we’ll tell you what we were up to when we call you back...” Though the message was less than six months old, it and Valerie’s giggle at the end of it sounded worn by too much playback. Once the beep had stuttered four times on the way to uttering its longer tone, he spoke.
     “Val? Valerie? It’s me. I’m just about to start the tunnel walk. Sorry we had a bit of a tiff, but I’m glad you didn’t come after all. You were right, I should send her the maintenance and then object. Let them have to explain to the court instead of me. Are you in the darkroom? Come  and find out who this is, will you? Don’t just listen if you’re hearing me. Be fair.”
     Quite a pack jogged between the booths at that moment, the man to his immediate left taking time to emit a triumphal hoot before announcing to the ticket seller “Aids for AIDS.” Blythe turned his head and the phone to motion the woman behind him to pass, because if he stopped talking for more than a couple of seconds the machine would take him to have rung off, but the official in the booth ahead of him poked out his head, which looked squashed flat by his peaked cap. “Quick as you can. Thousands more behind you.”

And this absolute classic taster from "The Long Way"

It must have been late autumn. Because everything was bare I saw inside the house.
    Dead leaves had been scuttling around me all the way from home. A chill wind kept trying to shrink my face. The sky looked thin with ice, almost as white as the matching houses that made up the estate. Some of the old people who’d been rehoused wouldn’t have known where they were on it except for the little wood, where my uncle Philip used to say the council left some trees so they could call it the Greenwood Estate. Nobody was supposed to be living in the three streets around the wood when I used to walk across the estate to help him shop.
    So many people in Copse View and Arbour Street and Shady Lane had complained about children climbing on trees and swinging from ropes and playing hide and seek that the council put a fence up, but then teenagers used the wood for sex and drink and drugs. Some dealers moved into Shady Lane, and my uncle said it got shadier, and the next road turned into Cops View. He said the other one should be called A Whore Street, though my parents told him not to let me hear. Then the council moved all the tenants out of the triangle, even the old people who’d complained about the children, and boarded up the houses. By the time I was helping my uncle, people had broken in.

So on to some good news . . .

MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS REVEALED edited by Darrell Schweitzer signing sheet 2 (sheet number one is complete) is on it’s way to John R. Fultz and once John has signed them, they will be coming back to us at PS Towers. YEH!!! Or maybe that should be yeh! Never count your signing sheets until they arrive . . . or something like that.

The final person to sign sheet number one of THE UNQUIET DREAMER edited by Preston Grassman is Kaaron Warren who lives in Australia. She has emailed me to let me know they have arrived. Once she has signed they will be travelling back over here via the best post possible.

Unfortunately, we are still a little behind with the second sheet but I know where they are which is a big plus let me tell you! Steven Barnes has them and he’s posting them back to us here so that we can take a breath before we start on the final leg. There are not many signatures needed and if special post continues we will send them out again, but I won’t be doing it until I’m certain they are going to be safe.