Monday 12 August 2013

Anthony Trollope: The Fixed Period

Finally, a new Whisky Priest book! It's the long-promised publication of Anthony Trollope's sole science-fiction novel, The Fixed Period.

Britannula, off the coast of New Zealand, is a thriving republic. Three decades ago the government of energetic young men decided that compulsory euthanasia after the age of 67 would spare unnecessary suffering and state expense. But now, in 1980, some of those once-young politicians are now elder statesmen, facing very significant birthdays...


The Fixed Period is quite an oddity: Trollope does steampunk as grim social comedy. Its imagined 1980 features portable telephones, battleships launching city-busting shells, steam-powered bicycles and cars, and cricket played with huge teams and artillery-like mechanical (and steam-powered) bowlers. Its narrator, Britannula's elected leader, is a sad and convincing portrait of a well-meaning fanatic, pushing his 'utopian' vision of enforced euthanasia even at the expense of his best friend's life.

Trollope himself died in the year of the book's first publication, 1882, at the age of 67...

Read an appreciation by David Lodge here.


Available from Lulu, Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Whisky Priest in Print Magazine

A quick update: there's a brief interview/review of Whisky Priest's edition of Ambrose Bierce's Bits of Autobiography in Print Magazine's August issue.



Tuesday 8 January 2013

New Catalogue

The new and expanded Whisky Priest Books catalogue is now online: see it here or visit here to download a copy.



Books coming later this year include Anthony Trollope's only science-fiction novel, novellas by Maria Edgeworth, and more.

Tuesday 1 January 2013

I'm interviewed at the New York Times's technology site, talking about Whisky Priest Books and being your own niche classics publisher.

More Whisky Priest action later this year: a baby is on the way, eating my life at the moment.