Tag: books

Castalia Thanksgiving Sale 2025

Today we’re pleased to announce the start of the annual Thanksgiving sale. Please note that no subscriber discounts are necessary or applicable to books that are on sale; please also note that there are a few books on sale that were previously listed as out of stock. This is because it is always necessary to retain a few books in case of flawed editions or shipment errors, but after a year or so of no problems being reported, we no longer need to keep them in the warehouse.

The quantities are what they are. I will try to keep them updated as the sale goes on, but the vagaries of the system are imprecise. We’re offering the biggest discounts on the books taking up the most space in the warehouse.

If you’re having any trouble with your credit card at the Arkhaven store, try NDM Express as the books are also on offer there at the same price.

LIBRARIA CASTALIA

  • Fooled By Randomness 149.99
  • Black Swan 149.99
  • Skin in the Game 149.99
  • Antifragile 149.99
  • Promethean 149.99
  • The Lawdog Files 149.99
  • The Missionaries 2nd Edition 149.99
  • The Jungle Books 149.99
  • Politics 199.99
  • Ethics 199.99
  • Summa Elvetica 199.99
  • A Throne of Bones I 199.99
  • A Throne of Bones II 199.99
  • A Sea Of Skulls I 199.99
  • A Sea Of Skulls II 199.99
  • Plutarch 1 199.99
  • Plutarch 2 199.99
  • Discourses on Livy 199.99
  • Awake In The Night Land 299.99
  • Divine Comedy 299.99

CASTALIA LIBRARY

  • Fooled By Randomness 59.99
  • Black Swan 59.99
  • Skin in the Game 59.99
  • Antifragile 59.99
  • Promethean Library 59.99
  • The Lawdog Files 59.99
  • The Missionaries 2nd Edition 69.99
  • War & Peace Vol 1 69.99
  • War & Peace Vol 2 69.99
  • The Jungle Books 69.99
  • A Throne of Bones 1 99.99
  • A Throne of Bones 2 99.99
  • A Sea Of Skulls 1 99.99
  • A Sea Of Skulls 2 99.99

More to come…

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The Dark Side of Star Trek

Star Trek was always problematic, and not just because of Gene Roddenberry’s alarming enthusiasm for young girls’ underwear, as the Dark Herald observes its intellectual roots at Arkhaven.

A bunch of scientists, engineers and assorted smartasses got together and create a new organization dedicated to conquering the world and running it with enlightened scientific centrally planned totality. No politics needed because there will be no dissent at all — after all, how can you dissent from the perfection of science?

This is called a “Technocracy.”

In Wells’ horrible dream of the future this organization was called the Modern State Movement, (The movie version was called Wings Over the World). From their base in Basra, the self-proclaimed Air Dictatorship begins a campaign to bring order to the world by force, suppressing warlike “backward” national regimes and establishing a unified, rational, scientific world order. And they were dressed like BUF Black Shirts with breast plates.

They impose global peace, eliminate national sovereignty, abolish all traditional political systems, and construct a universal education program designed to create scientifically minded citizens, (yeah nothing bad can come from that).

All religion is suppressed… Of course

Family structures are destroyed — this is the big one for all of the totalitarian movements. The state is what raises the kids, not their parents. The state is what teaches children their governing values, not their families. Marriage is a very temporary and ephemeral matter, both sides are urged to move on from it as quickly as possible. And depending on how honest the technocrats are being about it — incest is to be encouraged.

Material abundance returns through centralized planning and technological management. The world eventually becomes a world state — stable, secular, regimented, paternalistic, eternal and it sounds like my idea of Hell on Earth. This is a world governed by Madelaine L’Engle’s IT.

From Things to Come, you can trace a straight line through to Doctor Who to Asimov’s Foundation to 1960s liberal utopianism, and Walt Disney’s original plan for EPCOT.

A long time ago, I started writing what Nick Cole described as STAR WARS NOT STAR WARS with a co-writer. He was going to write STAR TREK NOT STAR TREK with a co-writer at the same time. But mine didn’t work out, for a variety of reasons, and Nick and Jason ended up writing STAR WARS NOT STAR WARS themselves, which was eventually published as GALAXY’S EDGE and worked out rather well for them.

It’s rather amusing that people in SF/F keep trying to cancel my science fiction career, when I am more than adept at sabotaging it myself. Did I ever mention that I turned down Blizzard and Simon & Schuster when they approved my outline for the first STARCRAFT novel and asked me to write it? The lesson, as always is this: just shut up, write what they want you to write, and stop getting in your own way.

But the Dark Herald’s piece does give me an excellent idea… albeit one that will likely make JDA very, very sad.

In other writing news, I’ll be sending the OUT OF THE SHADOWS ebook to the Signed First Edition backers, the original MW ebook backers, and putting it up on Amazon this week. It will also be available as part of the Based Books Sale for everyone else. The paperback will be sent out to the MIDNIGHT’S WAR Vol. 7-12 backers along with THE TRAGEDY OF THE TRIBUNE omnibus both of them are ready.

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DEATH AND THE DEVIL hardcover

The hardcover edition of DEATH AND THE DEVIL is now available at Amazon, at Barnes and Noble, and your local bookstore. I also turned one of the stories, “Death and the Maiden”, into a song that you can listen to at AI Central if it happens to be of interest to you.

WHEN THE MAIDEN MEETS THE REAPER

Beneath Avignon’s ancient stones where mortals drink and dance,
A maiden stood inside of time, well-suited for romance
She glimpsed beyond the darkest veil where certainty takes form
The reaper in his fearsome grace, his presence strangely warm.
While others feared the final dark, she met his eyeless gaze,
And smiled upon that paradox: the end of numbered days.

Time and again, Death returned though duty didn’t call,
Compelled by something strange to gods both great and small
An immortal incarnation beyond mortality
She questioned him with humble words: “What troubles such as thee?”
No fear adorned her countenance, no reverence, no prayer—
Just a woman’s heart with a capacity to care

What strange communion finds the heart that sees its own eclipse?
What bride would seek eternity upon those bony lips?
The universe conspires in Creation’s cruel design
When the maiden meets the reaper, the last of the summer wine

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DEATH AND THE DARWINIAN

You know a book is good if your wife keeps asking what you’re laughing at. The answer was this book. It is funny, it is really funny. And the ending will leave a tear in your eye.

“What’s so funny there?”
she whispers through the lamplight
as he grins and reads

You’ll understand the haiku if you read the book.

A review of DEATH AND THE DEVIL.

DEATH AND THE DARWINIAN

It is a well-established fact across most of the known multiverse that death is, generally speaking, the end of life. This is the sort of obvious statement that most beings understand intuitively, in the same way they understand that water is wet or that the likelihood of autocorrect humiliating you increases exponentially with the importance of the message being sent.

What is rather less well-established is what happens immediately after death, in that awkward period between the cessation of biological functions and whatever comes next. This is primarily because most beings who experience death are, by definition, no longer in a position to write detailed reports about it, and those who claim to have had “near-death experiences” typically experience something more akin to “near-near-death” or “death-adjacent” moments, which is rather like claiming to be an expert on the history of Paris because your plane once flew over the south of France.

Dr. Mortimer Finch, professor of evolutionary biology at the prestigious University of West Anglia, had spent his entire fifty-seven-year academic career insisting that death was merely the natural conclusion of a biological process, a physical event no more spiritually significant than the shedding of a snake skin or the molting of an upwardly mobile crab. The universe, Dr. Finch maintained, was a magnificent accident—an unplanned, undirected series of chemical and physical processes that, through billions of years of trial and error, had produced everything from slime molds to symphony orchestras.

This conviction had served him well throughout his distinguished career, earning him numerous academic accolades, a comfortable tenure, and the quiet disdain of the university’s theology department, whose offices were, perhaps not coincidentally, located in the building on the opposite side of the campus.

It was therefore somewhat disconcerting for Dr. Finch to one day find himself face-to-face with Death.

Not with the abstract concept of death about which he had lectured about so confidently to generations of undergraduates. Not with the cessation of metabolic functions, the breakdown of cellular integrity, and the dispersal of organized energy into entropy. No, this was Death with a capital D, complete with a flowing black robe, a gleaming scythe, and a skull that somehow managed to express mild interest despite having no facial muscles whatsoever.

“This is obviously a hallucination,” Dr. Finch declared, adjusting his spectacles out of habit, despite the fact that they were now as spectral as the rest of him. “A final neurochemical discharge as my brain shuts down. Quite fascinating, really.”

Death regarded him with eye sockets that contained tiny silver points of light where eyes might have been expected.

I AM NOT A HALLUCINATION, Death said in a voice that wasn’t so much heard as felt, as if it was the final note of a funeral dirge played on the bones of the universe.

“That’s exactly what a hallucination would say,” Dr. Finch replied with the confident tone of a man who had won numerous academic debates through sheer force of authoritative pronunciation. “My brain, in its oxygen-deprived state, is creating a culturally recognizable figure to help process the fact that I’m dying. You’re a psychological construct, nothing more.”

Death sighed, a sound like a desert wind whistling through ancient tombs. Dr. Finch’s reaction was not an uncommon one. Humans, in particular, had a remarkable capacity for maintaining a state of denial even in the face of overwhelming evidence. It was one of their most distinctive traits, ranking just behind opposable thumbs and just ahead of their inexplicable insistence on keeping pets that were either venomous, temperamental, or both.

YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD, Death clarified, pointing a bony finger at Dr. Finch’s body, which was currently cooling on the laboratory floor beside an overturned stool and a half-eaten tuna sandwich. YOUR HEART STOPPED SEVENTEEN SECONDS AGO. CEREBRAL ACTIVITY CEASED FOURTEEN SECONDS AGO. YOU ARE NOT HALLUCINATING. YOU ARE, BY EVERY SCIENTIFIC DEFINITION, DECEASED.

Dr. Finch glanced at his body with mild interest, as if observing a moderately engaging museum exhibit.

“Cardiac arrest, by the look of it. I always suspected it would be the heart. Too many late nights in the lab, too much caffeine.” He turned back to Death. “But this conversation is still taking place inside my dying mind. I’m talking to myself. This is some sort of complex psychological self-delusion, probably the result of seeing my mother in the bathtub when I was five years old or something like that.”

Death’s patience, which had been cultivated over eons of existence, began to show its first microscopic signs of wear.

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On Satire and the Understanding Thereof

As a general rule, a person too stupid to understand satire shouldn’t try to use it as an affirmative defense.
—John Scalzi, July 20, 2013

Now, obviously I understand satire, and one would have thought the satirical nature of my response to McRapey’s hilarious ode to rape was sufficient evidence of that. But since I am never one to forgo the beating of dead horses, even the unnecessary beatings of equines long since deceased, allow me to present further evidence, conclusive evidence, of my grasp of the art of satire.

As you can see, I do not merely grasp the art of satire, I am observably a best-selling satirist, right up there with Juvenal and, apparently, someone by the name of Freida McFadden who would appear to sell a lot more books than me, Juvenal, and John Scalzi combined.

However, DEATH AND THE DEVIL isn’t just satire. It’s also litricha, as is demonstrated by the appearance of my name in between literary immortals Salman Rushdie on the one hand and the late David Foster Wallace on the other in the Literary Short Stories category.

So, if anyone needs me, I’ll just be here in my library, wearing a velvet robe, smoking a pipe, and contemplating my next public pontification for the semi-literate masses. Although, deep in my contemplations, a terrible thought struck me. What if the rightful heir to Terry Pratchett’s SF humorist throne is not, as some have suggested, Jasper Fford, but rather, Vox Day?

Or, as is more precisely the case, Vox Dai?

Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin.

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DEATH AND THE DEVIL

My latest book is now available on Amazon Kindle and also via Kindle Unlimited.

A brilliantly dark and witty collection that reimagines cosmic forces with heart, humor, and humanity.

What happens when Death decides to take up haiku? When the Devil’s carefully laid plans go awry? When the Incarnation of War discovers that the only thing worse than war is when the dead don’t die?

In this delightfully inventive collection of short stories about Death, ancient cosmic entities find themselves navigating the absurdities of existence with the same confusion, determination, and occasional incompetence as the mortals they oversee. From poetry workshops to World War II, from speed dating disasters to bureaucratic nightmares that span millennia, these stories blend philosophical depth with unexpected humor.

Written in the tradition of Ingmar Bergman and Terry Pratchett, Death and the Devil offers a fresh and deeply human take on the forces we fear most. Each story is a clever exploration of mortality, duty, and identity as well as a genuinely touching reminder that even in a universe governed by cosmic constants, there’s always room for compassion, love, and the occasional well-crafted haiku.

Witty. Profound. Unexpectedly moving.

Perfect for readers who appreciate smart, character-driven fantasy that doesn’t shy away from life’s big questions—or death’s smaller ones.

The first review has already been posted:

This is a remarkable set of short stories, assembled with AI support, which include amusing, horrifying, and intriguing variations on Death – more exactly, how Death as a force of Nature might comport itself with beings both mortal and supernatural. Highly recommended for fans of macabre short stories, Pratchett, and Douglas Adams.

The style began in the mode of Terry Pratchett, but extended into darker and more startling situations. Death and his pet cat (that is a premise worthy of its own tale) must address problems with eternal bureaucracy and customer service. Several tales explore the ghastly humor of those who either try to cheat Death or are simply too obtuse to understand that Time Is Up. Particularly amusing were stories where other eternal presences encouraging Death to take up a hobby. Consider Death taking on a gig in stand-up comedy and learning to tell jokes. One favorite was Death undertaking to write poetry; in his case, disrupting a class on writing haiku, by reading verses which created an interdimensional rift.

One other theme establishes itself through the set of tales. This is a Bergman – type set of passages or encounters with Death, on a more personal and Romantic note. Read about bright and dim lights, joys, anticipation, and final lingering dregs regrets – but the regrets and anticipations may transform to a wine of unusual bouquet for one ephemeral sip.

If you enjoy Terry Pratchett’s or Douglas Adams’ comedic works, many of these stories will give you a good laugh in the same light. If you prefer something stronger, smoother, and darker, like Ingmar Bergman films, the rest will bring unexpected smiles, chills, and speculative thoughts to mind.

Now, obviously there are going to be those who will feel the need to posture about how they will never read a book that was written at the push of a button, just as there were those who vowed they would never read an ebook, or listen to a CD. This is fine, those people have always been irrelevant with regards to the success or failure of a new technology and they always will be. The process from early adopters to laggards has been well understood for decades, so whether you’re of the late majority or the laggards, you might as well spare us the traditional theatrics.

My suggestion is to read the book and see if your assumptions were correct or not. Because from my perspective, if you are under the impression that particular book was written with the push of a button, the results should absolutely terrify you.

Anyhow, as our publishing business changes, I’ve had a rethink about Amazon and Kindle Unlimited and I realized that while it is a very bad foundation for a publishing business, it’s now perfectly suitable as a form of advertising that pays for itself. So, in addition to DEATH AND THE DEVIL, a number of my other ebooks are now available again on Kindle Unlimited, including ARTS OF DARK AND LIGHT and THE LAWS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE.

And as pertains to the latter, the combination of a) AI writing and b) events of the past eight years, I’ve realized that the book I never felt any need to write is now both necessary and viable. So, after SIGMA GAME is published, hopefully next month, you can anticipate the publication of SJWS ALWAYS PROJECT: Surviving the Thought Police sometime in the new year.

Death Goes on a Date

It is a well-established fact across most of the known multiverse that death is, generally speaking, the end of life. What is considerably less well-established is that Death himself had what humans might call “relationship issues.”

This was entirely Love’s fault.

“You need to get out more,” Love had declared during one of her unannounced little drop-ins on Death. “All work and no play makes Death a dull cosmic force. Oh, I know! We should find you a girlfriend!”

Death, who had until her interruption been perfectly content with his routine of soul collection, paperwork, and the penning of a haiku, realized that he was at risk of one of the interventions to which Love occasionally subjected him when she was bored with her most recent companion.

I DO NOT REQUIRE COMPANIONSHIP, Death had protested. I AM A FUNDAMENTAL ASPECT OF THE UNIVERSE. COSMIC FORCES DO NOT HAVE GIRLFRIENDS.

“Nonsense,” Love replied, stirring her latte with a finger that left tiny heart-shaped foam patterns. “Even cosmic entities need connections. Look at Time—he’s been seeing that lovely mathematician from the Renaissance for centuries!”

TIME IS DIFFERENT. HE HAS ALWAYS BEEN UNPREDICTABLE.

“And War has something going with one of those Valkyries,” Love continued, ignoring Death’s protest that he was very busy. “Very passionate. Lots of dramatic sword fights followed by, you know, even more sword fights, if you know what I mean!”

Death had no response to this, partly because he had no idea what she meant and partly because he was realizing that he was going to have to redo next Thursday’s list of scheduled reapings because she jogged his elbow while he was writing when she elbowed him in the side.

“Besides,” Love added with a sensual smile that could have melted glaciers, “I’ve already signed you up.”

Which was how Death found himself, three days later, standing outside a trendy wine bar in San Francisco, wearing his most convincing mortal disguise and holding a name tag that read “HELLO, MY NAME IS: DEREK.”

Death had chosen his appearance carefully: tall, lean, pale but not unnaturally so, with dark hair and sharp cheekbones that suggested interesting genetics rather than a complete absence of flesh. He wore an expensive black suit that managed to look both formal and slightly dangerous. The effect was, according to Love’s assessment, “just like a sexy Neal Gaiman without that whole rapey vibe.”

Death had no idea who Neil Gaiman was, or why his vibe was rapey, but if it was good enough for Love, it was good enough for him.

The wine bar was a conventional arrangement of exposed brick walls, industrial lighting, and small tables arranged in a grid pattern that reminded Death rather inappropriately of a cemetery. Approximately thirty people milled about holding wine glasses and name tags, their nervous energy filling the space in a manner that made him feel as if there was something he was missing.

“Welcome to Singles Mingle Speed Dating!” announced a cheerful woman with a clipboard and the sort of aggressive enthusiasm that suggested she was either naturally optimistic or extremely well-medicated. “I’m Jessica, your host for tonight! The rules are simple—two minutes per conversation, then rotate clockwise when you hear the bell! Ladies, you’ll stay seated. Gentlemen, you’ll move around the room. Ready to find love?”

The assembled humans made various noises of agreement. Death remained silent, still not entirely sure how he had been talked into coming here.

“Wonderful! Gentlemen, find your starting positions!”

Death consulted the number on his name tag—seven—and located the corresponding table, where a woman in her thirties with blonde hair and a nervous smile was arranging her purse and smoothing her dress.

“Hi!” she said brightly as Death approached. “I’m Jennifer! Marketing executive, love hiking, hate sushi. You?”

Death settled into the chair across from her, which immediately became several degrees colder. DEREK, he replied. I WORK IN HUMAN RESOURCES.

“Oh, that’s great! What company?”

UNIVERSAL.

“Universal Studios? Wow! I bet you see a lot of stars.”

YES, I SEE THEM EVERY NIGHT.

Jennifer’s smile wavered slightly. “Um, okay… So, Derek, what do you do for fun?”

Death contemplated her question. His hobbies were reaping souls, filling out paperwork, and occasionally performing stand-up on open-mic nights in Slosh-on-Bunwick. None of these seemed appropriate for speed dating conversation.

I WRITE POETRY, he said finally.

“Oh, wow, you’re a poet!”

OF A SORT. I HAVEN’T MASTERED THE LIMERICK YET.

“You haven’t mastered… limericks? Like, there once was a man from Nantucket, that sort of thing?”

YES, MY CAT FEELS THEY’RE INAPPROPRIATE AND UNDIGNIFIED.

When the bell rang, Jennifer looked relieved.

“So, it was really nice meeting you, Derek!” she said with the artificial brightness of someone desperate to escape a particularly persistent street mime.

Read the rest on Kindle.

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Book Porn

While lust is certainly one of the cardinal vices, perhaps a little of the more aesthetic and intellectual variety can be indulged to a reasonable extent. It was brought to my attention that Castalia Library was lacking an online showcase, so we’ve added a Gallery page that presently features pictures of all of the Castalia Library editions that have already been produced as well as some of the non-subscription books such as THE BLACK SWAN and FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS, as shown below.

The Gallery will be expanded with History, Junior Classics, and eventually, Cathedra editions as they are produced. But even with the backlog, it’s a little startling to see how many books have already been produced by the Library since we began building it together six years ago.

In other Castalia news, I have completed DEATH AND THE DEVIL and will be sending out the ebook to all of the buyers of the Signed First Edition this weekend. It should be available on Kindle next week.

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Vol. 9 Sport & Adventure

As previously promised, we’ve made it possible to order the two-volume set of Volumes 9 and 10 in order to complete your set of the Castalia Junior Classics 2020 edition if you happened to purchase the previous eight volumes over time. Original backers should note that they do not need to buy this set because both volumes are included with your backing of the original crowdfund.

We do not intend to make the full 10-volume set available for purchase until the annual Thanksgiving Sale next month because we do not wish to have anyone to pay the full retail price for a set and then be unpleasantly surprised when the sale price is offered a few weeks later. 

We will not be doing anything on the first leather edition until the new year. Also in the new year, we will make second leather edition sets available by sale and a new subscription starting January 1. We have not determined a price yet, but it will be similar to the price for the original backers of the first set. We do not have any extra complete first edition sets available.

To see the Volume 9 cover, more details about the book, and two example pages with illustrations, please visit Castalia Library.

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Six Years in the Making

The purpose of The Junior Classics is to provide, in ten volumes containing about five thousand pages, a classified collection of tales, stories, and poems, both ancient and modern, suitable for boys and girls of from six to sixteen years of age. The boy or girl who becomes familiar with the charming tales and poems in this collection will have gained a knowledge of literature and history that will be of high value in other school and home work. Here are the real elements of imaginative narration, poetry, and ethics, which should enter into the education of every child.

This collection, carefully used by parents and teachers with due reference to individual tastes and needs, will help many children enjoy good literature. It will inspire them with a love of good reading, which is the best possible result of any elementary education. The child himself should be encouraged to make his own selections from this large and varied collection, the child’s enjoyment being the object in view. A real and lasting interest in literature or in scholarship is only to be developed through the individual’s enjoyment of his mental occupations.

CHARLES ELIOT
PRESIDENT EMERITUS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY
1918

We launched the Castalia Junior Classics on October 15, 2019. On October 26, 2025, we completed the interiors and the covers for Volumes 9 and 10. For more information, check out the Library substack.

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Immigration and Military Power

As we know, Martin van Creveld has demonstrated that immigration is simply another form of war, and an invasion is an invasion regardless of whether it is a peaceful, unarmed, and disorganized one that is welcomed by a governing elite or an armed and organized one that is resisted by the governing elite.

But one of the lessons demonstrated by Sir Charles Oman in his The Art of War in the Middle Ages is the way in which immigration and the reliance upon foreign troops is intrinsically deleterious to the nation’s military organization and will inevitably weaken even the most dominant military power. And this weakness is distinct from the separate problem of foreign military commanders whose loyalties tend to be outweighed by either their ethnic interests or their self-interests.

As he demonstrates in the first chapter of his excellent essay, now being serialized at Castalia Library, the Roman Empire suffered both of these negative effects.

The morale of the Roman army was no longer what it had once been: the corps were no longer homogeneous, and the insufficient supply of recruits was eked out by enlisting slaves and barbarians in the legions themselves, and not only among the auxiliary cohorts. Though seldom wanting in courage, the troops of the fourth century had lost the self-reliance and cohesion of the old Roman infantry, and required far more careful handling on the part of the general. Few facts show this more forcibly than the proposal of the tactician Urbicius to furnish the legionaries with a large supply of portable beams and stakes, to be carried by pack-mules attached to each cohort. These were to be planted on the flanks and in the front of the legion, when there was a probability of its being attacked by hostile cavalry: behind them the Romans were to await the enemy’s onset, without any attempt to assume the offensive.

This proposition marks a great decay in the efficiency of the imperial foot-soldier: the troops of a previous generation would have scorned such a device, accustomed as they were to drive back with ease the assaults of the Parthian and Sarmatian cataphracti.

It should not be a surprise that the US military is in observable decline, having lost its global superpower status and has been surpassed in several areas by the Russian and Chinese militaries, given the fact that the percentage of foreign-born U.S. veterans rose from 2 percent in 1990 to 4.5 percent in 2022. And, of course, this doesn’t even count the much larger number of foreigners who were second- or third-generation immigrants whose interests do not necessarily align with those of the native population.

History is an absolute necessity if one wishes to understand the probable consequences of current events. Even if you have relatively little interest in leatherbound books, or in the aesthetic aspects of the most beautiful books in the world, it will behoove you to consider signing up for a free subscription to the Castalia Library substack for the benefit of the daily serial alone. On a related note, I’m pleased to be able to announce that yesterday, Castalia Library reached 3,000 daily subscribers.

In other Castalia-related news, we have completed the interior layout for THE JUNIOR CLASSICS Volume Nine, Sport & Adventure. We anticipate shipping both volumes Nine and Ten to the backers in November, although demi-royal backers will probably need to wait until December to receive theirs. And for those who were not original backers, we anticipate making the regular editions available as part of the annual Thanksgiving sale.

And yes, we will be announcing a 2nd Edition of The Castalia Junior Classics in leather and making them available once the complete set of the Original Backer’s Leather Editions is in production at the US bindery. The difference will be that the 2nd Edition will be bound in pigskin at the Castalia Bindery.

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