Pre-Order Everyone's Just So So Special
(
20/02/2011)
When he released his last collection of short stories,
Robert Shearman did a very silly thing. He decided that fifty of the leatherbound editions would each have a new story, individually handwritten and sealed in envelopes. He hurt his wrist writing that out. He moaned a lot.
He said he'd never do anything like that again.
But this year, he's being sillier.
Everyone's Just So So Special is his third collection of stories, and its theme is history. Twenty-one short stories of the comical and the absurd, the touching and the horrific, all glancing off the way we perceive time and memory. But for the leatherbound edition, he's proposing to write another hundred short stories. And all uniquely tailored to the people who pre-order the book.
The hundred stories will each take the form of an encyclopaedia entry about a person forgotten to history, someone who nearly became famous, but never quite did. And the stories will be inspired by the names of the hundred customers who pre-order this edition. "
If Nicholas Briggs ordered a copy, then Nicholas Briggs would find within the book a story about a fictitious ancestor of his who shares his name. Utterly exclusive, and individually handwritten by the author."
After release of the regular hardback, the one hundred stories will be presented online, so that everyone can see the results of the project, and that each of the entries are completely original.
Everyone's Just So So Special will be released in July, on the back of
Tiny Deaths (winner of the World Fantasy Award) and
Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical (winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, the Edge Hill Readers Prize, and the British Fantasy Award). These special leatherbound copies - strictly limited to one hundred - will retail at £40, and can be pre-ordered now.
Asked what story he'd write about a Nicholas Briggs, Shearman gave the matter some considerable thought, and said, "
Sounds as if he probably came from peasant stock to me."
Everyone's Just So So Special - Limited Edition Leatherbound with special dedicated short storyEveryone's Just So So Special - LeatherboundEveryone's Just So So Special - HardbackEveryone's Just So So Special - Paperback