With the greatest pleasure, we present the newly updated Hydra House Books website. Redesigned from the ground up by Clockpunk Studios (thank you, Jeremy Tolbert and Jenn Reese!), it has a lot of fancy new functionality and, most importantly, a brilliant new design.

It’s got some fancy new things, like a calendar of events. And easy peasy ways for us to enter new books. And all kinds of crazy gizmos behind the scenes that we’ll probably never use. It’s also got this cool graphic at the top of the screen where the two Hs in Hydra House come smoothly together. You’ll have to go back to the home page to see it. Go on, do it. Oooooohh. Pretty snazzy, huh?

HHB has been pretty quiet the past few months, but we’re regrouping and planning to do more publishing in the coming year. Like Book 6, the sixth and final installment, in Danika Dinsmore’s middle-grade series Faerie Tales from the White Forest. Stop back from time to time to see what’s new. Or sign up for the newsletter and we’ll keep in touch with you.

As a gift to y’all, we are presenting a short story by Sandra M. Odell, “The Home for Broken,” from her 2018 collection Godfall and Other Stories, available here through Hydra House Books. Original to the collection, it’s an amazing and moving story about a wind-up child that must be … well, you’ll just have to read it.

The Home for Broken

Thanks for dropping by!

Tod McCoy
Hydra House Books Overlord

Oh, so many things in the works! Watch for a complete web redesign in the next few months. And more books in the works! Also, a slight name change — up until now it’s just been “Hydra House” (much like “Random House”), but we think that’s not very specific, especially for someone who isn’t familiar with the company. So “Hydra House Books” it is! (I mean, the URL already says that.)

If you’ve sent a manuscript someone in the last year, we just discovered that the JotForm wasn’t working right and we probably didn’t get the manuscript. (Really sorry about that.) We have no idea how long it’s been going on, so if you sent something, either send an email to tod@hydrahousebooks.com or resubmit the manuscript using the newly fixed form. (“Submissions” in the menu.)

At last! Hydra House is very excited to reveal the cover of Sandra M. Odell’s upcoming collection of short fiction, Godfall and Other Stories. Edited by author and SFWA president Cat Rambo, the collection features 23 stories, published and unpublished, all that amble along the edge of dark places that border horror, fantasy, and the psyche.

Cover art by the fantastic British artist David Whitlam (https://www.davidwhitlam.com/).

Publishers Weekly’s review said that “this powerful second collection” marks Sandra as “a writer to watch.”

The table of contents includes:

Godfall
The Home for Broken
The Poison Eater
Listening to It Rain
The Business of Rats
Telling Stories
Exchanges, No Refunds
How Toby Told Time
Ink
The Hydra Wife
Good Boy
Life Line
Scarecrone
Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
Just Be
Samaritan
Curtain Call
The Vessel Never Asks For More Wine
Black Widow
Lost in Translation
Truth Is A Stranger To Fiction
Blue
A Troll’s Trade

The scheduled publication date is April 18, and will be available from all major online book outlets as well as the University Bookstore in Seattle.

And if you’re in the Seattle area, come listen to Sandra read at the University Bookstore on April 18!

Hydra House is very pleased to announce the acquisition and publication of “Godfall and Other Stories,” a collection of speculative fiction short stories by Sandra M. Odell.

Edited by Cat Rambo, “Godfall” will be published in April, 2018. The collection brings together many of Sandra’s published pieces as well as new stories not published elsewhere.

The collection will be available in trade paperback and available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and most other online retailers. A limited edition hardcover will be available exclusively through Hydra House.

At long last! Hydra House is proud to reveal the cover of Cat Rambo’s collection of fantasy short stories, Neither Here Nor There. This is a companion volume to her previous collection, Near + Far, and follows the same double-sided format that splits the book.

Neither Here Nor There collects many of Cat’s published fantasy work (as well as a few unpublished), split into two: Neither Here pulls together secondary world fantasy (including her Tabat world) and Nor There collects alt-Earth fantasy.

The collection will be released simultaneously in trade paperback, ebook, and a hardcover edition limited to 300 numbered copies.

You may recognize the cover art on both sides as the signature style of the talented Hugo winning artist Galen Dara.

Expected release date is December 15, and we will have copies at the World Fantasy Convention in Columbus!

Sunday, February 17, will be the last day you can order hardcover versions of Cat Rambo’s “Near + Far” or the Clarion West fundraiser anthology “Telling Tales” through major retailers. After next Sunday, no more hardcovers will be printed! Note that softcovers and ebooks will continue to be available.

Why, you may be asking, would we do that? The fact of the matter is that hardcovers are largely printed for a collector’s market. If a hardcover is available indefinitely, it never becomes a collectible. With this in mind, Hydra House is shifting its strategy slightly to meet the demand of collectors. You can expect to see lower print runs of any hardcover editions that we publish, as well as different kinds of editions. Signed, boxed editions, for instance, or numbered editions.

A few copies will still be available through Hydra House, so check the bookstore if you’d like a copy after next Sunday.

Here are the links to get hardcovers through the larger retailers:

Near + Far Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Telling Tales Amazon | Barnes & Noble

It’s here! It’s here! Narine of Noe, the fourth book of Danika Dinsmore’s middle-grade fantasy series Faerie Tales from the White Forest, has been released!

Narine of Noe takes place long before the creation of the White Forest and follows the adventures of young Narine, who finds herself in the middle of a worldwide catastrophe:

Narine of Noe should have had her whole life to train to take her father’s place as High Sage. But when a mysterious force falls from the skies, sending the world into elemental chaos, the fate of every living being lands on her shoulders . . . even that of the Eternal Dragon. Without the Dragon to maintain the Balance of All Things, an elaborate plan to save Faweh must be hatched, and Narine is forced to take charge in a world gone mad. Before the White Forest was born, before the Great World Cry, the story that started it all …

Current available from Amazon in ebook and print formats.

And:

This weekend only we’ve got special deals! Get the ebook for only $4.99! What’s more, you can pick up the first book of the series, Brigitta of the White Forest, in ebook form for only .99c!!

Just in time for the holidays!

Hydra House is proud to announce two upcoming titles:

“Neither Here Nor There” by Cat Rambo — A collection of fantasy stories, both new and published.

“Narine of Noe” by Danika Dinsmore — The fourth installment of her middle-grade fantasy series, “Faerie Tales of the White Forest.”

Both books coming later in the summer! Watch for Cat’s collection at WorldCon in Spokane.

This weekend, Hydra House will be making an appearance at Vancouver’s homegrown science fiction and fantasy convention, VCon, an awesome little convention that has been running for many, many years and typically has excellent writing tracks. This year, the writing tracks were programmed by none other than Sandra Wickham! Who’s about to give birth!!

Hydra House will be sharing a booth with two other fine Pacific Northwest presses, Fairwood Press and Resurrection House. If you’re going, swing by the dealer’s room and say hello. We’ll be taking bets on which comes first: The end of VCon or Sandra’s baby.