Appointment On Sunset by Tim Powers

A quick shout out to Charnel House upon their upcoming new Tim Powers book, Appointment On Sunset, to be published next month in their typically creative limited edition format.

Each of the books will feature a numbered toe-tag, as though from a morgue, embedded in the front board which will be titled and signed by Tim Powers.

The plot of the story is described thus:

Breuer died in his Dodge Dart when he crashed in to the back of a cement truck on Sunset Boulevardin 1964. He is conjured up to the present to relive and alter his actions because they are dice stilltumbling. Breuer has been offered a dubious deal. But really, who can you trust when you’re dead?

The short books will be 48 pages, 4.25 x 7 inches, hand-sewn and hand-bound, printed on Mohawk Strathmore Pastelle Ultrafelt and limited to 26 lettered copies bound in full dark blue Moroccan leater for $800 ea, and 250 numbered copies bound in full handmade Indigo Cave Paper.

As you may recall, Charnel House launched with the publication of it’s first limited edition book by Tim Powers in 1989, The Stress of Her Regard in an edition of 26 lettered and 500 numbered copies, and, in 1992, Last Call in an edition of 350 numbered copies and 26 lettered copies which featured endpapers made from untrimmed sheets of American dollar bills — a very unique and artistic design choice that was likely never done before — the lettered edition also featured a gambling chip from the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas set in the spine, and a Tarot card was embedded into the front board. Charnel House later published Powers’ Where They Are Hid in 1995, and more recently, A Time To Cast Away Stones, in 2010.

As we noted in A Comprehensive Dual Bibliography of James P. Blaylock & Tim Powers, Charnel House was founded after Joe Stefko had a discussion with Powers and offered to publish The Stress of Her Regard with the entire, author-preferred text that was in the original manuscript — some of which was apparently edited out of the initial trade publication.  That first Charnel House edition was highly praised, and it set the stage for them to create a number of other fine, limited editions with other authers.