For the first time ever, Cardinal Black is now available in a trade paperback edition from Lividian Publications! This edition features brand-new cover art by Vincent Chong.
Order from Lividian
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Book Depository
Amazon UK
The upcoming Lividian Publications trade paperback editions of the Matthew Corbett books can now be pre-ordered from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million (BAM!), and Book Depository.
 Available July 19, 2022 Pre-order from Lividian Pre-order from Amazon Pre-order from B&N Pre-order from BAM! Book Depository Amazon UK |
 Available August 23, 2022 Pre-order from Lividian Pre-order from Amazon Pre-order from B&N Pre-order from BAM! Book Depository Amazon UK |
 Available September 20, 2022 Pre-order from Lividian Pre-order from Amazon Pre-order from B&N Pre-order from BAM! Book Depository Amazon UK |
 Available October 18, 2022 Pre-order from Lividian Pre-order from Amazon Pre-order from B&N Pre-order from BAM! Book Depository Amazon UK |
 Available November 15, 2022 Pre-order from Lividian Pre-order from Amazon Pre-order from B&N Pre-order from BAM! Book Depository Amazon UK |
Hello, all.
Well. News to tell.
I remember as a little boy being fascinated by a drawing of a man’s face that showed a smile, but it was cleverly done so that when you turned the drawing upside down the same face became a frown. You may have seen this because I’m sure it’s still floating around somewhere.
Anyway…I determined some time ago that life was very much like that drawing, or rather the “idea” behind the drawing. Smile or frown? The same face, just depending on how you looked at it. And you know some things that seem “bad” or disappointing in the short run turn out to be good things in the long run.
So…let’s get to the news, and you can decide for yourselves whether to smile or frown, or whether what is a frown today becomes a smile tomorrow as it did for me.
Supply chain problems have hit the publishing industry in the form of paper shortages. Simply put, many printers around the country can’t get enough paper to do their work, so this is throwing all schedules off by at least several months. Lividian Publications, scheduled to publish the new Matthew Corbett novel The King of Shadows in April, has not been immune to this nationwide problem. When I first heard from Lividian’s owner and publisher Brian Freeman that the book will be delayed quite some time by this unhappy circumstance you can believe I frowned Bigtime…but then I heard Brian’s alternate idea, and here it is:
The King of Shadows limited edition will be released in June of 2022, depending, I understand, on the slipcase production.
And now, the really cool stuff that made me smile:
Lividian will be publishing trade paperbacks of the Corbett novels beginning with Mister Slaughter, all the books with covers done by the award-winning, acclaimed, and extremely talented artist Vincent Chong. You can see these covers below and judge (or delight, as I did) for yourselves.
The schedule would be:
Mister Slaughter in July of 2022.
The Providence Rider in August of 2022.
The River of Souls in September of 2022.
Freedom of the Mask in October of 2022.
Cardinal Black in November of 2022.
And The King of Shadows regular hardcover edition in December of 2022.
Wow! I’m smiling right now thinking about this!
This schedule will see me finish the book of Corbett short stories I’ve wanted to do for a while, titled Seven Shades of Evil, and then finish also the last book in the series, Leviathan, so there should be no long delay as there’s been in the past. And I have to say the long delay of The King of Shadows has been primarily of my doing, since it took me awhile to saturate the idea with the bourbon of imagination and the scotch of effort. Ahem. And then it did take a long time to write, as it’s pretty involved and everything had to mesh just so.
But…there you have it! I’m really excited about this schedule! You can look at Vincent Chong’s covers and see that the trade paperback editions are getting some absolutely beautiful reasons to collect the series!
Onward and upward. As always, thank you for your readership and your patience with the current situation. Lividian and Brian Freeman have found a way to turn a frown into a smile, and in my case an absolute cross-eyed grin.
Best Wishes,
Robert McCammon
Lividian Publications is thrilled to announce we will be publishing multiple volumes of Robert McCammon’s highly acclaimed Matthew Corbett series this year, including a brand new novel in hardcover and five previous titles in trade paperback for the first time anywhere in the world! You can reserve ALL of these books today with NO prepayment required, and we’ll contact you via email for payment closer to the publication date. Read on for details!
First up will be a deluxe signed, numbered, and slipcased Limited Edition hardcover of The King of Shadows by Robert McCammon, the eighth volume in his acclaimed Matthew Corbett series.
This absolutely massive special edition tips the scales at a whopping 736 pages and has been lavishly crafted with collectors and readers alike in mind. Vincent Chong provided stunning color artwork for the dust jacket and ten black and white illustrations for the interior.
This special edition started rolling at the printer last fall and will be published in June 2022, approximately six months before the trade hardcover.
PREORDERS ARE BEING ACCEPTED NOW, and no prepayment is required to reserve your copy. (If you own the Cardinal Black Limited Edition or Lettered Edition, please see the notes on the The King of Shadows product page about matching numbers and letters.)
Lividian Publications is also thrilled to announce we’ll be publishing five previous titles in the Matthew Corbett series as trade paperbacks, the first time they’ve appeared in this format anywhere in the world. Starting with Mister Slaughter in July and finishing with Cardinal Black in November, these will be published at the perfect time to get readers fully up to speed before the trade hardcover publication of Robert McCammon’s newest installment, The King of Shadows, in December.
Due to the shortage of book paper in the world, there will be a limited run of the offset printed true first printings of these trade paperbacks, and most of the chain bookstore orders and distributor orders will be filled via POD to ensure we can keep up with demand and no reader misses out.
For collectors who want first printings (and fans who want to read them as soon as possible), we’re offering a bundle of all five books, to be shipped together this summer, that are guaranteed to be from the First Printing offset run and will be marked as such on their copyright pages. These five books will ship together, and four of them will be shipping before their official publication dates.
Please place your order via the bundle product page if you’re interested. Supplies are limited and that page will be changed to “Out of Print” when all available sets are reserved. Copies ordered individually through this site or big online retailers like Amazon, etc, will not be signed and might be print on demand copies.
The King of Shadows (Limited Edition) — June 2022 (depending on slipcase production)
Mister Slaughter (trade paperback) — July 19, 2022
The Providence Rider (trade paperback) — August 23, 2022
The River of Souls (trade paperback) — September 20, 2022
Freedom of the Mask (trade paperback) — October 18, 2022
Cardinal Black (trade paperback) — November 15, 2022
The King of Shadows (deluxe trade hardcover) — December 6, 2022
Stay tuned for more news and updates. Thank you again for your continuing support and enthusiasm!
Lividian Publications
Things have been kind of quiet for a while, as Mr. McCammon is enjoying his summer vacation after finishing The King of Shadows back in April. While I do not yet have any publication news to share—beyond that it’ll be published in 2022—work is in-progress with the publisher, and as soon I can say any more, I will!
Some of you have noticed that a few more McCammon ebooks have temporarily disappeared from the various vendors in the U.S. As with the Matthew Corbett ebooks, the following titles will soon be republished in ebook formats by Open Road Media. I do not yet know when they’ll be available, but they will be back soon!
Again, as soon as I know more, I’ll let you know!
The new Open Road ebook of Cardinal Black is sale-priced today at all U.S. vendors for $2.99!
These ebooks are also sale-priced today:
Open Road Media is republishing six of the Matthew Corbett ebooks on August 17, 2021. These ebooks will be available worldwide. Open Road has designed new covers for the six books, and you can see the new covers on their website!
The covers were created by Ian Koviak.
The Queen of Bedlam ebook is published by Simon & Schuster in North America. The international ebook edition is temporarily not available, but we expect that Open Road will republish it outside of North America within a month or so.
Thanks to Paul Evans, here’s a photo of a Cardinal Black remarque by Vincent Chong.
Vincent Chong recently posted the interior illustrations he did for Cardinal Black.
The latest Matthew Corbett adventure, Cardinal Black, is now out and shipping from Cemetery Dance. Below are the interior pieces I did for this volume.
Brian Freeman from Cemetery Dance posted this in the CD Forum today:
The slipcases for the Limited Edition of CARDINAL BLACK are on the way to the warehouse. Here’s a quick photo of how things turned out:
The limited edition is long sold out, but trade hardcovers can be ordered from CD here.
Still available is the signed, limited edition from UK publisher SST Publications.
Actually, the old T-shirts never went away, I just haven’t promoted them much recently. I’ve finally created T-shirts that feature the cover art from Freedom of the Mask and Cardinal Black. Vincent Chong graciously allowed me to reproduce his cover art on the shirts.
The T-shirts can be ordered from Spreadshirt. The prices of the shirts are the base prices from Spreadshirt. In order to keep the prices as low as possible, we did not tack on any additional fees.
Robert McCammon shirts at Spreadshirt
