John M. Ford’s The Dragon Waiting is coming back into print from Tor Books in early fall 2020, to be followed by the author’s novels, along with two volumes of previously unpublished material.
The announcement came as the culmination of an 18-month investigation by writer Isaac Butler, who documented the winding path it took to bring the author back into print in a longform article on Slate. Beginning his investigation in 2018, when only four of Ford’s books were still in print, Butler reached out to the author’s family, whom he put in contact with editors at Tor.
This turned into a year-long negotiation, led by Tor Senior Editor Beth Meacham, which resulted in a new agreement about the release of Ford’s complete works. The first entry, The Dragon Waiting, comes out in fall 2020. It’s an alternate historical fantasy political thriller in which Byzantium, Richard III, and vampires are all striving for power during the War of the Roses, and you can read Jo Walton’s review of it for Tor.com here:
https://reactormag.com/2009/07/30/subtle-history-john-m-fords-the-dragon-waiting/
(Also see: James Davis Nicoll’s recent piece “Why The Hell Are These Books Out Of Print?”)
https://reactormag.com/2018/03/22/why-the-hell-are-these-books-out-of-print/
In addition to Ford’s previously published original novels, Tor will also publish “a new volume of stories, poems, Christmas cards, and other uncollected material,” according to Butler, as well as his unfinished 140,000-word epic, Aspects, tentatively slated to arrive in 2021 with an introduction by Neil Gaiman.
https://twitter.com/pnh/status/1195300750835904512
In the meantime, you can read Walton’s reviews of Ford’s The Princes of the Air, Growing Up Weightless, and The Final Reflection, as well as one of his poems for Weird Tales and Ellen Cheeseman-Meyer’s review of the author’s Star Trek novels.
