By Kit HawkinsFrom SFScope - September 8, 2010
Ian Randal Strock is buying Fantastic Books from Warren Lapine. Strock expects the transition to be seamless, since he's been working as the publisher of the line since early this year.
Lapine founded Fantastic Books as a speculative fiction imprint of his much larger Wilder Publications. Originally, the plan was to bring out-of-print sf titles back into print through print-on-demand publishing. Under Strock's leadership, however, the company has expanded into original publications. Several single-author collections have already been published (including Lou Antonelli's Fantastic Texas, Scott William Carter's The Dinosaur Diaries, and Sarah Totton's Animythical Tales). Fantastic's first original novel, T. Jackson King's Little Brother’s World, will debut in a matter of days. And now the imprint will be a much larger part of a much smaller company, as Strock brings it under the umbrella of his own Gray Rabbit Publications LLC.
According to Strock, "The transfer of ownership, to the outside world, should be nearly invisible; mostly just an accounting change. There will be a different mailing address, and a different name signing the checks and contracts, but most everything else will look the same.
"Fantastic Books, under the Gray Rabbit aegis, will be exhibiting at this weekend's Brooklyn Book Festival, as we've planned for several months now. We'll also be at the World Fantasy Convention in October, and several other sf conventions in the coming months."
Acquiring Editors Douglas Cohen, Darrell Schweitzer, and Dave Truesdale are staying on in those capacities, and Strock expects to give them the go-ahead to start acquiring new books in the very near future. But until they say so publicly, the company is not open to unsolicited submissions.
Strock is the editor and publisher of SFScope.
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