Monochrome
gambit

I’ve just released a new zine in the online shop:

That’s the poster side. On the text side, you’ll find my usual fusion of form & content: a man­i­festo about e-books that is also a new kind of e-book.

I won’t go on & on about it here — you can read more in the shop—but, suf­fice it to say, spending time this year with Roland Allen’s The Notebook and Adam Smyth’s The Book-Makers has cast the defi­cien­cies of the dig­ital into a harsh & unde­ni­able light.

Yet the remedy — the model — is right here before us.

Printing this zine on the Risograph, I thought to myself, “Whew, Sloan, this one is extra nerdy … are people really gonna go for it?” But your appetite for nerdi­ness has con­sis­tently sur­prised me — why am I still sur­prised? — so I pro­duced a good-sized batch.

Because of this new zine’s subject, I’d like to extend a spe­cial offer: if you are a bookseller, or if you work in publishing, any­where in the world, just reply to this mes­sage from your work email address and I’ll send you a copy gratis.

I’ve also restocked my books in the online shop, adding Moon­bound, the novel’s great new paper­back with an insane appendix. These are all signed and stamped with my ex libris. I have roughly twenty copies of each book, so if you’re interested, act fast.

The other day, I spotted Moon­bound on the front table at Book Pas­sage in SF, and, wow, MCD’s mono­chrome gambit absolutely worked:

Doesn’t it almost seem to glow? Neg­a­tive chro­matic space — brilliant.

Of course, it really does glow, when the lights go down. All the paper­backs of the Penum­bra­verse have this property! Line them up, and maybe you could read by the light they produce.

The new zine awaits, and the paper­backs too. I ship on Mondays. Thanks, as always, for your interest and support!

From the lab,

Robin

P.S. I also printed up a fresh batch of my inau­gural Reality Zine, the one with the dashing air­mail pilot — its third edition!

September 2025