Coyote Jones Update 9/2007:
The Communipaths is now available online.

THE SAD FATE OF COYOTE JONES

In March 2002 I signed a contract with John Betancourt's Wildside Press for the publication of reprint editions of my four Coyote Jones novels; it specified that they would be published "within 12 months of receipt of a final manuscript in electronic form." I then keyboarded all four books for Wildside, and on July 31, 2002 the electronic files had all been turned in, which meant the publication date would theoretically have been no later than July 31, 2003.

When that date passed without any communication from the press, I sent the first of a series of requests for publication date information, and was -- over time -- given the following set: January 2003; then May 2003; then July 2003; then August 2003; then April 2004. When I sent an e-mail in 2005 suggesting that since I was going to be Science Guest of Honor for Norwescon it would be truly stupid not to have the books available for launch there, I was given yet another date -- March 2005.

No books have ever appeared. And the whole thing ended on August 17, 2005, when I sent Wildside a notice terminating the contract. The mess had been going on so long that it was on my mind all the time. Festering. Nagging at me. Mindtrash, cluttering my head. Taking up space I needed for other things. Enough, already.

So. No Coyote Jones reprints will be coming out after all, and I'm truly sorry about that because I said they would be; I try not to make promises I can't keep. I apologize.

— Suzette

Copyright © 2005 by Suzette Haden Elgin