Cemetery Dance is publishing a limited edition Stephen King novella, Blockade Billy, as a stand-alone volume with “an authentic William ‘Blockade Billy’ Blakely baseball card.”
King says of the book “I love old-school baseball, and I also love the way people who’ve spent a lifetime in the game talk about the game. I tried to combine those things in a story of suspense. People have asked me for years when I was going to write a baseball story. Ask no more; this is it.”
Cemetery Dance describes the story, saying “Even the most diehard baseball fans don’t know the true story of William ‘Blockade Billy’ Blakely. He may have been the greatest player the game has ever seen, but today no one remembers his name. He was the first—and only—player to have his existence completely removed from the record books. Even his team is long forgotten, barely a footnote in the game’s history.
“Every effort was made to erase any evidence that William Blakely played professional baseball, and with good reason. Blockade Billy had a secret darker than any pill or injection that might cause a scandal in sports today. His secret was much, much worse… and only Stephen King, the most gifted storyteller of our age, can reveal the truth to the world, once and for all.
“This original, never-before-published novella represents Stephen King at his very best, and this Cemetery Dance World’s First Hardcover Edition brings it into print for the very first time.”
The publisher also reminds collectors “A lot of general readers will use the card as a bookmark or lose it over time, so collectors who hold onto their card and keep their copy of the book in good condition could have a very nice addition to their collection.”
The book has a cover by Glen Orbik and interior illlustrations by Alex McVey, and there’s an online sampling of some of the artwork on this page.
The $25, 10,000-copy first edition is available only directly from Cemetery Dance Publications, and the publisher sold half of the available copies in four days. They’re taking pre-orders now for the remainder, which has a 20 April publication date.