Lois McMaster Bujold has announced that Subterranean Press is taking preorders for a signed limited hardcover of Testimony of Mute Things, her Penric and Desdemona novella set in the World of the Five Gods, and that the press is also reprinting Penric’s Demon in a signed limited edition with its original cover art. The new hardcover is limited to 1,250 numbered copies at $48 and is scheduled for January, while the Penric’s Demon reprint is supposed to ship before the end of the year.
The Preorder
Testimony of Mute Things is a 216-page hardcover novella, signed by Bujold, numbered, and limited to 1,250 copies. It costs $48. Lauren Saint-Onge illustrated the dust jacket, and the ISBN is 978-1-64524-359-5. The press lists it as “to be published in January.” The story first appeared in 2025 as the 15th work in the Penric and Desdemona series, and in the series’ internal timeline it falls between Penric’s Fox and Masquerade in Lodi.
In it, Sorcerer Learned Penric and his demon Desdemona travel with their superior, Princess-Archdivine Llewen of Martensbridge, to a contentious Temple conclave. The conclave meets in Occo, a disputed border town in Carpagamo, where they face new intrigues and old histories that test their magic, wits and hearts.
What Bujold Wrote on Goodreads
Announcing the edition on Goodreads, Bujold wrote:
“It will, in due course, also be available through Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore or Dreamhaven Books & Comics here in Minneapolis; both do mail order.
Note that these stores may still have some copies of SubPress editions that are sold out at the publisher’s website. You can inquire at the stores for any specific title you are seeking.
The signed limited SubPress reprinting of “Penric’s Demon”, with the original cover art, is also up for pre-order, and is supposed to be shipping before the end of the year. I’ll make a blog post when it goes live.
And, as always, almost every one of my titles is immediately available as a low-priced ebook, worldwide, on Kindle, Nook, Apple Books, Kobo, and Google Play Books. I am occasionally frustrated by readers complaining right here on the internet they can’t find this or that title, when the books are just a couple of mouse clicks away from the very device they are typing on. If you run across one of these conversations, you might point that out...”
How the Penric Novellas Began
The series started with Penric’s Demon, which Bujold self-published in 2015 as a Kindle and audio release. Subterranean Press brought out the first hardback on July 6, 2016, at 184 pages. Lord Penric kin Jurald, a younger son of an impoverished noble family, comes upon a dying Temple divine, Learned Ruchia, on the day of his betrothal and inherits her powers when her demon, Desdemona, jumps to him. She carries the memories and skills of her previous hosts. Penric is sent to the Bastard’s Order in Martensbridge, survives a murder attempt by his half-brother, and appeals to the Bastard, who allows Desdemona to stay. The Order then sends him to study at a university for Temple sorcerers. It was a finalist for the 2016 Hugo Award and the 2016 Locus Award for best novella, and the follow-up Penric and the Shaman was a Hugo nominee as well.
The series has grown to 16 works in publication order, from Penric’s Demon in 2015 through Darksight Dare on April 23, 2026, which finds Penric, now Learned Penric of Vilnoc, facing two problems at once: a mutilated Cedonian cavalry captain who has crossed two thousand sea miles for his help and a dying hedge sorceress in an Orban village who wants none. The entries between them include Penric and the Shaman, Penric’s Mission, Mira’s Last Dance, Penric’s Fox, The Prisoner of Limnos, The Orphans of Raspay, The Physicians of Vilnoc, Masquerade in Lodi, The Assassins of Thasalon, Knot of Shadows, Demon Daughter, Penric and the Bandit and The Adventure of the Demonic Ox. Baen collected several in omnibus editions, including Penric’s Progress in 2020.
The World of the Five Gods
The Penric novellas share a world with three earlier novels, and the series won the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Series. The people of the world worship five gods: the Father, the Mother, the Daughter, the Son and the Bastard. Quintarians accept all five, while Quadrenes reject the Bastard and regard him as a demon. The gods cannot act directly and work through human beings, by dreams, visitations and the people who agree to carry out their will. The works share a world and a theology, not characters, and can be read in any order, though Paladin of Souls gives away the end of The Curse of Chalion.
The Curse of Chalion came out from Eos in August 2001. Cazaril, a nobleman sold into slavery, returns to Chalion and becomes tutor to Iselle, second in line to the throne of a royal house under a generations-old curse. It won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award and was a finalist for the Hugo, the World Fantasy Award and the Locus Award. Paladin of Souls followed on September 23, 2003. Ista, Iselle’s mother, slips her guardians on a pilgrimage, runs into raiders and a castle held by a demon, and ends up taking the Bastard’s offer to drive demons from the land. It won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the Locus Award for fantasy. The Hallowed Hunt arrived May 24, 2005, set in the Weald, a land like medieval Germany, where the disgraced aristocrat Ingrey is sent to bring in Ijada, who has killed a king’s son and carries a leopard spirit.
Chalion is a landlocked kingdom modeled on medieval Castile and León during the Reconquista, in a world whose peninsula is a reversed Iberia, with the Ibra and Brajar kingdoms standing in for Aragon and Portugal and the Roknari invaders for the Moors. The Penric novellas range farther, across the Cantons, Adria, Orbas, Cedonia and a disputed island off Adria’s coast. Bujold herself has won the Hugo Award for best novel four times, matching Robert A. Heinlein, and also won the Hugo for Best Series in 2017 for the Vorkosigan Saga.
With Testimony of Mute Things limited to 1,250 signed copies and earlier Subterranean Press editions already sold out at the publisher, will the preorder last until January, or will collectors be sent to the Minneapolis shops Bujold names to hunt for copies?
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