Thomas Pynchon's new novel "Bleeding Edge" is set at a time just before the 9/11 incident in New York, and will be published this September.

Thomas Pynchon's new novel "Bleeding Edge" is ready for a Sept. 17 release this year. According to a report by The Guardian, fans will be delighted to learn that the author's latest book in set in 2001, just before the collapse of the dotcom boom and the terrible events of September 11, revealed Pynchon's American publisher Penguin.

"This is extremely exciting news. Pynchon is continually ranked among the greatest living American novelists and to see the exponential increase in his output in recent years is definitely of interest," said Martin Paul Eve, lecturer in English at the University of Lincoln, who helped instigate "Pynchon in Public" day, an annual celebration on May 8 where fans meet, read from Pynchon's novels and take pictures of muted post horns, the symbol familiar from Pynchon's novel "The Crying of Lot 49".

"While Inherent Vice didn't receive unanimous praise, love him or loathe him, a new Pynchon novel simply can't be ignored."

Penguin refused to reveal any further information about the book, which made Eve speculate whether the novel would continue the history of Arpanet, the precursor to the Internet that features in Inherent Vice.

"I think the topic appeals because there's a lot of scope there for Pynchon's mischievous counter-histories to resurface," he said. "It's also of note that the press release explicitly mentions 9/11; this was something treated metaphorically in Pynchon's 2006 behemoth Against the Day. It looks like what we're seeing here is an amalgamation of Pynchon's Luddite stance, his fascination with detective fiction and the lifelong politics of his novels with the internet, contemporary capitalism and terrorism - all getting the treatment in one whirling set-up."

Pynchon's U.K. publisher Jonathan Cape said that the author is still working on the book and hasn't submitted it for editing as yet.