1. Intro
2. Subterranean Magazine [00.45 secs]
3. Making a living as a freelance anthologist [03:00 mins]

I make particular mention of fine new stories by Maureen F. McHugh, Tom Holt and Gord Sellar at Subterranean Magazine, a publication and publisher well worth your support.

ETA: Download link fixed.

The Agog anthologies, which now include Daikaiju, Smashing Stories, Terrific Tales, and Fantastic Fiction, have become a staple of the Australian SF scene over the past four years and it’s great to see, after a year’s hiatus, that another one’s in the works.

Just over the past couple months, Russell has announced plans to publish two anthologies, The Worker’s Paradise and Fantastic Wonder Stories, and a short story collection. The collection, Simon Brown’s Troy, is one of the projects that somehow got lost towards the ends of the ’90s. Several publishers, including ticonderoga, discussed publishing the book*, but it never happened. Now, happily, Russell has announced that it will come out in April (I assume to be launched at Conjure).

Troy will collect twelve stories, several original to the collection, all of which retell stories from the Iliad. I read a number of the stories when they were first publised, and have long thought they were amongst Simon’s best work. Given that he’s improved as a writer since then, I’m particularly looking forward to the new stories in the book. It’s a book to keep your eye out for, come April. And, hopefully, Russell will offer up some pre-order information soon so you can get your names down for a copy.

* This post has been amended to correct an error. Three different small presses discussed publishing Troy, but only one made a commitment to do so. Ticonderoga was not that press.

Running my eye down their list, it seems that CHARLES and I will be doing the dreaded ‘best of the year’ panel, cunningly disguised as What’s hot in speculative fiction? (did they think I wouldn’t notice?). I hate list panels, where panelists just sit there and run down a long list of things you need to know/read/buy. I guess we’ll have to do some preparation for this one, so we actually have something intelligent to say. You up for it, CHARLES? :)

One topic I’m interested in discussing — assuming the organisers like it, I can find the right panellists and can work out what I think on the subject — is how we oversimplify the history of science fiction and fantasy in Australia. The published histories of Australian SF that I have seen seem to assume a causal chain from World War II shortages all the way to HarperCollins launching Voyager, and from Bert Chandler all the way to Sara Douglass. The problem is, it can’t have worked that way. Very few of the people who write science fiction or fantasy in Australia seem to have read any science fiction or fantasy written by other Australians prior to starting to write, and so are unlikley to have been influenced by Australian science fiction and fantasy. And it’s also difficult to see a causal relationship between, say Lee Harding and Damien Broderick, and Sara Douglass and Trudi Canavan. And surely, the attempt by Pan to launch a fantasy line and the success of Voyager in launching an SF/F line, had nothing to do with anything being done in Australia. It was a reflection of the success of the sale of imported fiction in this country. On the other hand, while Miracle Ingredient A is a load of rubbish, surely living in Australia must have some impact on writers and what they write. See? All of this stuff could make an interesting panel.

NB: This post has been edited to clarify that “Anda’s Game” is the only story in The Starry Rift that was previously published.

Science Fiction: Best of 2005

1. Triceratops Summer, Michael Swanwick
2. Little Faces, Vonda N. McIntyre
3. The Second Coming of Charles Darwin, James Morrow
4. Is There Life After Rehab?, Pat Cadigan
5. Zima Blue, Alastair Reynolds
6. The Fulcrum, Gwyneth Jones
7. The Blemmye’s Dilemma, Bruce Sterling
8. They Will Raise You in a Box, Wil McCarthy
9. Finished, Robert Reed
10. The King of Where-I-Go, Howard Waldrop
11. The Calorie Man, Paolo Bacigalupi
12. The Fate of Mice, Susan Palwick
13. I Robot, Cory Doctorow
14. The Little Goddess, Ian McDonald

Fantasy: Best of 2005

1. Two Hearts, Peter S. Beagle
2. Snowball’s Chance, Charles Stross
3. A Knot of Toads, Jane Yolen
4. Boatman’s Holiday, Jeffrey Ford
5. Ikiryoh, Liz Williams
6. CommComm, George Saunders
7. The Language of Moths, Christopher Barzak
8. Anyway, M Rickert
9. The Emperor of Gondwanaland, Paul Di Filippo
10. The Pirate’s True Love, Seana Graham
11. Intelligent Design, Ellen Klages
12. Pip and the Fairies, Theodora Goss
13. Grace Notes, Megan Lindholm
14. Leviathan, Simon Brown
15. The Denial, Bruce Sterling
16. The Farmer’s Cat, Jeff VanderMeer
17. Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link

I should have a final ToC for Best Short Novels: 2006 shortly too.

And how was the birthday? It was fine. Got nice presents, spent time with loved ones, didn’t drink too much – all in all, it failed to suck. Of course, I’m 42 now, but there you go. Today is the day, though. No more excuses. I owe CHARLES a year-in-review piece, so it’s head’s down until it’s done. I’m guessing tomorrow, but we’ll see. I have notes, and know pretty much what I want to say, but I need to get it all down in words. It’ll be horrible, but you gotta do it. :)

For those not in the know, The Polysyllabic Spree is a small book from McSweeney’s that collects Hornby’s columns from The Believer. Every month Hornby lists the books he’s bought that month, the books he’s actually read that month, and then discusses his reading experiences. Hornby is a funny guy and, while TPS isn’t a knee-slapper, it’s the kind of personable book that reading obsessed folk like me are likely to enjoy.

I don’t buy that many books these days – the most recent was probably Pete Dexter’s Deadwood in the bookshop in San Franciso airport back in November – but it did prompt me to think about making ‘what I should be reading this week’, and ‘what I actually am reading’ lists. For example:

What I should be reading this week:
Asimov’s, March 2006
F&SF, April 2006
Novellas for Best Short Novels: 2006
Bruce Sterling stories for Ascendancies: Best of Bruce Sterling
Books for Locus Recommended Reading essay

What I am reading this week:
The Polysyllabic Spree, Nick Hornby
A Princess of Roumania, Paul Park
“The Diversification of Its Fancy”, John Barnes
Fishin’ With Grandma Matchie, Steven Erikson
The Life of Riley, Alexander C. Irvine
Burn, James Patrick Kelly

…and to make sure I feel guilty about deadlines whizzing past:

What I should be doing this week:
Editing book review columns for February 2006 issue of Locus
Writing year-in-review essay for February 2006 issue of Locus
Finalising Locus Short Fiction recommended reading list

What I’ve been doing this week:
Seasonal celebrations
Reading
Finishing the short fiction list

All of which makes it clear that, when I finish birthday celebrations, it’s writing and editing for me! Oh, and speaking of birthday celebrations, Happy Birthday Ellen for a couple days ago, and Happy Birthday Nick, who shares my birthday=!

Speaking of shallow, I bought my first cd of 2006 yesterday: Nickel Creek’s Why Should the Fire Die? I’m using it to test a thought that I had about the iPod. I love iPod, but does it lead to you not listening to albums, just songs? I think it does. I mean, I’ve had some of the year’s best reviewed (ha ha, see?) albums on the iPod for a while, but have no real sense of them as albums. Rather, I know songs here and songs there. It’s something I’m going to keep an eye on.

I do have one music-related New Year’s Resolution. I intend to buy/consume less music this year than I did last year. Why? I’m adding new music to my collection faster than I can listen to it, which seems dumb to me. So, I’m going to list here all the new music I buy, and monitor whether I actually listed to it. Or, at least, I will until I get bored with doing it, which seems to be how New Year’s Resolutions work anyhow .

With that in mind, I’ve borrowed the photo here from Ellen Datlow’s flickr journal. She took it at Madison back in November so (sadly) it pretty accurately reflects what I look like.

As I rebuild the blog over the next few weeks I’ll be replacing the old photo with a new one and making other changes.

What else? I’ll be 42 tomorrow, and yet somehow I don’t feel like the answer to life, the universe and everything. Still, it should be ok. One question I’ve been meaning to put to all of you Coode Streeters out there is this: in April I’m traveling to Brisbane for Conjure where I will be a guest of honor. I’ll be doing at least four panels, and some other stuff. My question is, is there anything you’d like to hear me talk about it? I actually think I might dive back into the Australian SF question, but I’d like to do something more interesting than the ‘year in review’ panel, which always seems dull to me.

• No-one I know closely had any major personal tragedies. Standard sized disasters and other problems, yes. But no-one’s dead, and no-one’s more seriously ill or injured than they were at the beginning of the year. This is a happy change from previous years.
• Robin and Toula got married. This is a very good thing. Robin is one of my oldest and dearest friends, and Toula is great.
• I had three new books published during the year, finished two more, sold a couple, and am well progressed on a couple more.
• I had dozens of Saturday mornings, Sunday afternoons, and occasional moments when domesticity and family life was golden, and my three girls were the best people to be with in the world.
• I went to Sydney, Oakland and Madison in October/November and saw Terry, CHARLES, Liza, Amelia, Kirsten, AAron, Teddy, Karlyn, Tim, Carolyn, Gary, Garth, Justin, Sharyn, and lots and lots of other people.

There are other things, but that’s enough to be getting on with. I don’t know that I’ll bother with NYresolutions, which tend not to work, but I’ve got some stuff to work out. I need to re-think my work approach (which has hit a dry spot), work out how to enjoy what I’m doing more, and so on. I even think I might re-title and rejuvenate this blog a bit. It’s been some years since I lived at Coode Street, so it seems a bit silly to keep the name.

Oh, and there’s a great profile of her here.

This came back to me when reading the discussion of the Aurealis Awards on Ben Peek’s journal. Ben seems like a good guy, and everyone posting to the thread has worthwhile stuff to say. What none of them get to though is that none of it really matters. There is no such thing as ‘fair’, ‘open’, or ‘correct’ with awards. They’re just awards. Every award – every single one – is flawed, and probably every single awards-decision is flawed in some way or other. The only thing you can do is be happy and gracious when you get one, and applaud the winner when you don’t. It’s all good.

This came back to me when reading the discussion of the Aurealis Awards on Ben Peek’s journal. Ben seems like a good guy, and everyone posting to the thread has worthwhile stuff to say. What none of them get to though is that none of it really matters. There is no such thing as ‘fair’, ‘open’, or ‘correct’ with awards. They’re just awards. Every award – every single one – is flawed, and probably every single awards-decision is flawed in some way or other. The only thing you can do is be happy and gracious when you get one, and applaud the winner when you don’t. It’s all good.

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:
1. Apprentice chef
2. Assistant car mechanic
3. Policy & research officer (It’s a government job. No-one knows what it means)
4. Web designer

Four movies you could watch over and over (Interestingly, this has nothing to do with quality. It’s another kind of thing. There are crap movies you can love, and crap movies that are infintely rewatchable):
1. When Harry Met Sally
2. My Neighbour Totoro
3. Uncle Buck
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark

Four places you’ve lived (I’ll be 42 on Monday. I’ve lived a few places):
1. Old Manse Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland
2. Parkerville, Western Australia
3. Second Avenue, Mt Lawley, Western Australia
4. Yosemite Avenue, Oakland, California

Four TV shows you love to watch (I copied this from Margo, but she was right – love to watch? TV shows? Love? ):
1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. Spicks and Specks
3. Yes Minister
4. something else?

Four places you’ve been on holiday:
1. San Francisco
2. New York
3. London
4. Paris

Four websites you visit daily:
1. www.locusmag.com
2. www.news.com.au
3. www.scifi.com
4. www.guardian.co.uk

Four of your favorite foods:
1. My mother’s trifle
2. Apple crumble
3. Steak
4. Sushi

Four places you’d rather be:
1. Margaret River
2. Tasmania
3. New Zealand
4. California

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:
1. Apprentice chef
2. Assistant car mechanic
3. Policy & research officer (It’s a government job. No-one knows what it means)
4. Web designer

Four movies you could watch over and over (Interestingly, this has nothing to do with quality. It’s another kind of thing. There are crap movies you can love, and crap movies that are infintely rewatchable):
1. When Harry Met Sally
2. My Neighbour Totoro
3. Uncle Buck
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark

Four places you’ve lived (I’ll be 42 on Monday. I’ve lived a few places):
1. Old Manse Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland
2. Parkerville, Western Australia
3. Second Avenue, Mt Lawley, Western Australia
4. Yosemite Avenue, Oakland, California

Four TV shows you love to watch (I copied this from Margo, but she was right – love to watch? TV shows? Love? ):
1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. Spicks and Specks
3. Yes Minister
4. something else?

Four places you’ve been on holiday:
1. San Francisco
2. New York
3. London
4. Paris

Four websites you visit daily:
1. www.locusmag.com
2. www.news.com.au
3. www.scifi.com
4. www.guardian.co.uk

Four of your favorite foods:
1. My mother’s trifle
2. Apple crumble
3. Steak
4. Sushi

Four places you’d rather be:
1. Margaret River
2. Tasmania
3. New Zealand
4. California

• Lucius Shepard reviews King Kong, in Everybody Loves-a Da Big Monkey. I liked the movie, but still managed to agree with pretty much everything he says.
• via Sean Williams, the Onion AV Club nominates the Least Essential Albums of 2005.

• Lucius Shepard reviews King Kong, in Everybody Loves-a Da Big Monkey. I liked the movie, but still managed to agree with pretty much everything he says.
• via Sean Williams, the Onion AV Club nominates the Least Essential Albums of 2005.

So far the book that’s impressed me most is Paul Park’s A Princess of Roumania. I’m halfway through it, and think it’s terrific so far. Makes me very happy that a galley of The Tourmaline happened to show up here the week before Christmas. I need to read some novellas shortly, but I think I can sneek the second Park book in. I should add that nothing Park had written before had really prepared me for Princess. I’ll post more when I’m done, but it looks like it’s going to be very special.

Speaking of recommended reading, CHARLES would normally be traveling to Perth about now, so we could spend some time down at the beach finishing up the list. I’m really sad he won’t be making it this year. Not only am I a lot less involved with the list, but I won’t see him, which I really enjoy. And, even though we’ll both be in Brisbane and Los Angeles this year, they’re both work events, so I won’t see that much of him. sigh.

So far the book that’s impressed me most is Paul Park’s A Princess of Roumania. I’m halfway through it, and think it’s terrific so far. Makes me very happy that a galley of The Tourmaline happened to show up here the week before Christmas. I need to read some novellas shortly, but I think I can sneek the second Park book in. I should add that nothing Park had written before had really prepared me for Princess. I’ll post more when I’m done, but it looks like it’s going to be very special.

Speaking of recommended reading, CHARLES would normally be traveling to Perth about now, so we could spend some time down at the beach finishing up the list. I’m really sad he won’t be making it this year. Not only am I a lot less involved with the list, but I won’t see him, which I really enjoy. And, even though we’ll both be in Brisbane and Los Angeles this year, they’re both work events, so I won’t see that much of him. sigh.

1. Back in May I suggested that The Complete Calvin & Hobbes would be a great Christmas present. I had a change of heart in November, but on reflection I think I was right. It looks very cool, if a bit of a Rolls Royce gift.
2. I also doubt that anyone would be lucky enough to get something like Grado’s SR-125 headphones. Way too expensive, but…
3. I note that, at least in the UK, Tom Kidd’s Kiddography is out. I’ve always liked his books, and it looks like this should be very special.
4. I think I’d like to have the full first season of the new Dr Who on DVD – I certainly enjoyed watching it the first time.
5. There’s always music, like Richard Hawley’s Coles Corner, the Willard Grant Conspiracy’s There But for The Grace of God, Thelonious Monk Quartet & John Coltrane’s At Carnegie Hall or even a JB HiFi gift voucher.
6. The folk at Lagavulin (16 year old) and Strathisla make a fine product.
7. Even something like this might make for an interesting experiment.

There is, at the end of it all, always something.

1. Back in May I suggested that The Complete Calvin & Hobbes would be a great Christmas present. I had a change of heart in November, but on reflection I think I was right. It looks very cool, if a bit of a Rolls Royce gift.
2. I also doubt that anyone would be lucky enough to get something like Grado’s SR-125 headphones. Way too expensive, but…
3. I note that, at least in the UK, Tom Kidd’s Kiddography is out. I’ve always liked his books, and it looks like this should be very special.
4. I think I’d like to have the full first season of the new Dr Who on DVD – I certainly enjoyed watching it the first time.
5. There’s always music, like Richard Hawley’s Coles Corner, the Willard Grant Conspiracy’s There But for The Grace of God, Thelonious Monk Quartet & John Coltrane’s At Carnegie Hall or even a JB HiFi gift voucher.
6. The folk at Lagavulin (16 year old) and Strathisla make a fine product.
7. Even something like this might make for an interesting experiment.

There is, at the end of it all, always something.

As history has shown, though, while we received a wonderful batch of submissions from around the world, and assembled a fantastic table of contents, production eventually delayed the publication of the book to early 2006. However, things are now gearing up, and it looks like the book should be out shortly.

As part of the advance publicity for Eidolon I, we have decided to publish one of the stories on Eidolon: SF Online. The story, Simon Brown’s “Leviathan” is one of my favorite stories of the year, and I think is one of his best yet. Be sure to check it out.

As history has shown, though, while we received a wonderful batch of submissions from around the world, and assembled a fantastic table of contents, production eventually delayed the publication of the book to early 2006. However, things are now gearing up, and it looks like the book should be out shortly.

As part of the advance publicity for Eidolon I, we have decided to publish one of the stories on Eidolon: SF Online. The story, Simon Brown’s “Leviathan” is one of my favorite stories of the year, and I think is one of his best yet. Be sure to check it out.

Assuming you have a love of rock ‘n’ roll, and like that pirate kind of image thing, the Night Shade edition of Gwyneth Jones’s Arthur C. Clarke award winner Bold as Love is hard to go past. The book is terrific. What’s it about? Well, the cover blurb says this:

Dissolution Summer: the soon-to-be-former UK was desperate. The world was in the grip of a fearsome economic depression. The anti-globalization movement threatened stability throughout Europe, supported by rioting youth, bitterly disaffected voters, and encroaching environmental doom.

The Home Secretary decided to recruit a Countercultural Think Tank: pop stars would make the government look too cool to be overthrown. His girlfriend, club-promoter and music biz socialite Allie Marlowe, filled his shopping cart for him with such indie notable as Ax Preston, the soft-spoken biracial guitar virtuoso; Aoxomoxoa (aka Sage Pender), techno-wizard king of the lads; and Fiorinda Slater, the baby punk-diva with a horrendous past.

It was just another publicity stunt for the rockers, until the shooting began. Now Slater and her friends must find a way to stay alive, and overthrow the dominant social order, while the UK disintegrates under their feet. Will rock & roll’s revolutionary promise finally deliver, or will ethnic violence drown hippie idealism in rivers of blood? Either way, the world will never be the same.

In these days when Bono spends as much time with Prime Ministers and Presidents as he does on stage, it’s not hard to see how a rock star might step over from one world into another. When I first read this back when it was published in the US I loved it. I still do. Go buy it for someone you love, and let them know that three more books have been published and Jones has just finished the final book in the set, Rainbow Bridge.

Assuming you have a love of rock ‘n’ roll, and like that pirate kind of image thing, the Night Shade edition of Gwyneth Jones’s Arthur C. Clarke award winner Bold as Love is hard to go past. The book is terrific. What’s it about? Well, the cover blurb says this:

Dissolution Summer: the soon-to-be-former UK was desperate. The world was in the grip of a fearsome economic depression. The anti-globalization movement threatened stability throughout Europe, supported by rioting youth, bitterly disaffected voters, and encroaching environmental doom.

The Home Secretary decided to recruit a Countercultural Think Tank: pop stars would make the government look too cool to be overthrown. His girlfriend, club-promoter and music biz socialite Allie Marlowe, filled his shopping cart for him with such indie notable as Ax Preston, the soft-spoken biracial guitar virtuoso; Aoxomoxoa (aka Sage Pender), techno-wizard king of the lads; and Fiorinda Slater, the baby punk-diva with a horrendous past.

It was just another publicity stunt for the rockers, until the shooting began. Now Slater and her friends must find a way to stay alive, and overthrow the dominant social order, while the UK disintegrates under their feet. Will rock & roll’s revolutionary promise finally deliver, or will ethnic violence drown hippie idealism in rivers of blood? Either way, the world will never be the same.

In these days when Bono spends as much time with Prime Ministers and Presidents as he does on stage, it’s not hard to see how a rock star might step over from one world into another. When I first read this back when it was published in the US I loved it. I still do. Go buy it for someone you love, and let them know that three more books have been published and Jones has just finished the final book in the set, Rainbow Bridge.

And, for those interested, you can download all three volumes of Sufjan Stevens’ Hark! Songs for Christmas. Having really liked Come on Feel the Illinoise, I’m enjoying these.

As sometimes happens, it’s in this area that I’ve fallen into a terrible muddle. There’s lots to do, but it pops up all over the place, like some kind of weed. There’s nothing consistently sitting there as THE thing to do, so I become indecisive. Even though I should be reading up a storm (somehow, given the holiday season, though I don’t know when), I find myself indecisively and desultorily drifting from one thing to read to another. The real effect of this is that I end up feeling disinterested in reading anything, I get nothing done, AND I feel stressed about it. Heh.

In the US: go buy Magic for Beginners and give it to someone you know who doesn’t have enough magic in their lives but who, you’ve always thought, might secretly love to know what contingency plans you need, should zombies knock on the door. Add chocolate.

In the UK: go buy 20th Century Ghosts and give it to someone who likes to stay in on cold, wintry nights, staying up late reading tales that move and horrify. Add single malt scotch.

In Australia: it’s summer. You’re not reading, you’re off watching the cricket or going to the beach. Reading is for winter. But, if you must, then it’s the earthy, sometimes bittersweet A Tour Guide in Utopia. It may not be in a shop near you, but you can probably get it here. Add a good cabernet.

I considered discussing all sorts of other books – Dan Simmons’ Olympos, Joe Hill’s very fine 20th Century Ghosts, or even Ian Macleod’s The Summer Isles (which has stayed with me as much as any book I’ve read this year). I also considered the books that are still in my too-read pile that I’ll read before doing my write-up for Locus (Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin, Paul Park’s A Princess of Roumania, and David Marusek’s Counting Heads prominent amongst them). But at the end, this was the list. Ten books – eight novels and two collections – that were amongst the brightest spots in my reading year.

1. Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link
This was the book I was most looking forward to reading in 2005, and it managed to be better than I’d hoped. Funny, sweet, strange, it collected nine stories, three original to the book. It’s impossible to pick a best story here. I think “Stone Animals” is a masterpiece, and like “Magic for Beginners” almost as much, while “The Faery Handbag” enchanted me from the moment I first read it. If we were in Library Stadium, Iron Writer Link would be victorious (!!) with my book of the year.

2. Mister Boots, Carol Emshwiller
To be clear about this, even though they changed the cover from one I loved, this is my favorite Carol Emshwiller book ever, and a strong contender for my very favorite book of the year. The story of a horse that turns into a man and saves a family, Mister Boots is the kind of fantasy that doesn’t seem overmuch concerned with ‘fantasy’, and the kind of ‘young adult’ novel that understands that there’s a lot more ‘adult’ in young adults than we allow. Written beautifully, economically, it addresses love, family, the abuse of power in relationships, personal freedom and other such weighty matters, yet is never weighty, never didactic. If it’s not a perfect book (and it might be), it’s certainly a perfect Christmas gift.

3. Laughin’ Boy, Bradley Denton
Dark, disturbing, even a little scary, Bradley Denton’s Laughin’ Boy the best and blackest black comedy to be published in the field in the past decade. Written before September 11, and possibly unpalatable to American readers afterward, it is a viciously funny dismantling of American media culture set in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. John Clute said it “rubs our ears in the junk noise and anguish of America” and is “one of the funniest novels of the past decade”. Magnificent stuff, and one of the novels of the year.

4. Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys is a light-hearted novel that manages to be both enchanting and affecting, while still evoking a belly laugh. Echoing Thorne Smith, but written in Gaiman’s wonderfully inviting voice, it’s the year’s perfect confection.

5. Accelerando, Charles Stross
From the opening line of Accelerando, you know you’re in bleeding edge SF territory, every page seemingly packed with some eyeball kick or other. Manfred Macx is on the road, making strangers rich, in a world poised on the precipice of a coming Vingean singularity. Accelerando is the story of that singularity and how it affects three generations of Macx’s family, possibly told from the viewpoint of his cat. You can read Accelerando here.

6. The Girl in the Glass, Jeffrey Ford
The Girl in the Glass is deceptively simple. A con man who conducts fake ‘spiritualist’ seances in order to separate the rich from their riches encounters what may be a real supernatural event. Along with his young immigrant assistant and muscleman helper Antony Cleopatra, he pursues the unbelievable, all the while laying bare the politics, the racism, the society of the North Eastern US ’round the time of the Great Depression. It’s a breathtaking work.

7. Thud!, Terry Pratchett
By now it should be straightforward, dull even. After thirty-some other ‘Discworld’ novels, Pratchett still isn’t done with the civilising of his creation, bringing Ank-Morpork and the Discworld itself into modern society, all the while skewering the very thing he discusses. With a name like Thud!, one could expect some heavy-handedness, and there is a little of that, but it’s still funny, sharp and brilliant.

8. Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, Cory Doctorow
It’s simple. A man whose mother was a washing machine and father was a mountain, and whose brothers are respectively dead and a set of Russian nesting dolls, tries to escape his strange origins into normalcy, but becomes involed with a girl who, periodically, cuts off her wings. I don’t think it’s SF, but it may not be fantasy. It’s also not easy or simple or neat and tidy. In fact, like a lot of Doctorow’s best work, it’s a lot like life, seeped in the stuff of tomorrow. As with Accelerando, you can read it online, but will end up wanting the book. Lovely, weird stuff.

9. Heart of Whitenesse, Howard Waldrop
It’s not his best collection, but it’s Waldrop. Nuff said.

10. Rocket Science, Jay Lake
Forget the Campbell Award, forget the hundreds of short stories, forget everything else: Rocket Science is where Jay Lake showed that he could write, and write damn well. Rocket Science is the story of a young man, crippled by polio, who didn’t get to serve in World War II. Instead, he worked for Boeing, working as an engineer, helping produce aircraft. That changes when a school friend returns from service in Europe with a UFO discovered by the Nazis, buried under polar ice. Sharp, concise, it’s a fine first novel.

• Wintersmith, the third ‘Tiffany Aching’ novel from Terry Pratchett is due in the US Autumn, and I can’t wait for it. I loved The Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky, so I’m expecting this one to be very special;
• Visionary in Residence, the fourth short story collection from Bruce Sterling is due in March, and should be great. I’ve read most of it, and can’t wait to get a copy;
• don’t remember the title, but I think Neil Gaiman’s new short story collection will be one of the best books published in 2006. Why, you ask? Well, Neil had well and truly mastered comics before moving into writing novels and short stories. He’s published a couple of terrific novels over the past few years (especially Coraline), but I think he’s become an even better short story writer. If the new collection has ‘Sunbird” in it, one of my very favorite stories from 2005, then it’ll be a peach;
• I’m on record as loving Margo Lanagan’s collection Black Juice. If all goes to plan, her third collection, Red Spikes, will be published this year and if it’s just half the book Black Juice was, I’m going to love it;
• late in the year, Mary Rickert’s first collection, Map of Dreams, is due out. It should have “Cold Fires” in it, which I loved. She’s been one of the most interesting writers to emerge in the last few years, and I can’t wait to see if the book lives up to that.

Hmm. That’s five, enough to be getting on with. I’m surprised there’s no real SF in there, though I am looking forward to Stan Robinson’s third Capitol Code novel and there’s a new Steve Baxter collection due soon. I’m sure I’m missing lots of stuff. Isn’t someone supposed to be doing an Ian McDonald collection? And then there’s Alan DeNiro’s collection from Small Beer (everything they’ve done has been great), and Tim Pratt’s second collection. Hmm. Could be a good year.

Fishin’ with Grandma Matchie, Steven Erikson
The Cosmology of the Wider World, Jeffrey Ford
Voluntary Committal, Joe Hill
The Life of Riley, Alexander C. Irvine
Burn, James Patrick Kelly

Realising that, I began to think about what stories I’d put into a year’s best, if the only restrictions I had to face were 1) the book was a single volume and 2) the stories were ones I really liked. After a bit of thought, I came up with a list of thirty-five stories that straggled across genres, but might just sneak between a single set of covers.

Looking at the list, it occurred to me that I should probably try to sequence them, but this is an idle thought experiment, and I only have so much time. Still, if you’re interested in such things, here’s my ‘Best Stories of 2005′. Oh, and should you wonder, this list was winnowed down from well over 300 stories, a number of which were damn fine.

“The Calorie Man”, Paolo Bacigalupi
“The Language of Moths”, Chrisopher Barzak
“Two Hearts”, Peter S. Beagle
“Leviathan”, Simon Brown
“The Emperor of Gondwanaland”, Paul Di Filippo
“I, Robot”, Cory Doctorow
“Boatman’s Holiday”, Jeffrey Ford
“The Road to Recovery”, Gregory Frost
“Sunbird”, Neil Gaiman
“Pip and the Fairies”, Theodora Goss
“The Pirate’s True Love”, Seana Graham
“Heads Down, Thumbs Up”, Gavin J. Grant
“Echo”, Elizabeth Hand
“The Cape”, Joe Hill
“The Fulcrum”, Gwyneth Jones
“The Edge of Nowhere”, James Patrick Kelly
“Intelligent Design”, Ellen Klages
“Magic for Beginners”, Kelly Link
“Monsters”, Kelly Link
“The Policeman’s Daughter”, Wil McCarthy
“The Little Goddess”, Ian McDonald
“Written in the Stars”, Ian McDonald
“Little Faces”, Vonda McIntyre
“The Second Coming of Charles Darwin”, James Morrow
“The Gypsies in the Wood”, Kim Newman
“Finished”, Robert Reed
“Zima Blue”, Alastair Reynolds
“Anyway”, M. Rickert
“The Last Ten Years in the Life of Hero Kai”, Geoff Ryman
“The Blemmye’s Stratagem”, Bruce Sterling
“Snowball’s Chance”, Charles Stross
“Girls and Boys, Come Out to Play”, Michael Swanwick
“Triceratops Summer”, Michael Swanwick
“The Farmer’s Cat”, Jeff VanderMeer
“The King of Where I Go”, Howard Waldrop
“A Knot of Toads”, Jane Yolen

1. What did you do in 2005 that you’d never done before?
Bought an iPod. Visited Madison, Wisconsin and avoided being ticketed for exceeding the speed limit by 40mph in Illinois. I met my agent and wore a tuxedo, and then ran through the cold evening rain with said agent in said tuxedo to get to a restaurant. I went down a waterslide, I think for the first time.

2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
No. As I said at this time last year, I said I wanted to get organised and get healthy. I’m still disorganised and suspect I managed to put on more weight (sigh). So, next year’s resolutions will remain those two, plus find ways to relax and unwind.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not this time. A few nice folk I don’t know very well did, but no-one close.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
The world was kinder this year. So far, death has stayed away from the doorsteps of those that matter to me. May it continue to be so. I still think fondly of both Peter McNamara and Alwyn Hyman, who died last year.

5. What countries did you visit?
The USA. It was my ninth visit since 1993, and even more exhausting than last year. I went to Oakland to catch up with Charles and then to Madison, Wisconsin for World Fantasy. Hopefully next year’s trip, with Marianne and the girls for LA Con, will be even better.

6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005?
Last time I said sleep. There was something true about that. I think I’d like to slow down a little, complete a major project that I have been working on for a couple years, and just take some pressure off so I can spend more time with Marianne and the kids. I would still like to have more time to see friends and such – my social life has disintegrated appallingly these past six years. I did get an iPod, though, and I love it.

7. What dates from 2005 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Last year I said “I could put political stuff here, but the truth is that those things are not that personal to me” and that remains true. So, setting aside World Events, I’ll remember Robin and Toula’s wedding, picking up Margo’s two World Fantasy Awards, little pink drinks with Garth in Madison, Mother’s Day at the park with the family, reading the best ever story that’s been submitted to me for a project, a late night in Melbourne with the Clut, Sophie’s birthday at ToddlerTown, Jess’s birthday, and time with the family. Mostly small, personal things.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting out of it alive? No? Delivering four books, all of which have been published. Selling two more. Winning the McNamara Award. Being invited to be one of the Conjure’s guests. Stuff like that.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Time management and attitude management. I’ve been too quick to let myself be negative – something I need to watch.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Just the flu and such.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
The iPod. It was love.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Man, that’s a tough one. Sophie, who grew up in a breath. My mum, who continues to help me and my family every day. Marianne, Stephen, Charles, Barb, Bec. How do you pick?

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Still, no comment.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Food and lodging, followed by books and cds.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Oh, books and traveling and all of that.

16. What song will always remind you of 2004?
“Come on Feel the Illinoise”, Sufjan Stevens.

17. Compared to this time last year, you are:
I originally wrote sadder, fatter and poorer. I don’t know that that’s try. Sadly, I am fatter, I suspect. I’m probably cash-poorer, but wealthier overall. And sadness, comes and go. When I add things up, I have a lot to be happy about.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Making more of an effort to make occasions special. I think it’s very important that you go to the trouble of making special occasions ‘special’. Too often, of late, I’ve made them rote and unexciting. So, a vote for champagne and specialness.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Eating and stressing.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
With family and friends at my mother’s home. Up in the morning, Christmas with the kids, then over to mum’s for lunch. It should be a happy, family kinda day.

22. Did you fall in love in 2005?
Several times. I live with them all.

23. How many one-night stands?
No. See #22.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Spicks and Specks, a rock quiz show.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Pfeh. Who would answer such a question?

26. What was the best book you read?
Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link or Laughin’ Boy by Bradley Denton.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Sufjan Stevens or The Magic Numbers.

28. What did you want and get?
An iPod.

29. What did you want and not get?
Peace and quiet, but I did get an iPod.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Harder to say, this year. I saw Batman Begins the most, but it’s not that good.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 41. I had a small celebration at home.

32.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Being able to give up the day job, or at least feeling in control of my time.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2005?
Sad, middle-aged git; T-shirts and jeans at home, long-sleeve shirts and pants at work – all mostly black.

34. What kept you sane?
What makes you think I’m still sane?

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Truthfully, still don’t care.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The IR reforms here in Australia, and the growing fear of America.

37. Who did you miss?
My dad.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Hmm. Off the top of my head, maybe Amelia at Locus. She’s cool fun.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005.
I can’t beat last year’s lesson. A hug and kiss from your four-year-old or five-year-old daughter can cure any woe, and their laughter will lift you whenever you hear it.

In the meantime, I’m reading Sharyn November’s Firebirds Rising. It’s her second anthology, a follow on from the very fine Firebirds from a couple years back. I’ve not reached the end of the book yet (through no fault of the book’s), but have been struck by a string of very strong stories that sit close to the middle of the book. The best story in the book so far, and the best I’ve read so far that will be published in 2006, is Ellen Klages’ remarkable and lovely story “In the House of the Seven Librarians”. It’s the story of a library that is closed when a new building is opened on the other side of town, and how seven librarians move into the abandoned, but still functional building. As they settle into it, getting supplies and so on, a young baby is mysteriously left as payment for an overdue book fee. The story of how these women raise the child, the person the child becomes and such is utterly charming, without being sentimental at all. It is the kind of story that is done so well that it stands completely alone, but part of you secretly hopes it’s the prologue to an even more wonderful novel. Diana Wynne Jones’ “I’ll Give You My Word” is not quite as wonderful as Ellen Klages’s story, but it’s good. Jethro has a brother, Jeremy, who has some kind of language problem, answering questions with strange, complicated, seemingly irrelevant responses. Of course, they’re nothing of the kind, and Jeremy’s vocabulary proves very hand indeed. And then there’s Kelly Link’s “The Wizards of Perfil”, a story about a young woman sold into servitude by her mother and taken across country to serve one of the enigmatic wizards who live in tall stony towers in the marshes of Perfil, and are assisted only by young children. The wizards refuse to become involved in what’s happening in the country around them, but that may not be something that they can keep up in the face of the armies moving around them. There are other good stories in the book by the likes of Tamora Pierce, Sharon Shinn, and Nina Kiriki Hoffman, but these three are worth the price of admission to this book by themselves. In fact, I’ve got a rather battered looking galley (I’ve carried it literally half way round the world) and will almost definitely buy a copy of the book when it comes out in a couple months. At the moment, it’s a very strong contender for best fantasy anthology of the year. Check it out.
And now, back to work on Sophie’s book. She’s four, and she likes to write books with me. It’s sweet.

One of the reasons I’m particularly happy to be heading to BrisVegas is that Bruce Sterling is one of the guests of honor. I don’t know how long people have been trying to get Sterling out to Australia, but I know it goes back almost a decade. I’ve loved Bruce’s work ever since I read “Green Days in Brunei” in Asimov’s back in 1985, and think Holy Fire is one of the great science fiction novels of all time, so getting to meet him should be a blast.

And that leads me to my latest project. I’m delighted to announce that I will be editing Ascendancies: The Best of Bruce Sterling for Bill Shafer at Subterranean Press. The idea is to put together a massive collection (around 150,000 – 200,000 words of fiction) that gathers together the best of Bruce’s short work from 1976 – 2006. My guess is it should be somewhere around 500 pages long, in its final form, and will be published in the second half of 2006. I love the books that Bill produces, love ‘best ofs’ as a form, and love Bruce’s fiction, so I’m really excited to be involved. I think it’ll be something very special. I’ll get more information up here when and as I can. Oh, and if you’re a fan of Bruce’s fiction and want to make a recommendation about a story that you think must be in the book, feel free to say so in the comments, or drop me an email.

* I think Conjure will be the only convention I’ll get to in Australia this year. That said, I’d love to go to Continuum in Melbourne, with Charlie, Margo and Shaun, and think Conflux looks great too.

With that in mind, I thought I’d draw your attention to One Million A.D. , a new science fiction anthology edited by Gardner Dozois. It’s to be published by The SF Book Club in January (well, the website says it ships 31 December, so I’m calling it January), and features SF novellas by Greg Egan, Nancy Kress, Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Robert Silverberg, and Charles Stross. While I would be amazed if there wasn’t a trade edition of the book at some time, I can’t imagine a more convincing argument for making the commitment and joining the Book Club *. And, hey, they’ll be publishing my third best novellas anthology soon, and have a cool looking Marvin Kaye antho coming up too. All good stuff.

* Note: You can only join the Club if you’re in North America. Non-USians might try amazon.com or a similar reseller, who usually end up offering SFBC titles for reasonable prices.

If I owe you an email, all apologies. If you’re actually reading this blog in hope I’ll post something intelligent, apologies too. There will be something here soon. In the meantime, back to work.

I’m also a little taken aback to see if we’ve started the runup to the festive season already. Parties and ‘graduations’ at the girls’ schools, Christmas parties and such. I think it should be calmer this year (fingers crossed), and I’m determined to relax. It should be fun.

The reason I mention this has, peripherally, to do with World Fantasy. As you know, I was in Madison for the annual WFC a couple weeks back. It had been my intention to sit down at the bar with Deb Layne, proprietor of Wheatland Press, but time and circumstance conspired against that happening. Instead, we had a couple of glancing conversations and promised to catch up in email.

The one thing Deb did get to do was give me a copy of her latest publishing endeavour, a new Bruce Holland Rogers collection, The Keyhole Opera. Rogers has won the World Fantasy Award for his short fiction, has written some very cool stories over the past few years, and is one of the best of the regular contributors to Shawna McCarthy’s Realms of Fantasy magazine. The Keyhole Opera collects a bunch of short-shorts, along with an introduction by Michael Bishop. I’ve only started dipping into the collection since I’ve got home, but I think you should check it out.

All of which segues into a missive from Bruce that I received this morning. For the past four years now, Rogers has been making his short fiction available in a pretty unique way. For just a tiny amount of money, you can subscribe and receive short-short stories by email. Stories go out three times a month, and range from literary fiction, science fiction, fairy tales, and mysteries, to work that is pretty much unclassifiable. You get thirty-six stories for five dollars, and the stories range in length from 200 to 2,500 words.

I don’t know if this is the future of short fiction distribution, or not. Right now, I don’t think anyone knows the answer to that. I do know, though, if you go to www.shortshortshort.com you can try before you buy, sample a bunch of short stories, and maybe even decide to order his new collection.

What is so moving about the Narnia stories is that, though Lewis began with a number of haunted images … he never wrote down to, or even for, children, except to use them as characters, and to make his sentences one shade simpler than usual. He never tries to engineer an entertainment for kids. He writes, instead, as real writers must, a real book for a circle of readers large and small…

– Adam Gopnik, ‘Prisoner of Narnia’, The New Yorker

I’ve spent a lot of time reading, and some time thinking about, the kind of fiction that is sold as ‘young adult fiction’ at the moment. The above quote, which comes from a New Yorker article about C.S. Lewis, is as good an explanation about writing ‘young adult’ fiction that I’ve heard.

The best answer is to go to The Internet Archive’s ‘Wayback Machine’ (www.archive.org). The IA is a non-profit that was founded to build an ‘Internet library,’ with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. It’s Wayback Machine spiders the web making full and partial copies of websites. It currently archives 40 billion web pages (according to its own site information).

Although it is a good thing, there are problems with the Wayback Machine. The first is that copies are often partial, or difficult to find. For example, following the announcement that SciFiction was to close, I decided to research what fiction Ellen Datlow had edited for publication online. Looking back at Omni Online I struggled to find a full copy of Omni’s short fiction from 1995 to 1998. Some of it was not there, and to get to other pieces I had to navigate through multiple iterations of the old Omni site, often stumbling down blind alleys to no longer extant pages. There was a more complete copy of Event Horizon (1998/1999), but the SciFiction copy was also incomplete, containing a full copy of Suzy McKee Charnas’s “Peregrines” (removed from the current SciFi.com site at the request of the author), but missing anything from this year (for example). Some of the omissions are because people have asked for material to be removed, or because web pages are set not to be archived, but in many cases it’s just not possible to archive everything.

The question that then follows is, to what extent are works published online ‘lost’ when the originating website goes offline. Well, while the record of the periodical becomes difficult to trace, and its own story may ultimately be lost, but many of the stories published do become widely accessible. For example, stories like Dan Simmons’ “Looking for Kelly Dahl” (Omni Online), Kelly Link’s “The Specialist’s Hat” (Event Horizon”, and Andy Duncan’s “The Pottawottamie Giant” (SciFiction) have all been fairly widely reprinted and access to them was or is unlikely to be affected by the closure of a website. The fate of stories like Michael Bishop’s “Cyril Berganske” (from Omni, and only reprinted once since) or A.R. Morlan’s “Ciné Rimettato” (from SciFiction, and never reprinted), is less sure, though.

Is there a solution? Well, supporting The Internet Archive is a good start. Encouraging the print publication of material is better, and even just ensure good bibliographical records is worthwhile. Otherwise, a goodly portion of the current range of short fiction being published will be lost, something the field could ill-afford.

NB: This post was edited. That’s the way it goes.

Winnowing these 260 stories down to a ‘best’ list was nearly impossible, especially given Ellen’s taste for some of my favorite writers like Waldrop and Blaylock, who she published repeatedly. Still, here goes:

1. Greetings, Terry Bisson
2. Thirteen Phantasms, James P. Blaylock
3. The War of the Worlds, James P. Blaylock
4. The Pottawatomie Giant, Andy Duncan
5. The Empire of Ice Cream, Jeffrey Ford
6. Chip Crockett’s Christmas Carol, Elizabeth Hand
7. At the Mouth of the River of Bees, Kij Johnson
8. It’s All True, John Kessel
9. The Specialist’s Hat, Kelly Link
10. New Light on the Drake Equation, Ian R. MacLeod
11. Andy Warhol’s Dracula, Kim Newman
12. Get a Grip, Paul Park
13. The Dragons of Summer Gulch, Robert Reed
14. The Voluntary State, Christopher Rowe
15. Jailwise, Lucius Shepard
16. Looking for Kelly Dahl, Dan Simmons
17. Mr Goober’s Show, Howard Waldrop
18. The Tang Dynasty Underwater Pyramid, Walter Jon Williams

There were many, many other fine stories, but I think this handful make a persuasive case for the influence Ellen’s had online over the past decade. I can only hope we’ll see more of her editorial tastes on or off line soon.

During that time she published fiction of an extraordinarily high standard, including Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy and Locus Award winners by some of the biggest, and most exciting names of the modern science fiction era. And, while none of those online publications offered their fiction for sale to the public, two of them (Omni and SciFiction) were either the highest paying or amongst the highest paying markets in the field at the time.

One of the things that I think may be being overlooked, in the sad decision to disontinue SciFiction is the extraordinary nature of this achievement, something that continually put art ahead of commerce, and confounded the experts again and again. While I can only mourn the fiction that probably won’t now be written or published, I want to celebrate Ellen’s achievements and, in many ways, the faith of her employers in continuing with the site as long as they did. I hope, at some point, to assemble a personal ‘best of Ellen’s online fiction’ list, but in the meantime I’d like to exhort some small press to collect all of the SciFiction short fiction between hardcovers. It’s been such a marvelous asset to the field, it would be a pity to see it devoured by archive.org and become less freely available.

Friday I had an appointment with Karen. I grabbed breakfast, did a little preparation, and then we headed off to a lovely little place on San Pablo. We caught up, did some year’s best planning, and I got to show her pictures of the kids. CHARLES and I then drove over to San Francisco. While the purpose of our visit was a spirited performance of Irving Berlin’s Miss Liberty by the 42nd St Moon theatre group, we also had dinner at an odd place called Frisson. CHARLES had made the booking, but had never been inside. When, on a cold, rainy evening we were greeted by a tall, willowy blonde woman wearing nothing but a cap, a bolero jacket, a microkini and some fishnets, we knew we weren’t in Kansas any more. It’s the only time I’ve not heard CHARLES complain about mediocre food :). The performance was a fine one, though I found it lagged a little at the beginning.

Saturday we’d planned a party. Most of the day was spent in planning, before first Kirsten and Aaron and Teddy, and then Bob, Karen, Lisa, Mark and Marina, Liza, and Jeremy all showed up. A very pleasant time was had, before Jeremy and I headed off for a late pizza dinner, where we spoke of publishing, his company Night Shade, and much else. All in all, a fine day.

Sunday CHARLES and I had planned a lazy day shopping. After some party clean-up, we headed into Berkeley on an unsuccessful search for a tie-dyed dress for Sophie. None were to be found, but we did get a nice shirt and tank top, so it wasn’t a complete loss. After that, we headed to Concord and Tony Roma’s for lunch, and the Tower for cd shopping. We got back late afternoon, and then I headed to Kirsten and Aaron’s for a lovely dinner and a pleasant and relaxed evening catching up.

So far the time in Oakland has been really enjoyable. I still hope for a quiet coffee in Piedmont, a quick visit to my bank in Montclair, and maybe a chance to get some headphones in Berkeley, but who knows. Today and tomorrow will be spent getting ready for the trip to Madison on Wednesday. World Fantasy beckons….

PS: At Charles’s request, he now appears in this blog under the pnome de plume of CHARLES. I know, don’t ask :)

He dropped me off at the Sydney airport’s international departures (after I gave him some dodgy traffic advice), and I went to check in. Things immediately began to look good for the trip, when the very helpful Qantas check-in staff not only moved me to an aisle seat with two empty seats, but then blocked those seats off so they wouldn’t be assigned. I wondered around the shops and had some lunch at the airport, before boarding. The airconditioning on the 747 was running cold, which suited me, and I got all three seats to myself. I watched Batman Begins for the second time, read my anthology for running order, and slept. Even the food was good. The thirteen hour flight was very gentle, indeed.

On arrival, I got fingerprinted and photographed, but they skipped the cavity search, which was good. I realised afterward that I left a half-full bottle of water on the Customs Officer’s desk, and I’ve wondered what chaos that might have caused. I then had my least stressful stopover in LA, yet. Helped a fellow Aussie cope with the terminal swaps, then grabbed a quiet lunch, before getting on the plane to SF. Got here at 2.20pm yesterday, to be greeted by Amelia and Charles, and it’s been fun ever since. Got to see Carolyn, Kirsten, Liza, and Karlyn, and began to consider the possibilities of the armagnac smoothie. Mmm. Last night was dinner at Crogan’s (yes, M, with the coconut batter beer prawns), a shower and then bed. And now, a new days awaits.

PS: The only downside in all this was hearing that Marianne and the girls were sick with a bug they contracted the day after I left. Happily they seem on the mend, but it sounded awful.

Monday, Oct 24: Sydney, Australia
Tuesday, Oct 25 – Tuesday November 1: Oakland, California
Wednesday, November 2 – Monday, November 7: Madison Wisconsin
Tuesday, November 8: Oakland, California
Thursday, November 10: Perth, Western Australia

Hope to see lots of you!

If all goes to plan, Karen and I will be turning in the final manuscripts for Science Fiction: Best of 2005 and Fantasy: Best of 2005 the week after I get back from World Fantasy in mid-November. And, with that in mind, pretty much the number one SF priority for the next few weeks is writing notes for the stories we’ve picked, and doing the introductions for the two books.

To add to that ‘end of the year’ kind of feeling, I have just completed a very rough first pass at the Locus Short Fiction Recommended Reading List, and Rich Horton has started to post his always essential Annual Magazine Summaries on his newsgroup (I don’t know if that link will remain stable, so check them out ASAP).

With all of that happening, I’ve been working out what I think of 2005, the year in short fiction. All in all, I think it was another good year. The original anthologies were perhaps, on average, not quite as good as last year. We were lucky to get a good mainstream SF anthology like Peter Crowther’s Constellations, but we sorely missed a strong mainstream fantasy book like Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling’s The Faery Reel or Al Sarrantonio’s Flights.. Were I forced to pick, I’d suggest that the best anthology of 2005 was actually a magazine. With outstanding stories by Paolo Bacigalupi, Peter S. Beagle, Esther M. Friesner, Elizabeth Hand, and Jeffrey Ford (amongst others), the October/November issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction was the best anniversary issue in some years, and as good a gathering of stories as were published anywhere during 2005. I’d also recommend Peter Crowther’s Constellations, Marvin Kaye’s The Fair Folk, Deb Layne & Jay Lake’s Polyphony 5, and Andrew J Wilson & Neil Williamson’s Nova Scotia: New Scottish Speculative Fiction.

It was an extraordinary year for single author story collections. It seemed like every second book review I read declared this or that collection the ‘short story collection of the year’. Given that the most of the collections published were quite different from one another, it was actually very difficult to make that call. Still, if pushed, I couldn’t go past these books:

Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link;
20th Century Ghosts, Joe Hill;
Harrowing the Dragon, Patricia A. McKillip; and
In the Palace of Repose, Holly Phillips.

I’d also strongly recommend Gene Wolfe’s Starwater Strains, Matthew Hughes’ The Gist Hunter, Robert Reed’s The Cuckoo’s Boys, and Maureen McHugh’s Mothers and Other Monsters.

I was disappointed that, the Robert Reed collection aside, there wasn’t a really strong SF collection published this year. The short story is integral to SF, and I hope someone will collect the recent short work from Wil McCarthy, Stephen Baxter, Ian MacDonald, Alastair Reynolds, Charles Stross and others into book form. To grind a personal axe, a collection from McDonald in particular, is long overdue.

There were several excellent retrospectives published during the year. The most fascinating (and frustrating) was Centipede Press’s Two-Handed Engine, which collected 30-plus stories by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore. Availability was very limited, so we can only hope someone will reprint it in a more accessible edition. While I’d also recommend Robert Sheckley’s The Masque of Mañana, my vote for the best retrospective of the year goes to Leigh Brackett’s Sea Kings of Mars: And Other Worldly Stories, from the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks Series. Important enough to attract an amazon reader’s review from Michael Moorcock, it did everything I think a good retrospective should. It reprinted an important body of work in an intelligently compiled edition that was widely enough available that anyone could get a copy. It was, potentially, a book that could find new readers for Brackett’s work, and that is worthwhile indeed.

Given that I’m planning on going to the LA World Convention I thought that, apart from a possible Swancon appearance, that that would be it for me next year. But, but, but my buddy Mitch is co-chairing Continuum 4, and it looks like enormous fun. Shaun is going to be a guest. So is Charlie and Margo, and I’m pining for that particular fjord. It’s at the worst possible time for me – less than three weeks before we go to LA – but I’m trying to find some way that I can be there. Hmmm. Mitch is town this weekend. If I can work out something with him, and get permission to go from Marianne…

I’ll be in Oakland from Tuesday 25 October until Tuesday 1 November, and again on Tuesday 8 November. If you’d like to get together, drop me an email. As always there’s lots and lots to do, but if I can fit it, I’d love to see people. I’ll also be in Madison for World Fantasy from November 3 to November 7. I’m co-hosting an open party on the Thursday, but other than that, am pretty much free and would love to see people. Let me know if you’ll be there, and if you’d like to get together.

While this is a good thing, the project of Russell’s that I’m most looking forward to is the re-animation of Ticonderoga Publications and the publication of Troy by Simon Brown. That will be cool.

When 12-year-old Daphne Marrity steals a videotape of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure from her grandmother’s house, neither she nor her college-professor father, Frank Marrity, have any idea that the theft has drawn the attention of both the Israeli Secret Service and an ancient European organization of occultists — or that within hours they’ll be visited by her long-lost grandfather, who also wants that videotape.

And when Daphne’s teddy bear is stolen, and a blind assassin nearly kills her father, and a phantom begins to speak to her from a switched-off television set, Daphne and her father find themselves running for their lives through a southern California in which magic and the undead past are dangers as great as the guns of living assassins.

From ancient prophesies about Israel to the secret lives of Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein, this breathtaking novel throws a suburban father and daughter into the midst of an ancient supernatural battle.

I’m pretty sure that there’ll be a mass market edition of some kind, but Bill does a lovely job with his books, and it is Tim Powers.

Along the way, I meant to write to you about how short story collections are a form in themselves (and how surely Bradbury and Le Guin are amongst the finest exponents of that art), how intrigued I am by snatches from the new My Morning Jacket cd Z, my delight at the announcement of the impending re-release of Springsteen’s Born to Run, to enthuse even more about Neil’s “Sunbird” (which I like more and more), and a bunch of other good things.

Most of all, though, this morning I woke up and things didn’t seem so bad for the first time in a while. I’ve got to email some folk about heading out for drinks this weekend, and draft a short speech for one of my very best friend’s wedding. And then there’s my Sophie’s fourth birthday. It’s easy to get caught up in the grind of the day-to-day, and to forget how delightful such things are. I can’t believe it’s been nearly twenty one years since I met Robin (about time he found a nice girl and settled down), nor can I believe it’s been four years since Sophie was born. It seems like yesterday. And it’s only twenty-six days till I head off for the States. Too much to do, which makes it too easy to overlook how good life is, but life is good.

First, books I’m waiting for rather eagerly. In amongst all of the other stuff being talked about, Margo Lanagan has mentioned she’s almost finished her novel Little Peach, set in the same world as ‘Singing My Sister Down’, and I can’t wait to see it. Then, I note from Jeff Ford that Small Beer will be publishing Alan DeNiro’s collection Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead, next year. Given that Jeff’s saying good things about it, and that Gavin and Kelly are publishing it, I’m pretty excited about checking it out. I also see that Bill over at SubPress is publishing a new Tim Powers story, ‘The Bible Repairman‘. For all sorts of reasons, the only way you’ll see this one is in the SubPress chapbook (which will be way cool), so go order it. I did.

Second, I wrote and lost a post about anthologies. To quickly synopsise: where are all of the fantasy anthologies this year? I’ve not seen a really top-flight mainstream fantasy anthology this year, and I’d have expected to by now. That said, I did like Marvin Kaye’s The Fair Folk, which has very good stories by Kim Newman and Megan Lindholm. It’s only available from the SFBC, so go join. The best SF antho of the year, so far, is Pete Crowther’s Constellations. It’s from Pete, so it’s as good as you’d expect. I have read some good slipstream, mixed, oddball, or whatever anthologies as well. Polyphony 5 stands out, as does Nova Scotia, and I know there are others. More, in detail, when I’m more awake.

Third, things are moving on the year’s best front. The first contracts for stories for the year’s best SF and the year’s best fantasy volumes should be winging their way to authors around the globe by now. I’m some time away from announcing any contents, but there’s some good stuff around and I think the books will be strong. The only problem will be leaving things out.

What else? It’s only four weeks till I leave for World Fantasy. Still have to get an ms. together for the YA book, finalise the year’s bests contents, write story notes for everything, do this crazy Australian SF catalogue, and get started on Locus’s recommended reading. All on top of cool, fun life stuff like a best friend’s wedding and a daughter’s birthday. Busy, busy.

Oh, and Clive Barker is now doing weird kids toys….

I have, in all frankness, been a little less seduced by the handful of novels he’s published in the last four or five years, including those featuring Vincent Ettrich. Still, I note that a new one, Glass Soup, is due shortly, and a website is up. Even when imperfect, Carroll’s novels are always worth checking out.

Perhaps more to my taste, I also note that Carroll has published his story “Home on the Rain“, from Conjunctions, on his website. I may be alone, but I liked it a lot.

and an…
Economic Liberal
(20% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Socialist

Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating

I guess this isn’t too far off. Hmmm. But, how do you explain the inexhaustible thirst for money? I think I make for a pretty poor socialist. Meme: via Liz Williams.

1. Dune, Frank Herbert
2. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
3. Pattern Recognition, William Gibson
4. The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut
5. Green Eyes, Lucius Shepard
6. The Book of Skulls, Robert Silverberg
7. The Child Garden, Geoff Ryman
8. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
9. The Mote in God’s Eye, Niven & Pournelle
10. The Crow Road, Iain Banks

Last year, through the good auspices of Kirsten at Locus, I bought a pair of Sennheiser’s PXC-250 noise reduction headphones. I love them when I’m travelling. They’re light, comfortable, have great sound quality, and are very good at reducing background noise. I also have a pair of Grado SR-80 headphones, which I use for home listening, and which are simply fantastic. Best quality headphones I’ve ever owned.

Now, when I bought the iPod they came with a particularly crappy pair of earbuds. I don’t like earbuds. They are uncomfortable, invasive, and I’m pretty sure they kill your hearing. That said, they are convenient. Of late, I’ve found myself using the Sennheisers in the office, but switching to earbuds when going downstairs or outside. largely because the Sennheisers come with a battery pack that makes them just that little bit unwieldy.

Over the past week or so I’ve begun to think about upgrading. First, at home, I’d love to move to Grado’s SR125‘s, which look fantastic, and I’ve had recommended to me. They are $Us150.00, though.

I’m also sorely tempted by Etymotic Research’s ER-6i Isolator earbud headphones, which cost about the same as the Grado’s, and which I don’t really need. I’m not moving away from the Sennheiser’s at all. I love ‘em, but it would be nice to have these too.

I mention them now, though, to foreshadow a comment on a short story I’ve recently read. Very shortly indeed, those odd folk at McSweeney’s will publish a book of stories and stuff for less-old readers. It will be called A book of noisy outlaws, unfriendly blobs, and some other things that aren’t as scary, maybe, depending on how you feel about lost lands, stray cell phones, creatures from the sky, parents who disappear in peru, a man named lars farf, and one other story we couldn’t quite finish, so maybe you could help us out, which is a very long title indeed. Within its pages, eager readers will find a short story by Neil Gaiman, called “Sunbird” which is, without any shadow of a doubt, his R.A. Lafferty story.

“Sunbird” tells the tale of Augustus Two Feathers McCoy, who is a member of the Epicurean Club, a private and eccentric group who claim, amongst themselves, not only to have attempted to eat everything that is edible (and several things that aren’t), but to know how best to prepare and serve each one of those things. The story opens with the observation by McCoy that “We have eaten everything that can be eaten”, which is much an announcement as it is a challenge. The rest of the story – and I have no intention of telling you any more of its details, for such pleasures should be yours – covers the response of the club members and one Hollyberry NoFeathers McCoy to that statement.

Because Gaiman seems naturally possessed of a voice that makes him a pleasure to read, it is easy to overlook how clever and accomplished he can be, mostly because he does such things while you aren’t looking. Much of what happens in “Sunbird” is silly, odd, or preposterous, and sometimes all three. And yet, other than when you’re smiling, you don’t particularly notice. I have no idea how it will be received by the world at large – though we’ll know in a week or three – but for this reader, it was a rare delight indeed.

We’ve read a lot of excellent stuff, and have some very fine stories earmarked for both books, but…. A book called year’s best SF or year’s best fantasy should contain stories that readers would recognize as SF or fantasy. I’m confident that the SF book is going to do that, but I’m a little worried about the fantasy book. The stories we have slated for it are terrific, top notch, but there’s not much in the way of dragons, fairies, elves, or quests. You won’t fit much quest into a short story, but dragons, fairies, and elves are definitely within the scope of the project. So, I have a request. If you, as a reader of this blog, have seen a terrific story featuring a traditional fantasy trope, let me know. I may have seen it, but who knows, and it would be really appreciated.

1. A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.
2. Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith.
3. Five hours’ New York jet lag and Cayce Pollard wakes in Camden Town to the dire and ever-circling wolves of disrupted circadian rhythms.
4. Everyone knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky. Less than a century ago men and women did not have the easy access to the puzzle boxes within them.
5. I did not see my first “zombie” until my second day at Tulane when Ezawa permitted me to witness an interview.
6. Coming into New York City from the north, off the New England thruway, Oliver drove as usual. Tireless, relaxed, his window half open, long blond hair whipping in the chilly breeze.
7. Milena boiled things. She was frightened of disease. She would boil other people’s knives and forks before using them. Other people found this insulting.
8. My name is Robinette Broadhead, in spite of which I am male. My analyst (whom I call Sigfrid von Shrink, although that isn’t his name; he hasn’t got a name, being a machine) has a lot of electronic fun with this fact.
9. Throughout the past thousand years of history it has been traditional to regard the Alderson Drive as an unmixed blessing.
10. It was the day my grandmother exploded.

Title:
Author:
Blurb (inc. quotes, advance review extracts etc.):
Jacket Pic: a 150 dpi image in jpeg format ( 75 mm x 105 mm)
Extent (no. pages):
Publication Date:
Publisher(s) and Territories:
Agent or rights holder contacts:

If you can’t provide an image, that’s ok, but the information must be provided in this format if it’s to be included. Because we intend this to be similar to a catalogue, a simple list of titles won’t be sufficient. Also, because of limited time, I’m not able to follow up with someone else for this information. I’ll need it sent, ready to use, to jstrahan (at) iinet (dot) net (dot) (au).

A sample of what you could send would look like this:

Title: Eidolon I
Author: Jonathan Strahan & Jeremy G Byrne eds.
Blurb (inc. quotes, advance review extracts etc.): An exciting new anthology from Eidolon editors Strahan & Byrne, with classic new stories from Simon Brown, Chris Lawson, and others.
Jacket Pic: eidolon.jpg (attached)
Extent (no. pages): 420pp
Publication Date: November 2005
Publisher(s) and Territories: Eidolon Books (Australia), Prime Books (USA). Other world English language rights available.
Agent or rights holder contacts: Contact Jonathan Strahan at jstrahan (at) iinet (dot) net (dot) au.

If you have any queries about what you should provide, please don’t hesitate to email me. We want this to be a success, and to help promote Australian writers and their work.

• Have A Nice Decade: The ’70s Pop Culture Box
• Left Of The Dial: Dispatches From The ’80s Underground
• Like, Omigod! The ’80s Pop Culture Box
• Whatever: The ’90s Pop & Culture Box

That said, I don’t know if I’d buy them. Those things are pricey.

And yet, based on the stories I’ve read over the past six months (powerful pieces like “The Little Goddess” from Asimov’s, “Written in the Stars” from Constellations, and a yet-to-be-published piece I’ve seen) he easily sits in the top five or six short story writers working in the genre today. If you love science fiction and you love short stories, you need to be reading him. If I recall correctly, PS Publishing will be doing a McDonald collection, which should be wonderful. Hopefully there’ ll be an American collection sometime too.

• The Guardian has an interesting interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, which underscores just how prescient his ‘Science in the Capital’ novels seem, given current events.

• Bill Shafer’s Subterranean Press have announced the happy news that they’ll be publishing a new William Browning Spencer collection, The Ocean and All Its Devices, in the next handful of months.

Way back on Monday, Interzone 200 dropped through the mailbox with Stoddard’s “Saving Mars”, the same day that his new novella “Exception” was published on Strange Horizons. Then yesterday I was over at SciFiction and read his new novelette “Panacea”, which I think is pretty fine.

Any alternate history, when summarised, has the potential to suffer from what I call the Matter of Credulity. When summarised, no matter how intelligent or serious, alternate histories tend to sound a little silly. It may only be me, but when I hear that so-and-so has a new story where Billy the Kid teams up with Jack-the-Ripper to save the Confederacy, I think it’s bound to be … silly.

And yet Stoddard’s “Panacea” is not a silly story at all. Set in a world that diverged from ours in the 1830s when a chemist stumbled upon a serum that conferred long life (if not actual immortality) on those who drank it, “Panacea” presents a world where Edison and others of his generation are still living, powerful and very influential in the late 1980s. Most of the action takes place on a luxury liner steaming towards the Antarctic on a holiday cruise. Edison and his young wife are, ostensibly, on holiday, though much more is going on. Edison is travelling to a scientific installation to review progress on some investigations being made on his behalf. At the same time, he is being strongly petitioned by a young employee to change one of is most profitable businesses, and she in turn, finds herself affected by the views of an unpredictable young man.

That summary is deliberately vague. I think “Panacea” is a strong story, well worth taking the time to read, and possibly amongst the year’s best. Rather than list all of the name checks to be made and so on, I’ll leave them for you to enjoy.

Stoddard’s website suggests that more short stories should be coming up soon, and I’ll be waiting with great interest. He’s definitely one of the newer SF writers to watch.

And on that, it will be June 2009, four years away, before Australia tours England again. I suggest, humbly, that a campaign be started to persuade Shane Warne that losing is not the way to bow out of the game. Stay on for the return tour, play the old enemy at home one more time, and then retire at 40, as a winner (with a thousand test wickets). It’s physically possible. He could do it.

* On the urn, they need a bigger, more macho trophy. Vaughan just looked silly holding it up after they’d won.

The latest issue, number 200, is easily their best looking yet. The cover is striking, and the color interior art is good. I’ll probably always feel the interiors are a trifle overdesigned, and I don’t like reading fiction on glossy paper, but those are personal quibbles. Basically, it’s just about the only SF magazine that looks like it was designed in the 21st century, and that’s got to be a good thing.

And the fiction? I haven’t had a chance to read any of the fiction in this issue yet, but I’ve noticed that Cox & co are definitely finding their feet this year, and have featured some good stuff. I was particularly impressed with Paul Di Filippo’s “The Emperor of Gondwanaland” from the Jan/Feb issue, and Jason Stoddard’s ‘Mars’ stories have been getting good write-ups. Is it worth subscribing too? I’d say so. Better go do it now, because according to their site, they’re actually selling out of issues!

Which is where ipod has entered the picture. So far I’ve put about 500 of my 1000 cds onto the ipod, a total of 5895 tracks, and the thing that strikes me is how much of it I don’t know; how much I’ve bought and never listened to, or not listened to in a long time. It’s interesting listening, trying to work out whether I like that I’m hearing, whether I still want it, and trying to work out what’s missing.

With that in mind, we’ve decided to assemble a catalog of Australian science fiction and fantasy to be published in the coming year (i.e. between Oct 05 and Oct 06). It is our intention that each book/author shall receive its own page, and shall do so free of charge.

So, if you are an editor, writer or publisher, all you need to do is email the following information to me at jstrahan (at) iinet (dot) net (dot) au:

Title:
Author:
Blurb (inc. quotes, advance review extracts etc.):
Jacket Pic: a 150 dpi image in jpeg format
Extent (no. pages):
Publication Date:
Publisher(s) and Territories:
Agent or rights holder contacts:

All this information must be received no later than September 24.

We will then assemble the catalog and get it out to the world. Because we’d like to do this as a service, and would like it to be as complete as possible, feel free to circulate this request to your editors, publishers, friends. Anyone who would want to be involved and is being published during the time in question.

We intend to be generous in who and what we allow into the book, so if you have any questions, email us and we’ll let you know.

It’s been known around the traps for a while that Pete Crowther’s PS Publishing will publish newcomer Joe Hill‘s debut story collection, Twentieth Century Ghosts, this coming September. It’s only just been announced, though, that the book will appear in three editions, including an affordable thousand-copy trade paperback.

As you can imagine, I began to wonder why. I’d recently read a story of Hill’s in Postscripts magazine, “Best New Horror”, and had thought it was one of the best stories I’d read so far this year. Well, yesterday, in amongst some other reading, I began to work my way through Twentieth Century Ghosts. Because I’m also reading for my year’s bests, I decided to start with the collection’s two previously unpublished stories, “The Cape” and “My Father’s Mask”. The first of these is an amazing story, subtle and powerful. It starts in a place a writer like Stephen King might recognise. A seven-year-old boy is playing superheroes in his backyard, climbing a tree to tease his elder brother, who is fast outgrowing such games and is unimpressed. In an appalling accident, he falls, hurting himself badly. His injuries haunt him into adulthood, as do confusing recollections about what actually happened. To tell more would be to spoil the story, but it’s terrific. I’ll probably read “My Father’s Mask” tonight, and then on through the other twelve stories in the book. If those other stories live up to “Best New Horror” and “The Cape”, then Crowther’s confidence in the book will have been more than justified and he will have published one of the year’s very best collections. If you like great short stories, or horror fiction, this may prove an essential (and affordable) purchase.

What I need is something that doesn’t simply delete duplicate songs. What I need is something that redirects a reference to a song to a single copy of that song at my direction. I want it to search the iPod and tell me that four copies of ‘Born to Run’ exist, and then offer me the choice of merging or not merging those tracks. With the copies to be merged, I want to be able to choose which version to retain. It seems like a good thing and a sensible thing. Does anyone know if it can be done?

Oh, and if that’s too tough, anyone on how to shuffle a play list on the iPod, or even delete a track while on the go?

Anyhow, that list got me thinking. Howard has, by my count, published about seventy-five short stories since “Lunchbox” appeared in Analog back in May of ’72, and in the intervening thirty five years he’s written about pretty much everything you could possibly imagine, and a lot you couldn’t have. But, no-one’s ever published a ‘best of’, a selection of the Waldrop stories you simply have to read. I’m unlikely to publish such a thing, but I thought I might throw together a first pass list for what would be The Howard Waldrop Reader.

I knew that any list would need to include the most famous stories, and a few lesser known ones. It would have to range across his entire career, and it would also have to include some of the longer stories. I decided to restrict myself to just one collaboration, though Waldrop is an accomplished collaborator. The list of fifteen stories that I came up with is probably too long for a real book (I’m guessing about two hundred thousand words), and there are too many novellas (four), but there are no duds. If I had time, I’d re-read the stories, fine tune things, and then get running order, but this is just playing and was done in ten minutes.

1. The Ugly Chickens
2. God’s Hooks!
3. Flying Saucer Rock and Roll
4. Custer’s Last Jump (with Steven Utley)
5. Do Ya, Do Ya, Wanna Dance?
6. Helpless, Helpless
7. Ike at the Mike
8. Major Spacer in the 21st Century
9. Mr. Goober’s Show
10. Night of the Cooters
11. Why Did?
12. The Sawing Boys
13. A Dozen Tough Jobs
14. US
15. You Could Go Home Again

One thing I promise: if you hunt out the stories, you’ll find every one’s a winner.

And apparently there are twenty four subscribers (hi). Um, if you’re an LJ person and interested, maybe the above info might be useful.

I happened to check their website today and found that the latest two stories are accessible, and was delighted to see that one of them was by Charles Stross. His story, MAXO signals, is one of the better very short pieces I’ve read all year. Recognising the limitations of the format, Stross doesn’t attempt to build character or unwind plot, rather he chooses an apparently universal characteristic and lets it play out until the reader either smiles or groans (or both). To tell anymore about the story would be to remove any point in reading it. Suffice it to say, it’s well worth clicking on the link.

Stross seems to be making something of a habit of getting published in science magazines. He also has a short story, “Remade”, in the September issue of Australian science magazine Cosmos. The story isn’t online so you’ll either have to buy the issue, or wait for a new story collection. I haven’t read the story yet, but will report later.

With that in mind, I’d like to point your attention to Dorman Shindler’s subtly titled interview with Denton, Bradley Denton opens his big fat mouth about media excess, political correctness and the craft of writing over at scifi.com, which addresses everything you might want to know, except when we can see the next book. If that piques your interest, you might also want to read John Clute’s review of the novel (also at scifi.com), where he describes it as ‘one of the funniest novels of the past decade’.

There is one thing you should know, though, if you’d like to read the adventures of Porno Girl, the Racist Ranger, and Laughin’ Boy. The estimable Subterranean Press, who are to be applauded for publishing the novel, only produced 750 copies. According to their website, the book was already out of print before publication. Check with the publisher first to see if you can get a copy, then get on to your favorite reseller. You need this one. Oh, and any publisher outside the US: if you’re reading this note, you should seriously consider picking up the o/s rights for this novel. It’s the antidote for Bush’s America that I believe the rest of the world is ready to take.

This was brought home to me this morning. I got online this morning and downloaded the night’s email. In amongst it was an email from Gordon with the December F&SF attached. I was delighted to see that there was a new Geoff Ryman novelette in the issue, a story called “The Last Ten Years in the Life of Hero Kai”. From what I can tell, it’s the cover story for the issue and is quite unusual. The story head note references something called ‘monkpunk’, and it’s tempting to be glib and say this is it. But it would be glib. The story is a very subtle and quite powerful tale of a warrior monk who leads a revolt to save the country he loves, becomes what he detests and, possibly, is responsible for a change in the way the world works. It doesn’t matter whether this story is SF or fantasy (my bet is SF, though I’d be curious to hear what Gordon thinks), but it was either going to be masterful or awful. Following so closely on the heels of his completely wonderful novel Air, it should come as no surprise, that it is far closer to masterful than not. A highlight in a year of stories.

Following on from that comment, has anyone else noticed what a terrific year F&SF is having in 2005? Maybe three or four years ago I would have rated the magazines with Asimov’s first, then SciFiction, then F&SF. Last year I would have tipped SciFiction as the best, and this year it’s clearly F&SF. Extraordinary. Subscribe!

Not long after the email from Gordon, an email from Jeff VanderMeer tumbled into the email inbox. In his email he mentioned a new story, which he’d sent me a couple weeks ago and which is due to appear in Argosy. To be honest, I’d forgotten he’d sent it. Filed it away where I’d have read it before year’s end and book deadlines, but still forgotten it. I pulled up the file and was delighted. It’s a funny, engaging, and ultimately moving story. I’m not sure when the relevant issue of Argosy is due out, but it’s worth picking up. Along with VanderMeer’s upcoming “The Farmer’s Cat” in Polyphony 5, it bodes very well for his next collection.

edited 1 September 2005

I love having the ipod. It is the best. In honor of the first two weeks, I thought I’d do a couple of those dumb lists. For the first, I put the ipod on shuffle and listed the first ten tracks it played:

1. Is She Weird? Frank Black Francis
2. The Night Has A Thousand Faces, John Coltrane
3. Corazon, Carole King
4. Animal Farm, The Kinks
5. Smut, Skyhooks
6. Trampled Under Foot, Led Zeppelin
7. Young and Foolish, Brad Mehldau
8. Bring Back That Leroy Brown, Queen
9. The Everlasting Gaze, The Smashing Pumpkins
10. Fall from Grace, Paddy McAloon

I then flipped over to the most recently played list. As you might imagine, given the comparatively short time the ipod’s been running, I haven’t played the same stuff over and over too much. Still, a disturbingly MOR trend emerged which bothered me until I remembered two days of headaches (and noticed that the most played track had still only been played six times).

1. Just a Song Before I Go, Crosby, Stills & Nash
2. Southern Cross, Crosby, Stills & Nash
3. Alice in Wonderland, Bill Evans
4. Thursday Afternoon, Brian Eno
5. Marrakesh Express, Crosby, Stills & Nash
6. Suicide Life, The Eels
7. Seeing Angels, The Jon Butler Trio
8. Mornings Eleven, The Magic Numbers
9. Forever Lost, The Magic Numbers
10. The Mule, The Magic Numbers

I was also going to list my top rated tracks, but honestly, it’s one of the things I don’t like. You only have a range of five stars. Far too coarse a measure to be useful. Still, what you see above is some of what I’ve been listening to of late.

there’s talk all over the place about australian sf, small press publishing and so on. it’s the annual self-examination, which is cool. i contributed some comments over at deb’s blog, but find myself writing and dumping responses for shane, ben and others. their observations are cool, i just feel like i’ve danced this dance before, so i think i’ll sit out the rest of this round with the observation that a) it takes time, b) excellence is the key, and c) fandom is wonderful, but it’s not the solution.

what else? beginning to brace myself for the coming weeks. father’s day coming up, then m’s birthday (which should be swell), robin & toula’s wedding, sophie’s birthday (yay!), and then off to the states. somewhere in there i need to finish up a lot of reading and a book. fifty four days till i get on plane. i am so going to sleep in oakland.

i did read some cool stories on the weekend. i’ve got a post half-written on tim’s collaborations from realms of fantasy and polyphony 5, and read terrific stories by chriz barzak and liz williams. also had the weird situation of talking to someone who has read a story for a project i’m doing that i haven’t seen yet. soon.

sunday was interesting. jess (aged 5) went dress shopping with her nan, so marianne and i took sophie out for the afternoon. went to a favorite dim sum place which sophie really liked, then tai chi in king’s park, before heading into the city for shopping. picked up cd’s by ry cooder and the magic numbers, both safely ripped and on the ipod now. tired, though.

Publishers have always had a hard time selling and marketing the single, short-form work—the novella, for instance, or the novelette, or its even more diminutive cousin, the ‘novelini’—and these days it’s even harder,” says Wallace.

Say what tha?!? Novelini? What the heck is a novelini? Apparently some guy, Adam Engel, has decided to create 20-page novels and call ‘em ‘novelini’. I love it. It sounds like a cool new marketing term for ‘short story’, and I hereby dub it so. Now, all I’ve got to do is tell Jeremy that I want to subtitle the new Eidolon anthology – which is nearly finished (yay!!) – a delectation of novelini.

I’m yet to read Peeps, but will soon. Should you? It depends. Does this picture freek you out? If so, go, buy and read the book. Help end the PEEPing.

Oh, and yeah, I think Single White Parasite would have been a way cool title for the book.

Link link
Salon’s Laura Miller loves Kelly’s Magic for Beginners. I do too, and so will you.

Mark’s list link
Mark over at Locus Online is intending to add information about editors to his book listings, and to put together a list of work by cover artists for each year. These are the reasons why Mark deserved his Hugo, and why we should all love what he does. He’s one of those people who does cool, useful stuff without anyone much noticing. It takes a lot of work, and he does it all pretty much on his own and unpaid too.

Story link
Ellen over at SciFiction has just posted a terrific new M. Rickert story, “Anyway”, which you should check out.

And a comment. Yesterday I received the October Realms of Fantasy in the mail. It’s the alternate issue, the one that comes without the soft porn cover, and it has a cool story by Tim Pratt and Greg van Eekhout. It’s called “Robots and Falling Hearts”, and is a lovely piece. I read it pretty quickly last night, and liked it very much. I think I might post a kind of review tonight or tomorrow, but I’d like to re-read it first.

Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps, Peeps.

There are other books deserving of similar product placement, but this blog recommends you take a peep at this one first.

A few people have suggested that, if successful, the program could grow into something to rival Ellen Datlow’s SciFiction. While I hope the program is a huge success, I’m not entirely sure how it will go. Why? Well, first, I’ve not heard much about who’s editing the program. Something like SciFiction has an editor like Ellen Datlow, who has both the skills and the smarts to do a great job. There are cool people running Strange Horizons and other fiction sites, but there’s no information on who’s actually editing for Amazon.com. This is supported by the information that Amazon has released about the program. It seems that once Amazon have okayed you, you can pretty much add anything you want. Hmmm.

There is another thing that I’m not sure about. If you sell a story to SciFiction you get paid (something like twenty cents per word I think). If you place a story on Amazon.com you get no payment up front at all, and split the 49 cents with the big A. Now, I think that could work fine for a Stephen King or someone like that, but I’m not sure how it will work for writers with smaller followings. I hope it works for them, but…. Oh, and for those interested, there’s a discussion about this over at Asimov’s.

PETER S. BEAGLE: THE DEFINITIVE SET
When we first started talking to Peter about producing books and audiobooks of his work, he came clean and shared a long-held secret fantasy. “I’ve always wanted,” he said, “to be a boxed set. To have all my different titles available in one unified edition.” To that end Conlan Press is launching a program that will eventually release all of Peter’s books exactly as he has dreamed. Each Definitive Edition volume will be in a carefully-designed, set-matched archival binding, and will be fully illustrated by Peter’s choice of artist. The Definitive Edition series will begin with Peter’s new novel, Summerlong. Other books in the run will be released as they are completed.

Sounds cool to me. The books, mostly, are set to appear between now and mid next year. If you love Beagle’s work, as I do, it’s worth checking out.

oh, yeah. still completely in love with the ipod. managed to get 5320 songs onto it in just over a week. it’s half full, so i’m going to slow down a little. must say, though, this is my first apple product and, while i love ipod, the apple software is just appalling. how do those guys make money writing cr*p like that? sheesh.

“My feeling with this volume, as in previous years, is that the selections seem somewhat arbitrary, as if the rush to get the volume out so early (the initial publication date of February).

This Haber/Strahan volume has few stories than the Hartwell/Cramer volume, and unless you are looking for the shortest possible Year’s Best read, I would put the latter volume ahead of the one in hand, as being the better buy of the two pocket sized collections this year.”

There’s no doubt that the early publication date has a significant impact on the two ibooks year’s bests. Still, you do the job you can. We’re working on the next pair at the moment, and hopefully they’ll be somewhat better. We’ll see.

* Oops. I should make it clear that Gavin was, of course, already going to get in for obvious reasons.

Gene Wolfe’s short story collection Starwater Strains, and Margo Lanagan’s collection Black Juice are both marvellous, and if you like short stories you should buy them and read them. And if you don’t think you like short stories you should buy them and read them and find out how wrong you’ve been.

Who could argue with that. I should point out that you need only buy the Wolfe collection once, which is a bargain, while careful readers will need to buy their own homegrown edition of the Lanagan book, as well as the UK edition with the cool extra story (unless, of course, you are from the UK, in which case you are a lucky b*stard).

The spectacular Lieutenant Ebytwvfryv
Power: Direct computer interface
Source of powers: Extra-terrestrial spiritual mutant
Weapon: Plasma Lucky Rabbit’s Foot
Transportation: Golden Pogo Stick

As I travel around on my Golden Pogo Stick, and occasionally defeat evildoers with my plasma lucky rabbit’s foot, I can but envy Deb her superpower, “power mimicry”. How did they know?

This is something I’ve been feeling for some time now. I’m guessing since 2003 I’ve felt the US is a more threatening destination, somewhere to feel mildly anxious about visiting. I’ve been going there to attend conventions and to see Charles and the gang in Oakland, and I have family by marriage that I need to see in New York, so I want to go. Can I see a time when, possibly, I’ll refuse to travel there? Yes. Can I see a time when I’ll choose to only attend non-US World Conventions and World Fantasy Conventions? Yes. And it makes me profoundly sad. I’ve spent more than two years traveling in, visiting, living in or whatever the US. I want to go there, but I want to feel safe and to keep my family safe far more.

It’s all good stuff, and I was particularly interested to see Niall refer to conversations on bad habits that reviewers pick up, phrases they use, things they do. I completely agree about not simply writing blurbs, however nice it is to see what you’ve written printed on the cover of a book. I have countless things I hate seeing in book reviews, and a number of flags that fly when I’m trying to write one. For example, if you ever find yourself snickering at your own wit while writing a book review, junk what made you laugh. Trust me. The one thing, though, that I’d cut out of all book reviewing isn’t ‘self-indulgent’, it’s ‘what it means to be human’. As in, Charles Stross’s Accelerando redefines what it means to be human, or Peter Beagle’s The Last Unicorn addresses what it means to be human. It’s lazy. It’s dumb. It’s shorthand for attempting to describe what a book is about it, or what the author is attempting. Every time I read it in someone else’s reviews, I switch off, and when I read it in one of my own, I wince. Erg.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t such a great sacrifice, but it was something I wasn’t sure about doing. Unsurprisingly, and quite reasonably, publishers realised this, and began to stop sending me the reviewer’s lifeblood, books. Well, things hit a definite crisis point today. I realised books weren’t coming in and, more importantly, books were slipping through the cracks at head office, and not getting reviewed as they should.

Although I have other commitments, I take Locus very seriously, and this is not acceptable. It must have the best coverage in and of the field (and I like getting books in the mail). So, pretty much effective today, I’m returning to active service. I don’t know if I’ll quite make this month’s deadline (though I’m trying), but I have reviews in train of Gwyneth Jones’ Band of Gypsys, Paul McAuley’s Little Machines, Jeff Ford’s new PS novella (if I get a copy in time), and maybe either the new Tricia Sullivan or Justina Robson novels. Publishers should know they can send books Down Under with confidence that books will be reviewed. Game on!

Of the 4,000 or so Interaction members (the number I’ve heard mentioned), 546 nominated to vote and 684 actually voted. It took 33 nominations to make the novel ballot, 29 to make the novella ballot, 19 to make the novelette ballot, and just 18 to make the short story ballot. Interestingly, given all of the discussion of the editor category, it took more nominations (71!) to make the final ballot for editor than for any other category in the awards. It is something people feel passionately about, obviously.

I don’t know how typical these figures are, but it obviously it can’t be that hard to get a Hugo nomination if all you need is 18 nominations. I don’t suggest or condone vote stacking, but you can see what leads to it. The belief that it isn’t that hard to get a result. Interesting.

Edit 10/8/05: Check out the comments for this, as Cheryl makes some good points. The one thing I’d hope people would carry away from this post is that people who care about the awards should nominate and vote. The process is only effective and meaningful if it’s widely used.

Although I am amongst the most partisan of Locus‘s supporters, and think that Mark Kelly does a fantastic job with Locus: Online, I can’t help but applaud the Best Website win for SciFiction. It’s an extraordinary achievement, and deserves its award.

One thing I do note with interest, though. A motion has just passed to split the Best Editor Hugo in two, effectively splitting it into an award for short fiction editing and novel editing. That award, if I recall, replaced an earlier “Best Magazine” category. Reading the wording of the Best Website win, it’s presented to SciFiction, Edited by Ellen Datlow. Craig Engler, general manager. SciFiction is a science fiction magazine. Is this effectively a third editor Hugo? Do we need three? Is there, perhaps, a better formulation for these awards? Hmm. BTW, Cheryl is breaking all of this down too.

Best Novel: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Best Novella: “The Concrete Jungle” by Charles Stross
Best Novelette: “The Faery Handbag” by Kelly Link
Best Short Story: “Travels with My Cats” by Mike Resnick
Best Related Book: The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, Edward James & Farah Mendlesohn eds.
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: The Incredibles
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: “33″ – Battlestar Galactica
Best Professional Editor: Ellen Datlow
Best Professional Artist: Jim Burns
Best Semiprozine: Ansible
Best Fanzine: Plokta
Best Fan Writer: David Langford
Best Fan Artist: Sue Mason
Best Web Site: SciFiction
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (not a Hugo Award): Elizabeth Bear
Special Interaction Committee Award (not a Hugo Award): David Pringle

Sincerest congrats to all the winners.

* This isn’t a reference to Gregory Feeley’s journal entry about selling collections to publishers. This is about whether they sell to readers, which is a different thing.

Oh, and yes, you need to subscribe. This is a cottage industry, and GVG & co. have been doing fantastic things with the magazine.

And speaking of that book, I just looked at the SubPress site and they list it as out of print! How can it be out of print already! I’m thrilled for them that the book did well, but I’m really hoping someone will reprint it soon. It’s the kind of book that, it seems to me, should always be in print.

One other thought: someone asked me what impact doing all of the anthologies and such I’m working on these days has had. Oddly, it means I read less. I used to focus on reading novels a lot, and feel guilty about not reading enough short fiction. I know read a lot of short fiction and feel guilty about not reading enough novels. I desperately want to, and to get reviewing again. I’m dropping off publisher’s lists for books (which is understandable), and I’m eager to stop that happening. The only way to do that, reasonably, is to write reviews. With that in mind, I’m going to finish up a little editing for what Tim calls a certain magazine tonight, try to read some more Eidolon stuff in the next day or two, get a proposal out, and then maybe on the weekend do some reading for review. I’ve got a book or two that have dropped between the cracks that could get covered, and some neat ones sitting there.

Following on from last week’s post, I’m still suffering from the flu, though at least this feels like the aftermath rather than the main event. I’m hoping it’ll be completely gone by the weekend. In the meantime, I’m back at work, and making sure I get plenty of sleep. Hopefully that will see me through.

I didn’t do as much reading as I’d have liked, though I did do some. Finished Thud!, which was terrific. Neil linked to Terry’s Carnegie Medal speech which, I think, carries within it much of the explanation of why he’s so good. Yes, he writes fantasy. Yes, it’s funny. But the stuff he’s writing about is very real indeed. When you list the things he writes about they almost sound trite because they are big and obvious, but that misses the point. The observations he makes are fresh and real, and the subjects really are the kind of thing you can’t touch on too often. Someone somewhere will review the book and, no doubt, erroneously link it to the post 9-11 world and the situation in the Middle East. While the analogy is there to be drawn, I don’t believe it’s a reasonable connection. As Pratchett himself says in his speech (talking about The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents):

“People have already asked me if I had the current international situation in mind when I wrote the book. The answer is no. I wouldn’t insult even rats by turning them into handy metaphors. It’s just unfortunate that the current international situation is pretty much the same old dull, stupid international situation, in a world obsessed by the monsters it has made up, dragons that are hard to kill. We look around and see foreign policies that are little more than the taking of revenge for the revenge that was taken in revenge for the revenge last time. It’s a path that leads only downwards, and still the world flocks along it. It makes you want to spit.”

Much the same could be said of Thud!. Er, not that it makes you want to spit, that is, but the other part about not referencing the current international situation.

For those of you who haven’t stumbled across it, Two-Handed Engine is a 928-page collection of the short fiction of Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, in a deluxe hardcover limited edition (of either 200 or 300 copies, the website is unclear) with a stunning cover by the late Richard Powers. You can find more detailed information about here (http://www.centipedepress.com/kuttner.html).

I have to confess to being unsure what I think of this book. On one hand I rather hunger for it. It looks neat, and I’d love to have all of those stories in a single, wonderful volume, though it is very expensive. On the other, I’m a little disappointed by it. Why? Well, Kuttner and Moore are wonderful writers. Their work deserves not only to be preserved, but also to be given a wider audience; to make its way boldly into libraries and bookshops, so that it can achieve the only meaningful kind of preservation that a book can have, preservation in the minds of readers. A project like this one always seems to me to be very self-limiting. Only 200 (or 300) readers can ever have this book, and only if they’re very passionate about getting it (given the price). There is nothing wrong with that, I guess. But, it feels like a chance missed. I imagine the copies of Two-Handed Engine will sell quickly. I hope so. I also hope that someone out there considers buying the trade hardcover or trade paperback rights so that everyone else can have a chance to see these stories, and Kuttner and Moore get that chance of being read. Otherwise, it all seems rather pointless to me.

It’s early days yet to talk about Scott’s book, but I did think I’d talk a little about Postscripts. It’s a new magazine published out of the UK and edited by Pete Crowther with Nick Gevers. I’ve read the first three issues, and been impressed. The editors obviously have broad tastes, able to encompass within a single issue everything from space opera to slipstream; a flexibility that I really like. The production values are good, too. PS is produced much as their limited edition chapbooks are, as perfect bound A5 trade paperbacks. It’s a format that suits the chapbooks well, and the magazine better. So far each issue has had a handsome Edward Miller cover and the internal layout is simple and easy to read (a good thing).

And the fiction? The standard is generally very good. The highlights of PS3 were Joe Hill’s powerful ‘Best New Horror’ (a take on what happens to the editor of a year’s best horror anthology series when he meets one his contributors), Gene Wolfe’s fascinating ‘Comber’ (a wave catching city, literally), and Jack Dann’s ‘Dreaming with Angels’ (another James Dean-related story). It also featured a strong fantasy by Chaz Brenchley, ‘Dragon Kings Play Songs of Love’, and interesting stories by Rick Bowes and David Herter. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see several of these in next year’s ‘year’s best’ annuals, or on awards ballots.

The latest issue, which I’ve just had a sneek peek at, includes: Alastair Reynolds “Zima Blue”, Eric Brown’s “Life Beyond”, Lawrence Person’s “Master Lao and the Flying Horror”, Barry Malzberg & Paul Di Filippo’s “Beyond Mao”, Adam Roberts’s “And Future King”, Jack Dann’s “Dharma Bums”, and Zoran Zivkovic’s “The Cell”. I’ve only had a chance to read the Reynold’s story so far, and I really liked it. It’s set against a space opera backdrop that recalls, as much as anything, the kind of post-scarcity universe Iain Banks’ employs so successfully in his ‘Culture’ novels. Here a near-immortal journalist has been pursuing an enigmatic cyborg artist for an interview. The artist, Zima, is famous for his enormous installations that involving coloring or wrapping things in a distinct shade of blue (very much like Christo and Jeanne-Claude). With a few unexpected turns, it leads into an interesting rumination on the nature of memory and of art. I’ve read a lot Reynolds’ short fiction, and enjoyed most of it. This is perhaps most reminiscent of a story like ‘Turquoise Days’, which avoids big space action in favor of story on a more intimate scale. I’m sure Reynolds must be building towards a collection, and I’m guessing it’ll be a particularly strong one when it does appear. In the meantime, PS4 is worth the price of admission for this story alone.

And on that, it’s around here that you would normally be exhorted to subscribe to this, and other, magazines. Most often, when I hear this exhortation, it seems to be pitched from the angle that short fiction is dying and magazines are a rare breed that you should, for some philanthropic reason or other, support. I’ve never been convinced by that argument: not when I was publishing a semiprozine myself, and not now. I think you should subscribe to Postscripts, but not for any philanthropic reason. Do it because the fiction is terrific and you like to read great stories. Do it because you want to see what two interesting editors can do with a quarterly magazine. I’m torn between Postscripts and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet as to which is the best small press magazine around today. Happily, I don’t have to choose. I can have them both, and so can you. You can subscribe to Postscripts here. Oh, and to Lady Churchill’s here.

For The Starry Rift, I’m waiting on three or four final submissions (from K, N, J, and G) and I’m done. Any remaining acceptances, and all of the story contracts, will go out for The Starry Rift shortly, and I have a rough working ms. on my desk at home. It’s not the final ms. of course, but it’s helping me with initial editing and story sequencing. I want to thank everyone working on the project for their extraordinary patience with me on this. This is the first original anthology I’ve done, and the first work on original fiction since I left Eidolon, and I’ve been striving to get it just right, reading and re-reading, and looking for balance etc. It’s made me slower than I’d like to be, but I think the final book will be better for it.

Eidolon is lagging behind a little, but when Jeremy gets back from Melbourne we should knock that on the head. It should be fairly straightforward. If, though, for some reason Eidolon should fall in a heap (and it won’t), we’ll probably reschedule it. Early days, though, to be considering that. Apologies to everyone waiting for us to get our administration in order and get responses out. It’s taken longer than we expected to read stories and so on, and to get the wrinkles of working together ironed out again.

Hope that clarifies any questions. If not, drop me an email and I’ll do what I can to clarify things.

Like any situation though, things are inevitably more complicated than they appear. First, not every writer wants his or her book to be published by a trade publisher. Maureen McHugh, whose Mothers and Other Monsters Feeley cites has said she didn’t try to place her collection with her trade publisher. Kelly Link, whose Magic for Beginners Feeley also mentions, was very successful essentially self-publishing her debut collection, and it seems probable she chose not to go to a trade publisher with her book. Another good example is Terry Pratchett’s Once More With Footnotes. In conversation, Pratchett mentioned to me that he’d chosen not to place the book with his trade publisher, rather than experienced any disinterest. I’d hazard a guess, and suggest this may be because collections do sell less (for whatever reason) and lower selling books tend to confuse chain bookstore ordering systems. Second, some books almost by their nature have smaller potential audiences, and are more appropriately handled by a smaller publisher. The kind of book I’m thinking of here is a collection of early stories by a major writer, or a small series of stories gathered in a single book. Orson Scott Card’s First Meetings is a good example. I know of several writers who have happily had a small press edition of a book produced because they’d like to see it exist, but don’t feel a large audience exists for it. And, third, some books tend to be more about a building a new audience for a writer, something smaller presses seem laudably more willing to do.

So, it’s not easy getting a collection published by a trade publisher, and not everyone wants to. But is this an inherently bad thing? Is being published by a trade publisher significantly better or different from being published by a small press publisher? The obvious answer would seem to be that a trade publisher is preferable. You’d imagine that a trade publisher would offer larger advances, more publicity, bigger print-runs and so on than a small press publisher might, but is this actually the case? It seems to me that there is little difference between trade and small press publishers when books are published in unlimited editions by presses like Golden Gryphon or Night Shade. These publishers typically produce books in editions that are not dissimilar to trade editions, sell for around the same price, have similar sized print runs, are distributed to the chain bookstores, and are as well or better produced physically than their trade cousins. They even, in some cases, pay comparable advances. A good example of this is Andy Duncan’s Beluthahatchie and Other Stories, which was widely available, received good press, and won awards. Interestingly, Tor editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden said in an interview for the SFWA Bulletin that ” I don’t think we [Tor] could have done a better job with it and I don’t think we could have sold more copies, frankly, even assuming Andy Duncan had published three novels with Tor, and he’s not published any novels with anyone.” Much the same could be said of books like James Patrick Kelly’s Strange But Not A Stranger, or Kage Baker’s Mother Aegypt.

Would a trade publisher have done better? I’m not sure. Look at Howard Waldrop’s debut story collection. I don’t have the official figures, but my understanding is that when Doubleday published the book in 1986 they printed less than two thousand copies and paid a commensurate advance. It would have made it into most libraries because Doubleday sold many of their titles into libraries at the time, and would have made some chain bookstores, but it quickly went out of print and stayed there. In truth, it wasn’t much different from being published by a small press publisher like Golden Gryphon or Arkham. And it’s difficult to imagine a trade publisher being anymore successful with Cordwainer Smith’s The Rediscovery of Man, which has been extraordinarily successful for NESFA Press.

There is, perhaps, more cause to be concerned when we turn to limited edition small press publishing. Limited edition short story collections can range in print runs from one hundred to maybe one thousand copies (it’s unusual for a print run of more than one thousand to be considered a limited edition). They are, typically, more expensive than trade books, harder to find, and are not typically reprinted. A book like Lewis Shiner’s Love in Vain was published in an edition of 626 copies, went out of print before publication, and remains out of print today, while Lucius Shepard’s Trujillo was published in an edition of 700 copies last year, and sells for between two and three times the price of a typical trade published collection. I assume these books are less financially rewarding for writers than trade editions or unlimited editions, but typically writers have much more control over the books (which often is some compensation). What does concern me slightly is that these books, it seems to me, are more aimed at delivering fiction to a writer’s existing audience, rather than attempting to reach out to a potentially larger audience. It’s a personal value judgement, but I wonder what impact this may have in the future.

There is one assumption that seems to underpin Feeley’s comments that I doubt a little. Feeley seems to imply that there was a time when trade publishers were happy, or at least happier, publishing short story collections. Very, very arguably, the commercial heyday of the short story was in the first half of the last century, during the great pulp fiction boom when magazines like Harper’s sold in the millions, and sf magazines proliferated. At that time a collection of literary merit outside the genre seemed to have a real chance of being published, and as science fiction books became more common, so to did genre story collections. However, it seems to me that since the 1970s at least the collection has been in something of a decline, a decline that continues to this day.

In writing this I began to wonder how well the books Feeley chose as his examples – Terry Bisson’s Greetings and Other Stories, Carol Emshwiller’s I Live With You, Kelly Link’s Magic for Beginners, Maureen F. McHugh’s Mothers and Other Monsters, Bruce Holland Rogers’s Thirteen Ways to Water and Other Stories, and Howard Waldrop’s Heart of Whitenesse – illustrated his case. I’ve mentioned the Link and McHugh titles. Of the others, Emshwiller has published almost entirely with small presses or small trade publishers, as has Rogers, and the only one of Waldrop’s collections to appear first from a trade publisher was Howard Who? (the book Feeley cites was actually originally published as a small press title, then reprinted by Gordon Van Gelder at St Martins). Only Bisson’s book is one that seems likely to have appeared from his trade publisher, Tor, and we don’t know why it didn’t. Perhaps a better example for Feeley might be Paul McAuley’s Little Machines. All of McAuley’s previous collections have come from his trade publisher, but this very impressive book was recently published by the UK’s PS Publishing in a 700-copy limited edition. While it’s publication is a welcome event, and PS is to be applauded, a larger edition would have seemed likely only a year or two ago.

One of the more disturbing observations in Feeley’s piece comes from David Hartwell. In the introduction to Robert Sheckley’s upcoming NESFA Press collection The Masque of Mañana, Hartwell writes that this situation is “a growing disaster and a betrayal of the history of SF achievement in the 20th century.” He continues: “Despite the efforts of NESFA Press and others, almost everybody is looking at novels as the measure of a writer’s true quality. If this goes on without challenge, everyone from Damon Knight to Harlan Ellison, from Lucius Shepard to Ted Chiang will end up as second rank, and not worthy of Grand Master awards no matter how fine their stories. And to put it bluntly, there are a disproportionate number of excellent short story writers in the SF tradition, but not a lot of first class novelists.”

I haven’t read the full text of Hartwell’s introduction so I may not have the proper context, but I’d imagine his comments aren’t based on the ability of writers to sell short story collections. Rather, I’d guess they’re based around the declining readership for short fiction and his fears that that decline may result in a loss of prestige for those writers whose reputations rest on their short fiction output. Sadly, if we set aside commercial considerations, I think he may have a point. I strongly doubt that writers like Ellison or Shepard will ever be considered second rank or unworthy of Grand Master Awards, but I do wonder if they might be forgotten entirely. I can see a day when short fiction is as minority an interest as poetry, and when almost no one reads it. Is that part of a natural lifecycle of an art form? Is the short story (and hence the short story writer) inherently doomed, pushed out of the food chain by bigger, faster predators? It may be so. More people may want to watch a movie or play a game than read, and those who read may prefer to read novels than stories. I hope not, though. I think the short story, and the short story writer, is worth fighting for. It’s why I edit anthologies, and I assume one of the reasons why David does.

Do I believe that ‘collections of literary merit have ever been so entirely abjured by trade publishers as now.’ Not really, and I’m not sure that I blame them. I do think, though, that the genre short story is in a state of extraordinary good health and I’d hate to see anything endanger that.

In terms of doing things, I got far too little done. I did get a new project in train, take steps on a long-stalled one, and did very little reading, which is a real problem. Over the next one hundred days I’ve got to read a lot, finishing and delivering both The Starry Rift and Eidolon. Some stories are still trickling in for both, and promising steps are being made. If I can get the time, I’ll get into editing stories for Starry Rift this weekend, and start really building the submission ms. I’ve also got to get contracts out. Same for Eidolon, though there’s more time for that. I’ve also got to get head’s down on the year’s bests. They’re not due till mid-November or so, but it’s not much extra time. Oh, and I’ve got to finalise plans for the US trip. Busy, busy. I hate to say this, but I think I’m going to have to set schedules and deadlines. Read so many stories per day, etc etc. sigh.

Still, there are a lot of things I’m looking forward to in the near future. Hopefully we’re off to dinner next week with Theresa, Rob, Toula, Stef and Janet, which should be great. Then there’s my sister’s birthday, Marianne’s birthday, Rob’s wedding, and Sophie’s 4th birthday. And after that World Fantasy, which should be a hoot. I can’t wait to get to Oakland and spend a quiet couple days with Charles. I know I’ll see Karen, and possibly Bob, but mostly I’ll just goof off with Charles, drink scotch, stay up late, and sleep in the next day. The Con should be way cool too, bunking with Garth and seeing everyone. Can’t wait. Things are busy, a little stressful, but not bad at all.

if you’re going to be in melbourne too, then i hope to see you at continuum. i’m on two events:

saturday 16 july

10.00 am Small Press Publishing
Small Press Publishing is a field of increasing importance within Australian genre writing. Are there too many small presses or is the market just beginning to open up? A look at the Australian market and what it takes to become part of it.
Cat Sparks, Sarah Endacott, Jonathan Strahan, Mitch

7.00pm Harper Collins Voyager 10th Birthday Extravaganza
HarperCollinsVoyager presents an evening of entertainment in celebration of their 10th Birthday.

come along if you can. otherwise, feel free to look me up. there are a lot of people going to be there, and a lot of people i really am eager to catch up with.