Bestseller?
The HarperCollins website lists the Top 20 Dymocks SF/Fantasy Bestsellers for the week ending July 10, 2004. Selected highlights include:
# 9. The Crooked Letter, Sean Williams
# 15. Abhorsen, Garth Nix
# 16. The Locus Awards, Jonathan Strahan & Charles N. Brown
I can recommend all three books (I’m actually reading Sean’s book right now), and am reasonably pleased with the sales on the anthology.
In his blog, IC London, IC France, Howard Waldrop begins a discussion of this year’s retro-Hugo Awards. They’re something I have problems with, but Howard is always worth reading and, who knows, he might even persuade me to vote.
It may not look like it from a distance, but being an anthologist can be hard work, and doing year’s bests takes a lot of time and effort. Now, no-one who does it that I know is complaining, but you do need to take the time every now and then to appreciate the good moments. So, many, many congrats to Kathryn and David on this piece of news. You should all go buy their book, and then check out Gardner’s too (I know you’ve already got mine). In fact, this year more than any other of late, is a good year to pick up the various ‘year’s bests’ and compare them. I think they all have something good to offer.
I don’t know why this makes me happy, but it does. Paul Di Filippo has a new website at www.pauldifilippo.com, which is a good thing. I find Di Filippo a fascinating writer to follow. In some ways, he reminds me of Elvis Costello. Very prolific and just as likely to produce something you love as something that leaves you going “huh?”. It makes it exciting to check out what he does. The only flaw in the site, for me, is the lack of a ‘Forthcoming work’ section. But, you can’t complain. Speaking of Di Filippo, the good folks at ibooks are reprinting his novel Fuzzy Dice in October. If you don’t have the PS Publishing edition, then grab this when it goes by.
On unrelated news, there’s a good interview with Jack Dann over at SciFi.com. He talks about his cool new novel, and other good stuff. Worth reading.