…soggy sisters’ day. After school, Jess came home and plotted domestic domination with her sister.

I do not believe I could edit this book myself, though there is a part of me that would like to try, but I wonder if the world would have any interest in a book collecting the year’s best writing about science fiction or fantasy; you know, reviews, essays, articles, blog postings and so on; a book that would synopsise the field’s discussions with itself. I’d love to read it, if it should ever happen. Strikes me as a Borgo Press kind of book. It’d be fun to do.

Not everything that looks cynical is cynical. For example, it seems like everyone is doing a ‘young adult’ book of some kind. The cynical interpretation might be that, following the success of J.K. Rowling, now is a good time to do something (anything) YA. While that is, no doubt, true in a number of cases, it’s not always true.

One book I might have wondered about is the third anthology from the wacky folk at McSweeney’s who, having shown us their enchanted chamber and their mammoth treasury, now prepare to offer us A Book of Evil Marauders, Purple Blobs, and Some Other Things which contains lots of yummy YA goodness by the likes of Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, George Saunders and others. What I decided, in wondering whether this is a cynical exercise or not is that it doesn’t matter. I’m familiar with most of the authors’ who are in the book, and they don’t write cynically. And to be fair, it’s hard to see something like McSweeney’s Valencia St. project as a cynical exercise. Those are the things that matter. So, another cool book for the ‘to read’ pile. It should be very interesting reading.

The Science Fiction Book Club’s write-up for Best Short Novels: 2005 is over on their website. I’m delighted it’s up on their site, and that you can now order it. The only part that fills me with fear is that it says the ship date is May 27. Given that the proofing for the 210,000 wd book only arrived here May 11, I think it may be a little longer than that. But, not much. I think it’s supposed to go out in July.

So, it goes like this. Wake up Tuesday morning with sharp stabbing pains to the abdomen. Make the requisite fast, short trip to small room. Figure I’m okay to go to work anyhow. A few hours later, reconsider, go home, and put up with the short stabbing pains, some flu symptoms and the short trips to small room for Tuesday and Wednesday. All better now, but not fun.

During the above, as I also temporarily contemplated the collapse of the Strahan/Jablon business empire (it ain’t, but you know how it looks that way sometimes), I figured I wanted to read something, something comforting and cosy. With that in mind, I temporarily set aside The Summer Isles, which is fine and dandy, and went looking for something on the shelves that was more in keeping with rainy afternoons and self-pity. Hmmm. There’s nothing quite like a good YA novel for such situations, so I pulled out Justine‘s Magic or Madness. She’d kindly given me a copy of the galley in Boston last year, and I’d put it on the ‘to read’ shelf, meaning to get to it.

Well, Magic or Madness is delicious. It’s the story of the requisitely plucky Reason, a young Australian girl who has been on the run from her wicked grandmother for most of her life. While there’s much we don’t know at the outside, we know there’s an evil witch, some strangeness about ammonites, mathematics and magic, at least one descent into madness, and the threat of early death for our heroine. There’s also a door into winter, a magic portal that links the suburbs of Sydney directly to the streets of Manhattan. It was a book I really enjoyed, sprinting through its pages in no time at all. I think I can see the pattern to the story – it’s the first in a trilogy – but I can’t wait to see what happens next.

So, should you read it? Yes! Should you go buy/order it now? Yes! Did I wonder if Reason was pretty much Justine, from the pants full of pockets to the trips from Sydney to New York – yes. It’s way cool. And Justine, I want the next one. Really. Soon.