They don’t. We know they don’t. Except, well, back on 1 July Small Beer Press published Kelly Link’s new short story collection, Magic for Beginners. It’s a wonderful book, filled with great stories, and it’s been very well reviewed. There’s a new review over at The Believer, where reviewer Dennis Lim suggests the collection’s central question is ‘How are zombies like Canadians?’. While I’m not sure about that, I did notice that the header material for the review says the print run for the book was five thousand copies in hardcover. I also noticed, over at co-publisher Gavin Grant’s journal, that Magic for Beginners has gone back to press. And they’ve just sold paperback rights to Harcourt. Hmm. Five thousand copies in a month, a second printing and a deak for a paperback edition. It sounds like maybe short story collections can sell, if they’re good enough and interesting enough.

* 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.

Tired. Very broken sleep last night, hence the 1.00am post. Reading Scott’s Blue Noon (not still, I’ve just been distracted), the October/November F&SF, Justina’s Living Next Door to the God of Love, Eidolon stories, and some other stuff. Feeling dazed and confused. Pushing forward, though. Editing is half-finished, the Second Test starts tonight, and sleep. I’m not ‘not thinking about’ Glasgow. Honest.

Thanks to Chris McClelland at Diamond Comics for pointing out that ibooks have reprinted Bob’s Phases of the Moon in a handsome trade paperback. If you don’t have a copy, it’s an essential part of any SF library, and you can get it here. I was particularly tickled to see the cover, which is the same piece of Michael Whelan art that HarperCollins put on The Locus Awards anthology here in Australia. It is a very small world.

If you live in the States you’ve probably already bought the September issue of F&SF, with the cool/weird cover. It’s worth the price of admission for Kelly Link’s fantabulous story alone. One thing you might overlook, though, is Robert Kilheffer’s interesting book review column (online in full here). While his argument is not new, it remains interesting. Is SF written by Americans less forward looking than SF written by non-Americans? Hmmm. If Stan Robinson and a few others weren’t writing, I might say yes.

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

I don’t know when this book will be in galley, or otherwise available, but it’s one of the books I’m most looking forward to in the next four or five months. I love big retrospectives like this one because they give you a weird kind of permission to go back and read old stuff, to revisit stuff you once loved and haven’t had a chance to read for 20 years. And, if Phases of the Moon: Stories from Six Decades is anything to go by, it should be a doozy.

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.