I’ve been meaning to post something about anthologies, but every time I try to something else comes along. In this case the distraction is the welcome news that Night Shade Books will be publishing Tim Pratt’s second short story collection, Hart & Boot and Other Stories. This is very cool news. I think 2005 has been a remarkable year for short story collections, but with next year promising new collections from Tim, Theodora Goss, Jeffrey Ford, M. Rickert, Bruce Sterling, and Paul Di Filippo amongst others, it could be just as good. Why is it, when faced with evidence like this, that people still question whether or not these are good times for the short story?

You are a Social Liberal (80% permissive) 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.

Well, for those interested, here are the sources of the first lines listed last week:

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

There have been a number of surprising revelations that have accompanied the move to iPod over the past month. Possibly the strangest thing, though, is that I’ve discovered that I may have a headphone fetish.

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.

R.A Lafferty stories are funny, weird, sometimes a little paranoid sounding, often delightfully bizarre, and always very precise. They tell of the secret societies, possessed of arcane knowledge, than run the world. You will find that seven men control our world, that they have four means of doing so, and that they can employ them in precisely six different ways. Further, they can only do so on two occasions in any given year. They belong to the Institute of Impure Science (or some other such organisation), and have colorful and odd names (like Aloysius Shiplap, the seminal genius, orMargaret the Houri, the ageless intergalactic mistress). You can read of them in stories like “Slow Tuesday Night”, “Nine Hundred Grandmothers”, “Narrow Valley”, “Interurban Queen” (which I once saw Howard Waldrop prove to be the perfect short story), or personal favorite “Nor Limestone Islands” and one day, if the world is kind, they will be available to you in a nice big retrospective short story collection.

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.