Marianne’s away this weekend, so I’ve been hanging out with Jess and Sophie, with help from Nan. Friday afternoon/evening was slow and easy. Took the girls to a party with about 40 little girls dressed and pink and getting into the disco boogie thing. This morning Sophie went to dance class, and I took Jess to Unigym. She swam, as you can see.

I’ve only just finished proofreading my forthcoming anthology, Fantasy: The Very Best of 2005. It has a lot of terrific stories in it, but one of my favorites is Mary Rickert’s “Anyway”. I love her story “Cold Fires”, and was really disappointed I couldn’t get it into the previous annual, so was particularly pleased I could include one of her stories this year.

I first noticed Rickert’s short fiction in the pages of F&SF, where most of her short fiction has been published, and as one story after another has appeared, have become more and more impressed by what she’s doing. That’s why I was really excited to hear that Golden Gryphon were going to publish her first collection, Map of Dreams, later this year. It’s edited by Marty Halpern, who always does an amazing job on the books he works on (he’s one of the really underappreciated editors working around the place), and, having read many of the stories in the book, I’m sure Map of Dreams is going to be outstanding. What I would say to Coode Streeters is, go read her story “Anyway” over at SciFiction. If you like it, pre-order it with the publisher, an online retailer, or your favorite bookstore. Publishing first collections is always a tricky business, and this is one that really deserves your support.

Today I emailed a proofread manuscript to the publisher, scratched away at an introduction for another book, hated PDFs, thought way too much about the Vance book, got a stress headache, posted a physical manuscript to another publisher, and blogged a bit. Tomorrow Jess and Sophie have a pink Princess disco party to go to. Marianne’s away for the weekend getting well deserved rest, so I’ll be doing that one. I’m not yet at the point where I can get to the long delayed taxes, but almost. Maybe next week.

Back in 1997 Mark Zeising published one of the most underrated story collections / story cycles I know of: Kim Newman and Eugene Byrne’s Back in the USSA. The book, now sadly long out of print and pretty much only available to collectors, is clever, moving, and a lot of fun. It deserved to be a lot more widely read than it was, and hopefully time will correct that.

Today’s mail, happily, brought a new short story collection from the indefatigable Mr Newman, The Man from the Diogenes Club. The book, which features an absolutely note-perfect cover from John Picacio is a thing of beauty, and I can’t wait to sit down and read it over the coming days. You’ll hear more about the adventures of Richard Jeperson and the Diogenes Club here soon enough, in the meantime go buy one. What’s it like? Hmmm. Imagine if Austin Powers was as cool as he thinks he is, and actually investigated something, then you might be in the area. The stories are, generally, smart, creepy and very well done. I can’t wait.

Kevin Kelly has an interesting article about books, copyright, scanning, google, and all that stuff at the New York Times site. Regardless of the correctness or incorrectness of any of his views, opinions or research, one thing is indisputably correct: technology will take the argument away from us all. Last week I was on a website that offered 1100 science fiction titles by authors with surnames beginning with “V”. Had I wanted them, searchable texts of fifteen or twenty Jack Vance books sat there for me to take. I didn’t, but I could have. It won’t be that long before we won’t be able to stop the digital tide, should we even want to.