The Nebula results have been announced.  It’s hard not to wear your heart on your sleeve a little at awards time. Suffice it to say, I couldn’t be happier to see Kelly win her two awards, and to see Holly win the Not-the-Emperor award. Yay.

I was saddened to hear the news this morning that Grant McLennan, singer and songwriter for Australian band The Go-Betweens, died yesterday. I was mostly oblivious to the band during their first incarnation, when they took the UK by storm and were hailed as one of the finest bands to come out of this country. In April of 1999 McLennan toured Australia with fellow Go-Betweens leader Robert Forster as Forster & McLennan. On the 28th of April Russell Farr dragged me along to a show they were putting on at the Greenwich, a tiny and rather seedy bar located in the basement of His Majesty’s Theatre in downtown Perth. The duo ran through a string of Go-Betweens classics like “Head Full of Steam”, “Cattle and Cane”, “Spring Rain”, and the sublime “Streets of Your Town”. It was powerful, funny, moving stuff, and one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to. I’ve followed them through the three reunion albums which peaked with last years wonderful Oceans Apart, and have come to love their music. Six years seems to have slipped by in no time at all. Vale.

I’m a pretty lazy webbrowser. Can’t be bothered spending hours looking for cool stuff. Can’t be bothered checking and re-checking old places, while searching for new places, that can produce neat links for the blog. So, I’ve stolen a couple. From Locus: Online comes news that Scot Edelman is Blogging the Nebulas.  For those of us with our fingers crossed for Margo, Kelly, Geoff and the gang, Locus or Scot will probably be the first to break the news on the Nebs. Second, Gwenda reports that she and Jeff Ford have done a podcast interview with the unlikely Bat Segundo Show. Check it out.

A quick test. Herewith, four opening lines from four different stories. Two have been published, two will be shortly. Can you guess who they’re by?

1. When I was a small a steel monkey would come into my room.
   “The Dust Assassin”, Ian McDonald (The Starry Rift)
2. Kyle was the first to see the exploding cat
   “Kyle Meets the River”, Ian McDonald (Forbidden Planets)
3. Once there was a woman in Delhi who married a djinn.
   “The Djinn’s Wife”, Ian McDonald (Asimov’s)
4. I remember the night I became a goddess.
   “The Little Goddess”, Ian McDonald (Asimov’s)

Marianne and the girls are out today, or for most of it so far. Jess had unigym and Sophie had dance class, and I think they all then went for lunch at my mother’s place. Having had four and a half hours sleep in the past twenty eight, I finished proofing Science Fiction: The Very Best of 2005 this afternoon and have sent it back to Oakland. Best Short Novels: 2006 is, of course, all but finished. I’ve done my main pass through, and answered some followups from Kathy at the Club. Marianne has been working on Fantasy: The Very Best of 2005 too. Depending on how she feels, I might start in on it too. Once that’s done, I have an introduction to revise for The Starry Rift, then I can get to the taxes. Once the taxes are done, on to Miscellaneous Project #2.  Lots of reading in June. Time I can, frankly, not afford, but such is the course of matters.  Along the way I’ve been doing some reading for the year’s bests for 2007. I’m a long, long way behind on that, and usually depend on the winter months (the Reading Months when it’s rainy and grey outside) to get that done. I’ll be wasting a month of that in the US though, so I have to take some of that with me somehow, otherwise November will be the same kind of madness as April has been.

I can see some respite up ahead. If I can just get close to deadlines through to Christmas Eve, 2007, I’m home and hosed. I’ll be taking at least five months off work, if not longer. And then, I can do some quiet things, unwind, destress, and take care of myself.  So, twenty one months. That’s not so much. I got through 20 years of the day job.