I’m in the process of resuming normal posting, but in the meantime: iTunes! What gives?!? The music store is like totally wrong. I had to give them a few million times more information than I would give to a bricks and mortar store, and that was to retrieve a (very welcome) gift voucher. Apple needs to rethink (quickly) what its doing or the only choices will end up being either to download music for free from bittorrent (at higher quality and available earlier) or buy it from the bricks and mortar guys. At the moment, I currently download freebies as previews and buy the disk if I want it (deleting the downloaded files on the way). I want to buy music. I’m happy to pay creators, middlemen and the whole crowd. Hell, I’ve been doing it since I was eight years old. Why would I stop now? But buying low quality DRMd files from a bunch of dumbass California hippies who want account information and such? Not ever again.

Well, I’m back from Conjure. Many thanks to all who helped run the convention, all of the volunteers and organisers, and everyone who turned up for the panels. I had a wonderful time, and am very grateful indeed for the opportunity to attend. Special thanks too, to the ABC, who paid a lot of attention to the event, took it seriously, and were a very welcome presence. There were a lot of highlights: the juvenilia panel, the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest disco, Bruce’s GoH speech, Cory’s talks on DRM. The best things, as always thought, were seeing old friends and meeting new ones. The science fiction family only convenes from time to time, so I hope to see you all at the next stop.

Not me. The ABC Arts journal, Articulate.  I did an interview with ABC journalist Gary Kemble, the ABC’s James O’Loughlin, and with Paul Voermans at various times over the weekend, and just prior to the convention. Articulate has what I think is the interview I did with Gary, which you can find here.

I will be headed off to Conjure, this year’s Australian National Science Fiction Convention, in three or four hours. I will be in Brisbane for the event from Thursday 13 April till late on Monday 17 April. I will have minimal, if any, email access while I’m there. I will get return emails as soon as I return on 18 April.

There are many reasons to join The Science Fiction Book Club, but this is one of the ones that I’m happiest to be able to report on. Last year, as readers of this blog know, Jared at Centipede Press published a handsome volume that collected the best stories by the husband and wife writer team Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore. The book was a lovely object, but it’s only real flaw was that it’s price put it beyond the reach of many readers. While I still wouldn’t hesitate to direct the dedicated collector towards the Centipede Press edition of Two-Handed Engine: The Selected Stories of Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, I think it’s a wonderful thing that the SF Book Club has been able to arrange to publish its own edition of the book. It’s a massive volume, 928 pages in all, and I can’t wait to see it. You can, of course, order it from the Book Club. I know it’s unfortunate that readers outside North America can’t sign up for the Club, but if you can sign up, I think it’s worth it. I wouldn’t hesitate to do so, if I but could.