Dear readers,

I have ignored you of late, not posting regularly, for which I apologise. There are many reasons for this – family illness, sudden arrival of manuscripts that needed turning around quickly, demands of the day job, and so on and so forth. None of which should matter, but do. I have been meaning to praise some wondrous things, babble a bit, and so on, and it’s taken till now to get to it. Given the schedule for the next three months I’m not sure if this will change, but I’ll do what I can.

First, let us all praise wondrous things. A couple weeks back I was browsing the Strange Horizons website, and saw a review of a new Frances Hardinge novel by Farah Mendelsohn. I’d read Hardinge’s debut, Fly by Night and reprinted her short story “Halfway House” in this year’s Best, so I was intrigued to hear about this new novel, Verdigris Deep. I did a little research and was surprised to realise it had already been published and was in-store locally. I headed out and bought a copy, something I don’t do often, and pretty much read it immediately. It’s the story of three friends stuck without bus fare a long way from home who, in a moment of desperation, raid a roadside wishing well for coins. Things go awry, though, because each of the coins is a wish, and the ancient god that lives in the well derives its power from granting them. I think Mendelsohn pretty much gets it right when she says that Hardinge is the best new British writer for children since Diana Wynne Jones. The writing is terrific, the characterisation spot on, and the stories intriguing and wonderful. This really is a book you need to check out.

Second, Jeff VanderMeer. VanderMeer the writer sits in similar territory, for me, as Paul Di Filippo. I really, really love some of his work, and some of it leaves me scratching my head. This is an okay thing, even a very good thing, though. Who really wants everything to be predictable? A couple years ago Jeff had a story called “The Farmer’s Cat” in Polyphony 5. It was a marvelous sort of fractured fairy tale that I liked so much I reprinted it in my Fantasy: The Very Best of 2005. Jeff’s written a handful more of these stories, including the terrific “The Third Bear” over at Clarkesworld Magazine. I’m not sure where they come from, but I hope they end up in a book together some day. Jeff has also given a sneak peek at “Errata” over at his blog. I was fortunate to read the whole thing a couple years back, and think it’s some of his best work ever. Can’t wait to see it finally in print.

This post was to have contained other ruminations. My sudden desire to hear music from the 70s (Manassas, CSN, Peter Frampton for Chrissakes!), a desire to revisit decades-old action movies, my reading of Jay Lake’s Mainspring, and lots of other stuff, but I’ve sat on this post for two days already. I’ll come back to some or all of that soon. Till then, pop over to Clarkesworld and read the VanderMeer story and go try the Frances Hardinge book too. They’re both well worth it.