The Hugo results are online at Making Light. Enormous congratulations to all of the winners, but especially to CHARLES and my colleagues at Locus who well deserved their award, to my Locus colleague Tim Pratt for his first Hugo win, to Ian McDonald (who wrote an even better story for my book The Starry Rift!), and to Gordon van Gelder and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, two enormously fine editors. A terrific set of results.

Publisher’s Weekly reports that CHARLES N. Brown has been presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Writers of the Future weekend. I literally could not be happier.  I can’t imagine anyone who deserves such an award more than CHARLES, and am delighted that someone else agrees with me. He’s been a vital part of science fiction and fantasy for more than 40 years, and we’re very lucky to have him working our field. He also makes a great turkey stuffing, has fantastic taste in scotch, knows some awful jokes, and is exactly the kind of friend you want when things get tough.  Mazel tov!

Eclipse continues its race towards publication. The Night Shade posse have just given me permission to give you a peek at the cover of Eclipse 1. There may be a tweak or two, but essentially this is it. Nice, huh? I am very happy.

I was woken early by Sophie coming into our bed. She was very sweet, but sleep quickly went out the window. I suspect it might have been something to do with the rain. Jessica was up a little later, but having been sick with a virus off and on for the past week or so, is less than her usual sweet self. That means things are bit more stressful than they otherwise might be, but we’re still having a reasonably quiet morning. I had hoped to join some friends catching up with Marion McNamara this morning, but family commitments have overtaken that. I need to spend some time working on The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year 2 and editing Locus reviews today, so I hope we can catch up before she heads back to Adelaide.

Yesterday, I got to see a near-final cover for Eclipse 1, which I’m very happy about. When I saw the artwork that the publisher had chosen I was concerned about how it would work as a cover, but Michael Fusco has done a terrific job. I’ll get a copy of the final cover up here just as soon as it’s signed off on, but I’m definitely pleased with it.

…arrived today. it’s real!  cover should be soon, and then real books. i’m excited. it feels very unreal.