There’s an article about my two pals Jer and Jason in PW. It’s very cool, and so are they. Check it out.

Greg Egan has sold a new science fiction novel, Incandescence, to Gollancz. The book will be published in May 2008. No US edition seems to have been announced yet. You can read related story “Riding the Crocodile” to get a taste for the book.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden at Tor Books was kind enough to send me an advanced reader’s copy of John Scalzi’s new novel, The Last Colony. And then, when the first copy hadn’t shown up quickly enough, he sent me another. Both copies arrived safely, and I’ve duly read and enjoyed the book, however something’s been bothering me. The kindness of publishers isn’t something to be trifled with, and it’s not really fair on the world that I should end up with such bounty, so I’ve been thinking about what to do with the second The Last Colony ARC. And here it is. I’m going to run my first ever competition. The competition is this:

Scalzi Last Colony ARC competition

Create your own The Last Colony promotional image, post it on your blog, journal or website, and then let me know in the comments field to this post. If you don’t have a blog, journal, or website, email it to me, and I’ll add it here. The most interesting, entertaining or amusing will win the ARC, which will be posted by yours truly to your door. The competition is open from now until 21 March. The winner will be announcedhere on 22 March, and the ARC will be in the winner’s hands by the end of the month.

Just heard that Michael Swanwick has sold his new novel, The Dragons of Babel, to David Hartwell at Tor for a Fall 2008 publication. I’ve read all of the stories – Lord Weary’s Empire” and others – and they’re terrific. Can’t wait to see the final novel!!

When the good folk at SciFi.com decided to discontinue Ellen Datlow’s extraordinary SciFiction, the field lost it’s best and most important source of top quality new fiction online. There have been a few attempts to launch something to fill that gap, most notably Jim Baen’s Universe, but nothing has really filled the void left by SciFiction. Speaking as someone who reads fairly widely in the field, and who focusses on short fiction these days, you can almost see the whole left by SciFiction, the work simply not being published.

Into that void steps Bill Schafer’s Subterranean Magazine. After publishing a handful of print issues, Shafer is making the magazine a strictly online venture, and promises a lot of interesting top-notch material. If the Winter 2007 issue – with new work by Lucius Shepard, John Scalzi, and Poppy Brite – is anything to go by, then this is going to be something special. It shows every likelihood of becoming a must-see stop on the web, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it getting a lot of attention in coming months.