I’m at home today. Jessica was scheduled for an EEG, so I was set to work from home and keep an eye on Sophie, but someone was sick at the hospital, things got re-prioritised, and we’re back on the wait list for Jessica’s test. If it wasn’t a precautionary thing, if it were in any way urgent, it would be a real problem, but it’s not, so we’re going to see if it can all be rescheduled before school starts up.
Given that I was going to be home anyway, I decided to get on with my recommended reading essay for the February issue of Locus. I’m late with it, as usual, but have a pile of notes so I thought I’d get started. Because it’s school holidays here, Marianne decided to take the girls out to SciTech for a bit of a day trip and give me a bit of quiet to work. They’ve been gone for about four hours, and so far I’ve paid some bills, had useful discussions with Gary and Jack, had three visits from the kids next door looking for playmates, and spent some time analysing the recommended reading lists and drafting paragraphs for the final essay. If it goes like it tends to, at some point soon I’ll line these all up in row, set the list of my own recommendations down along side it, and just write over the top until it at least reads smoothly. The main thing I’m struggling with now is how to treat material that is on the list which I happened to work on. I worked on several things that I’m very proud of and will mention, but it feels like there’s a conflict of interest in doing so. sigh.
Other than that, I’m actually listening to music played on a stereo system with real speakers. Don’t let anyone tell you that iPods and such sound the same. They don’t. Not even close.
Well, grr on the tests.
That’s an interesting point, was reading an old Dozois intro the other day where he was talking about the same thing with Asimov’s and his editing that.
Think the LSS people brought up him putting Counterfactual on the Honorable Mention list, too (I hadn’t read it then, but it is really good and Hartwell picked it).
Can’t say for others, The New Space Opera is clearly one of the best books of the year. A list that leaves that off would be !?&%&^?# It is one of the best few original anthologies I have ever seen. If I look at the numbers, this is a bit ahead of New Legends, for example. Didn’t get to Wild Cards though, but that is a different thing perhaps. ;-)
Pity there is no SF anthology/collection category like the World Fantasy for you to point at.
The thing about the EEG being rescheduled is a bummer, but at least they did it when it was definitely non-urgent, and when we’d not actually *done* anything to get ready. Also, this is what happens with socialised medicine sometimes, unfortunately. We’re philosophical.
Blue Tyson, the real issue is not what Locus can recommend, but what I can. I stand by the books I’ve worked on during 2007. I’m incredibly proud of all of them, and love the stories. I just need to avoid conflicts of interest in these cases, be fair to others.
Oh, you mean they do more than one list then?