The administrators of the Philip K. Dick Award have announced the 2007 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees. They are:

• GREY by Jon Armstrong (Night Shade Books)
• UNDERTOW by Elizabeth Bear (Bantam Spectra)
• FROM THE NOTEBOOKS OF DR. BRAIN by Minister Faust (Del Rey)
• NOVA SWING by M. John Harrison (Bantam Spectra)
• GRADISIL by Adam Roberts (Pyr)
• ALLY by Karen Traviss (Eos)
• SATURN RETURNS by Sean Williams (Ace Books)

I’m incredibly delighted with this list because, first, my dear friend Sean is up for the award (go Sean!) and second, because a book from one of my fave publishers Night Shade. Great news indeed.

I seem to be attracted to series TV at the moment. I finished watching The West Wing over the holiday break, and picked up Damages based on some recommendations. After three episodes, it’s starting to look very good. Of course, there are only thirteen episodes all up, so that’s not going to last long. I also checked out the first two episodes of The Wire, which I’ve heard widely lauded but not seen. Based on those two eps, it looks very promising. I’ll need to check it out some more over the next week before I decide to commit to all five seasons, though.

In the meantime, I’m getting ready to run through what books I’ll be working on this year, as opposed to those that’ll be published this year. I know I’ll be working on two books for the indefatigable Night Shade this year: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 3 and Eclipse Two. I’m reading for the year’s best, along with the LSSOE folk. It’s due at the end of October, so I’ve got a bit of time there. I’ve bought the first story for Eclipse Two and am waiting on the deadline for the rest of the stories to come in. It’s due in June, so again all’s well there. I’m also working on Godlike Machines for the SFBC. The deadline is still several months away, but I’ve bought terrific novellas from Greg Egan and Cory Doctorow for that. I’ll also probably start reading for both The New Space Opera 2 and a new project sometime this year. Hmm. There are also a few other things to follow up on. Busy, busy.

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.

Very nice review of Eclipse One over at Stainless Steel Droppings. It’s always really nice when someone like a book you’ve worked on.

Well, they made it!  The good good folk over at Not if You Were the Last Short Story on Earth have completed their journey through pretty much every story published during 2007, and issued their recommended reading list, and it’s very interesting. I was delighted to see three short stories from The New Space Opera make the list, and to see overlap with my year’s best for the year too. I also look forward to their further discussion of the list.  Often it’s far more interesting than the list itself.