Year’s Best

The cover for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 2 is here! The art is by the awesome John Berkey, and design is by the extremely wonderful Claudia Noble. Check it out!

I’m really delighted with the way the book has turned out, and can’t wait to see it when it comes back from the printer. Many thanks to Claudia, Jeremy, Jason and Ross at the Shade for the great job they’ve done on it. I’m hoping to have copies at Swancon next month. You can order a copy here. Oh, and just to reassure everyone, I am reading for volume three pretty much even as we speak.

Really?

Alison Barrow of Transworld in the UK is quoted in an article about Dan Brown in The Times Online, saying:

“There is never any clause from publisher to a novelist that they have to deliver at a certain time. We would not impose such a thing on a contract.”

Allowing that this is Dan Brown and that she probably is only referring to bestsellers like Brown, has anyone ever heard of a contract with a publisher that doesn’t specify a delivery date?

Eclipse Two – A further clarification

I’ve had a couple very nice and polite queries (which were both perfectly reasonable and welcome) that make me think it’s probably a good idea to clarify something about the Eclipse Two guidelines. The guidelines are the guidelines, and there are no exceptions.  The submission period is 1 February 2008 to 29 February 2008 (Perth, Western Australia time).  The length of story is 2,500 to 10,000 words.  The stories must be original, not previously published in any way, and not be under simultaneous submission. They must be science fiction or fantasy, and clearly genre. They also must be submitted by email in .rtf format.  I want to see as many submissions as possible, but in order to be fair to everyone I think I need to apply the guidelines uniformly.

I should probably also add that these guidelines don’t apply to the writers who were directly invited to contribute stories to the book by me.  If I invited you, and you were kind enough to say yes or maybe or perhaps (you know who you are!), then the original guidelines that I specified in my letter of invitation apply.

If anyone has any queries about the conditions around Eclipse Two, please do not  hesitate to contact me.