There’s a cleanness to the sound of the new REM album. Buck’s playing is crisp and urgent. There’s energy and direction. You can hear it most obviously in “Supernatural Superserious”, which is this album’s “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”. The album also has the benefit of being short. About 35 minutes, I think. Sometimes, most times in pop, brevity is best. I sometimes think about listening to their live set to see if they overcome the muddiness of the past three studio albums, but I can’t quite bring myself to. It’s enough that, fourteeen albums in, they’re still alive. That they sound like they care, and that we might, is remarkable.

Listening to Elbow. Not mine.  The group. Has anyone else noticed how much these very serious Coldplay / Snow Patrol / whomever types all seem to sing just a little bit like Sting?  I have the flu.  It is doing its job most effectively.  Head is stuffed up, feel nauseated, and less than generous of spirit.  Dinner is being cooked, and looking out the patio door I can see six of the next door neighbours’ ten kids playing with Jessica and Sophie.  If I had more energy, I’d go look for stick.  Sniff.

So Orangey, who had been mauled by Tony the Tangerine Barracuda, died yesterday.  We’re a sentimental family, so now that Orangey is sleeping with the fishes, we set out to get a replacement.  We came home with an unnamed black molly, an unnamed speckled fantail, and a second water snail called Pliny the Younger.  You can guess who named him.  His job is to help keep Tony’s tank clean, which he seems to be setting to with vigor.  There’s little for him to explore, but hopefully he’ll cope as well as Geoffrey (aka Nyarlothotep) has over in the main tank.  Hmm. I think I can see a larger tank in our future.

write the coolest books. I can’t wait to read this one or this one. And then, of course, there’s Leviathan.

Didn’t sleep well, but got up and started the day with good news. First, news that you can read Greg and Ken’s New Space Opera stories over at the Eos website got boingboinged (thanks Cory!). Second, Diana Gill at Harper let me know that plans are well advanced for a mass market paperback edition of the book this September. Both of those are plenty to make me smile.

Having just come off a weekend where The New Space Opera picked up two Australian awards and when it sits directly linked to four Hugo nominations, I’m feeling very good about the book. Right now, Gardner and I are reading for the second volume.  It’s early days yet, but we have a couple stories in and a lot more scheduled. I think it’ll be a lighter, more adventure-oriented volume, but hopefully will have a similar impact.  I also would love to end up doing one of these every two years.  I think it would be awesomely cool.
I’m also working on an answer to an SF Mind Meld question about space opera.  Working on NSO, The Starry Rift, and Godlike Machines has really brought home to me how much I love, and how other people respond to, centre-of-the-field science fiction, how much we love stories with rocketships, rayguns, robots and stuff.