Went to the post box on Tuesday to find a package from Shaun Tan containing the original drawing for one of the stories for Kelly Link’s new collection, Pretty Monsters, the one for “The Specialist’s Hat”, which I really love. Got home today and Sharyn had sent me the galley for the book, which looks terrific!  Sometimes life is really quite good.

I just finished Graham Joyce’s third young adult novel, Three Ways to Snog an Alien and I loved it. I like TWOC, his first YA, and really liked Do the Creepy Thing(*), which I think has the best title. Three Ways… is just about the most English book Joyce has written. ‘Our Doogie’ lives in Conventry with his mum and dad, and is spending his time at school doing his best to just kick back, play dumb, and have fun. But, there’s this girl, Angelica, who is pretty and interesting and a bit weird looking too. He’s interested in her, but could she be an alien? Getting dating tips from datingtips.com isn’t helping either.

The strength of this book is Doogie’s character. He’s actually smart and perceptive and funny. The book is laugh out loud funny. I don’t know if it’s science fiction – it could be – but mostly what it is is terrific and engaging and one Joyce’s best books. It’s out in July and you should definitely check it out.

Update:

* The title has been changed in the US to The Exchange.  This is a good title, I just really like the original.

So, I think I’ve developed an irrational fear. Last year, through no one’s fault (and pointing the finger at no-one), more than half of the writers who had committed to writing for Eclipse One spontaneously dropped out during the last week before the deadline. I had to get an extension to the deadline, find new writers to be involved, and so on.  Anyway, the deadline for Eclipse Two is May 18.  That’s not so far away. Now, I’ve bought some stories for the book and have my eye on a couple more, and a bunch of people have said they should have stories in, but I think I’m going to be edgy about this one until it’s been put to bed.

A reasonably positive review of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 2 over at The Fix. Obviously I like the book a bit more than the reviewer did, and I calculate the SF/F split a bit more evenly.  As to whether readers will find it too diverse or not, time will tell. I tend to believe in the idea that there are readers who are short fiction readers first and then sf or fantasy readers second.  I also think there are a lot of readers who happily will read both.  Still, interesting to see another view.

I don’t remember when I read a book or story by Gwyneth Jones for the first time. I was certainly aware of her work in Interzone, and I recall seeing the Allen & Unwin editions of some of her novels, but I never got around to picking them up. I also clearly remember having her ‘White Queen’ series of novels recommended to me. For whatever reason – perhaps I just wasn’t ready – I didn’t start reading her work until Bold as Love was published.

Hopefully all readers of this blog are familiar witht he five novels that make up the ‘Bold as Love’ sequence. The first book in the sequence is simply one of my favorite books. A barnstorming political rock ‘n’ roll fantasy, I loved it from the first and eagerly consumed the next four books as they came out. I dismissed then, as I do now, that the books are too British to find an American audience, and I’ve never been convinced by those readers who don’t find the idea of rock stars becoming political figures plausible.

Lately, though, I’ve fallen in love with her short fiction. She sent me a wonderful story, “In the Forest of the Queen”, for Eclipse One. I think her story in The Starry Rift, writing as ‘Ann Halam’, is possibly even better. And then there’s the story she did for The New Space Opera. You can see some of Gwyneth’s thoughts on space opera over at MindMeld, and I think they clearly underpin “Saving Tiamaat”, which is one of my own favorite NSO stories.

The reason I’m mentioning this now is that Gwyneth has posed four stories in her “Buonarotti” sequence on her blog. You can read:

1. The Tomb Wife
2. Saving Tiamaat
3. The Voyage Out
4. The Fulcrum

If you’re not familiar with her work, you should really try these. It’s a wonderful mini-collection of great science fiction. And, if you’re as impressed as I am, you’ll be as excited as I was to hear that she’s finished a new space opera novel, The Princess of Boi Dormant, for Gollancz which hopefully will be out soon.

Update:

I should have mentioned that PS Publishing, one of my favorite small presses, has scheduled a new collection of Jones’ stories, Grazing the Long Acre, which is set to appear before year’s end. It should be an amazing book.