Jeremy Lassen has a lovely remembrance of John Berkey, artist extraordinaire, over at Night Shade.  Berkey’s art graces the cover of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Vol.2, and I felt privileged that it did.

Just wrote a long and detailed to post to describe what lead to yesterday’s shovel comment.  I then deleted it. You don’t need to hear my whining at length.  Basically, every anthology project has its highs and lows.  Yesterday was the ‘low’ day for Eclipse Two.  No fewer than five writers let me know that they’d not be able to deliver stories for the book.  This is completely understandable, and my comments here don’t reflect on them at all (it’s part of editing anthologies, and writing just isn’t business, it’s a creative art and isn’t perfectly suited to deadlines and such).  Anyhow, getting one email after the other telling me that there’d be no story kinda got me down (I’m prone to that anyway).  I began to think dark thoughts about the book.  And today?  Well, today is ‘get on with it’ day.  I’ve just accepted a terrific story by Ken Scholes, and am taking a close look at the stories I’ve got and working out what I still expect to get so I have a good idea of the shape of the book I’m dealing with.  And then? Well, then I send out some extra invites and see if I can make it look as seamless as possible.  This is exactly what happened with Eclipse One, and it turned out very well.  I’m sure I can get this book to that point too.  Of course, if you’ve ever sold me a story before and have one sitting around, now’s the time to drop me an email .

I finished reading Richard Morgan’s The Steel Remains last night.  It’s the first novel of a new fantasy trilogy, but can be read as a stand-alone.  It’s fast-paced, has visceral action, and is gripping reading.  I’m not entirely sure the graphic homosexual sex scenes are necessary to the book, though they certainly ground it in places (and add something for anyone who ever wanted to get it on with Elric).  I’d love to be able to dive into the second book in the series, but I’m guessing it’s not even written. Heck, this first one isn’t due in-store till August.  I definitely give it the big tick, if you’re not easily offended, and expect to see it hitting awards lists next year.