The first reviews are coming out.  Here’s one from The Fix.

Well, Marianne left Sunday morning early.  I think I’m still being hit over the head by jetlag, but the day went smoothly.  Swimming in the morning, playing with friends in the afternoon, Sizzler for dinner. An easy day. Today, Monday, was all about school. I’d got clothes and lunches done the night before, so the morning was easy.  Everyone up and dressed, breakfast done, and time for a bit of The Little Mermaid before off to school in time for Sophie’s early tutoring.  The day for me was a mix of talking some stuff over with my mother, who was over to help with the cleaning, while I tucked into the work.  Locus editing done for this month — tick.  Tomorrow, year’s best intro and story notes.   If I can get that done on schedule, I can draft the NSO 2 intro on Wednesday and complete the years best ms. by Thursday.  That’ll give me Friday, nominally, off.  It’s a nice thought :)

PS: The deadline for the year’s best and the NSO 2 manuscripts is 1 December, but I’m desperate to get  the year’s best done ASAP.  Much else to do, and NSO2 might be trickier than I think.  Still need a running order on that, and a couple late stories.

Many thanks to everyone for the great time I had in Canada and California.  I’m tired, jetlagged, and probably have picked up some kind of bug from the trip, but I hope to be up and running by Monday.  Email responses will exist, but will be slow over the next day or so. Marianne’s off to the US Sunday, and it’s going to take me a day or two to find my feet.  However, I will be in touch.

It’s 5.15pm Tuesday 4 November.  Three hundred million or so United States citizens are voting or not voting or whatever their conscience determines (incidentally fundamentally affecting the short term future of much of the Western world).  I know a bunch of people who’re voting for Barack “Bazza” Obama and one who’s voting for John “Emperor Palpatine” McCain.  I think it should go Obama’s way, but who knows?  I hope so.

Truthfully, though, as I sit here in the Mission Bar & Grill in the San Francisco International Airport’s domestic terminal I’m mostly concerned with whether I can score an aisle seat with an empty seat beside it.  I have an hour and a half long flight down to LAX, have to switch terminals, then get through security and see if I can change my seat allocation, before getting on the 14 hour plus trip to Sydney. Then two hours in Sydney (again with the changing terminals), and on to Perth.  I’m basically 26 hrs from home, and I can imagine every minute.  All I ask is that it’s moderately comfortable.

… was a blur.  This time I didn’t even try to blog it, but much fun was had.  We arrived Wednesday afternoon, hooked up with Garth and my roommate Shaun and headed out for dinner.  The hotel was nice, the town was kinda odd, but the people were great.  Met up with Deb the next day and the convention was on.  The rest of the time is a blur of unexpected conversations in the bar, near convention rooms, and so on with Ellen, Ellen, Daniel, George, Chris, Bill, Walter, Jay, Ken, Gordon, Graham, and a lot of  others.   Like every good World Fantasy, it was exhausting, rewarding, delightful and a little depressing all at the same time.  The last day, though, kinda speaks to what the time was like. Delayed at the airport for several hours, we played hide and seek to while away the time. It was fun.  Tonight I head home.  I’ll miss everyone and am moving into the headspace where I’m just concerned about getting home, but I’m also aware that there’s a LOT of work to do just as soon as I get back.   A lot.