I don’t have a cover yet, but this coming June HarperCollins Australia will publish Dreaming Again, a new anthology edited by my good pal Jack Dann.  The book is a sequel anthology to his earlier Dreaming Down-Under, which he co-edited with Janeen Webb, and which won the World Fantasy Award. I thought the first book was excellent, a really strong and varied book of interesting stories. The second book looks almost as good, and features a whole bunch of different people, which suggests that the Australian scene is really healthy.  I’m going to get on with reading this shortly, and you should pick it up in June. I’m also waiting for the third book in 2018!
1.    “Old Friends,” Garth Nix
2.    “A Guided Tour In the Kingdom of the Dead,” Richard Harland
3.    “This Is My Blood,” Ben Francisco and Chris Lynch
4.    “Nightship,” Kim Westwood
5.    “The Fooly,” Terry Dowling
6.    “Neverland Blues,” Adam Brown
7.    “The Jacaranda Wife,” A. G. Slatter
8.    “The Constant Past,” Sean McMullen
9.    “The Forest,” Kim Wilkins
10.    “Robots & Zombies, Inc.,” Lucy Sussex
11.    “This Way to the Exit,” Sara Douglass
12.    “Grimes and the Gaijin Daimyo,” A. Bertram Chandler
13.    “Lure,” Paul Collins
14.    “The Empire,” Simon Brown
15.    “Lakeside,” Christopher Green
16.    “Trolls’ Night Out,” Jenny Blackford
17.    “The Rest Is Silence,” Aaron Sterns
18.    “Smoking, Waiting For the Dawn,” Jason Nahrung
19.    “The Lanes Of Camberwell,” Cecilia Dart-Thornton
20.    “Lost Arts,” Stephen Dedman
21.    “Undead Camels Ate Their Flesh,” Jason Fischer
22.    “Europa,” Cecily Scutt
23.    “Riding On the Q-ball,” Rosaleen Love
24.    “In From the Snow,” Lee Battersby
25.    “The Lost Property Room,” Trudi Canavan
26.    “Heere Be Monsters,” John Birmingham
27.    “Purgatory,” Rowena Cory Daniells
28.    “Manannan’s Children,” Russell Blackford
29.    “The Fifth Star In the Southern Cross,” Margo Lanagan
30.    “Twilight In Caeli-Amur,” Rjurik Davidson
31.    “Paradise Design’d,” Janeen Webb
32.    “The New Deal,” Trent Jamieson
33.    “The Last Great House of Isla Tortuga,” Peter M. Ball
34.    “Conquist,” Dirk Strasser
35.    “Perchance To Dream,” Isobelle Carmody

Told you I was lazy.  I was mucking about on the laptop, not really doing what I should be doing, and came across a working list of book projects I intended to do someday soon. The list was from October 2005.  Nearly all of the projects on the list are on the current list, and two of them cover two of the three proposals I’m supposed to be writing today and tomorrow.  Gack.

My friend and former editor Andy Wheeler spends some time musing on Eclipse One. I don’t agree with everything he has to say, and I don’t disagree with it all either, but I do respect the heck out of his opinion and appreciate his discussing the book at such length.  Are Lou and I jump-starting the original antho series market? I don’t know. I know there should be at least three Eclipse volumes, depending on the support of you the reader, and I like and respect what Lou’s doing enough to want to work with him on a book or two. I think our approaches would complement one another really well.  I’d also throw George Mann’s hat into the ring.  I thought his fantasy antho last year was patchy, but both volumes of The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction are excellent. I also suspect there’s some hope that Ellen’s Inferno and Del Rey Book anthos may turn into series, which would be a cool thing.

Enough. This must be ‘go to the doctor’ week. I’ve put this off and put this off, but I’m three weeks or so into a mild sniffly thing, my right arm is still quite sore, my left is beginning to bother me, and so’s my back. I’m sure it’s a case of two non life-threatening things combining: some kind of mild infection and a musculoskeletal thing that is having flow-on effects, but I’m just over it. I can’t read. I’m too uncomfortable. I can’t sit comfortably. And it’s not excruciating. It’s just uncomfortable, unless I’m trying to pick up something heavy with my right arm extended, when it is damn sore. So, doctors. No more whining. *

What else? Watched the Irish music film, Once, on the weekend. It’s terrific. I wasn’t familiar with either of the musician/actor leads, but thought they did a great job, and the music was actually good. Went out on Saturday night for dinner with Stef, Janet, Nick and Amanda for Polish food. I didn’t like the food much, but the company was great, which it always is, though Rob and Toula were definitely missed. We had enough fun that we’re actually talking about going away for a weekend together, which should be fun.

I did try to read, but not much came of it. I’m reading (still!, though it’s not the book’s fault), Ellen Datlow’s Del Rey Book of SF/F, and so-far it’s my favorite of her recent anthologies. Four other anthologies came in through the email, and I need to get to them. What else? Looks like Gardner and I just bought the first story for The New Space Opera 2, while The New Space Opera is coming out in French in about a year. Jack Dann and I killed one antho project on the weekend, but another is now all set. I’ll announce news here shortly. I also spoke to CHARLES, who seems to be doing well and reading a lot. Maybe I should ask him to be a reader for the year’s best?

I’m also progressing through the Eclipse Two subs, but nothing much so far. I’ve got a couple stories I’m considering (two I NEED to re-read), but the book isn’t coming into focus yet. I know it’s early days yet. The open reading has another few weeks to go, and the solicited subs aren’t due in for a while (though I do have a *very* good Nancy Kress story for the book), but I’m getting to the point where I want to have a better feel for it. Mainly, I know it should have a lot more SF in it, and absolutely no slipstream stuff at all, no way, no how, uh uh. But, we’ll see. Submissions processes are weird.

Hmm. I also did an SF Signal Mind Meld thing, which was fun. It’s a great project. And…well, stuff. Tomorrow is proposal writing day. At last. That means our book, Lou, at last! Sorry for the delays.

Oh, and did I tell you that apparently Jeff’s new collection is going to be called The Drowned Life, after his Eclipse One story?  I was damned chuffed when I heard. And he’s writing me a space opera story, which still makes me smile every time I think about it.
* No, Nick. This is WordPress, not an LJ.

The latest upgrade to the iPod Touch is nice,  but doesn’t really cut the mustard. What does it take to get me to break out my check book? Well, if you were to slap the iPod Touch interface onto a 160gb iPod Classic and hook it up to a the internet in a similar way to Amazon’s Kindle, then my money is yours.

Yrs truly,

Jonathan Strahan