Gavin Grant and Kelly Link have announced that there will be no volume of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror published in 2009.  This is sad news indeed. I remember picking up the first volume, with its creamy Tom Canty cover, back when it was just The Year’s Best Fantasy, and have followed it every year as it became the award-winning icon of the field that it has become.
The note from Gavin and Kelly doesn’t say much about the fate of the series, but I hope it turns out well for everyone involved. Gavin, Kelly, and Ellen are all friends, and I would only want success for them.
The nominees for the Philip K Dick Award have been announced.  A huge shout out to my friend and co-editor, Lou Anders, whose excellent anthology Fast Forward 2 is up for the award. It is, I believe, only the second fiction anthology to be nominated in the history of the award.
I was listening to Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers, talk about Fleetwood Mac, the theory that it takes you ten thousand hours of practice to become accomplished at any complex task, and on the nature of creativity. It was fascinating.
At the end of his talk Gladwell is asked what lessons we should take from the idea of ten thousand hours and he says that “the things we do should be approached with a degree of seriousness and dignity”.  It made me think about editing, which I’ve been doing since 1990. I guess I’ve spent 10,000 hours at it by now, though I may only be approaching that. I don’t claim any particular proficiency for myself – I only started seriously considering editing a career for me last year – but the idea that it should be approached with seriousness and dignity resonated.  I think it’s a worthwhile task, I enjoy it, and I like the challenge of becoming professional at it.
SFWA have released the official Nebula Preliminary Ballot, which at first glance is the same list I blogged about previously. It seems to transpose the nominees for Novella and Novelette, which I’m sure is an error that will be fixed. The list contains some exceptional work, but it overlooks an awful lot of stuff, or so it seems to me.
The most surprising thing about the Ballot, on reflection, is that members could find two very worthy young adult novels to nominate in the Best Novel category (and they’re both excellent), but couldn’t find any worthwhile works to nominate for the Norton Award. It’s quite disappointing, especially when you consider the number of excellent YA genre works being published at the moment.
The following stories were published in the two original anthologies I edited that were published during 2008, The Starry Rift and Eclipse Two. They include stories that would be eligible for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy and other awards.
Best Novella (17,500 – 40,000 wds)
The Surfer, Kelly Link
Best Novelette (7,500 – 17,500 wds)
Turing’s Apples, Stephen Baxter
The Rabbi’s Hobby, Peter Beagle (fantasy)
Lost Continent, Greg Egan
Ex Cathedra, Tony Daniel
Sundiver Day, Kathleen Ann Goonan
The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm, Daryl Gregory
Incomers, Paul McAuley
The Dust Assassin, Ian McDonald
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, David Moles
Skin Deep, Richard Parks (fantasy)
Fury, Alastair Reynolds
The Star Surgeon’s Apprentice, Alastair Reynolds
Hero, Karl Schroeder
Post-Ironic Stress Syndrome, Tricia Sullivan
Pinochio, Walter Jon Williams
Best Short Story ( < 7,500 wds)
Repair Kit, Stephen Baxter
Exhalation, Ted Chiang
Michael Lauritis is: Drowning, Paul Cornell
Truth Window, Terry Dowling
Cheats, Gwyneth Jones
Elevator, Nancy Kress
An Honest Day’s Work, Margo Lanagan
Night of the Firstlings, Margo Lanagan (fantasy)
Infestation, Garth Nix
The Dismantled Invention of Fate, Jeffrey Ford
The Seventh Expression of the Robot General, Jeffrey Ford
