I hope that at some appropriate point in the future someone will publish The Collected Stories of Kage Baker. It would be a fine, rich and entertaining set of books. In the meantime, Subterranean Press have a new story, “The Bohemian Astrobleme”, on their website. Go read it, or go buy one of her books. The ‘Company’ novels are fun, but her fantasy novels are excellent, and she was a very fine short story writer.

I awoke this morning to the extremely sad news that Kage Baker has died.  Sadly, I never really got to meet her. I read and reviewed her first novel, In the Garden of Iden, for Locus when it was published in 1997, and was in touch with her via email several times obtaining rights to stories to reprint in my year’s bests. I was also fortunate enough to be able to solicit two fine stories, “Maelstrom” (The New Space Opera 2) and the yet-to-be-published “Attlee and the Long Walk” (Life on Mars). She was a fine writer, a delight to deal with, and I honestly thought I’d be buying and reading her stories for years to come.  A sad day indeed. I think I might mark it by reading The Hotel Under the Sand with my eight-year-old daughter, Sophie. I don’t doubt Kage’s work will long out live her, but that doesn’t make this news any more welcome.

 

The February issue of Locus is out now. It includes the annual recommended reading coverage, the Recommended Reading list etc etc. Some of it should be online shortly, but it’s a reasonably comprehensive coverage of science fiction and fantasy in 2009.

And yes, I do work for them. I wish there was an iPhone app for it.

ETA: The Recommended Reading list is now online.