There comes a time in any project, no matter how much you love it and have enjoyed working on it, when you’re ready for it to be done.  Marianne and I spent time today putting the finishing touches on Wings of Fire. We’re not quite done – we need to tinker with story notes a little and one or two other things – but we’re nearly done and when we are it goes off to the good folk at Night Shade for the next step on its journey towards becoming a book. When it does come back to us, as a copyedited manuscript for checking some time in early May, I’ll be delighted to see it again. Right now, though, I think I’ve seen enough dragons stories for a few days.

Things are progressing with Wings of Fire and I wanted to check in and let you all know the latest.  The first, and most important, piece of news is that I’ve acquired a co-editor for the book. Last year when I was feeling swamped with deadlines I turned to my wife, Marianne Jablon, for assistance. She’s a former managing editor of Locus, a comics reviewer, and worked for Dell at one point in an editorial capacity, so she was horribly overqualified to act as helper on the book.

Initially I just asked Marianne to help with paperwork, but as time passed and we got deeper and deeper into the project I realised that she was co-editing the book in all but name, so I thought that should be corrected. It’s our first co-edited project, and I doubt it’ll be our last.  She has great taste and is diligent at times when I might be asleep at the wheel, so Wings of Fire is going to be a lot stronger because of her involvement.

Where are we otherwise? Well, the stories are contracted, the story notes and introduction are written, and the various bits of interstitial material have been created.  We’re currently juggling the running order of the book, but once that’s finalised (and we’ll go right down to the wire), we’ll be done. The book is due at Night Shade on Monday, and we’re definitely going to make that deadline.

I’ve no doubt some of you would love to see the table of contents for the book, and I’d love to oblige, but we’re not quite ready. Give us till early next week, when we’ve delivered the final manuscript, and we’ll post it here. I think you’re going to be impressed. I know I’m very happy with how the book has developed.

As some of you might recall, when the Internet Review of Science Fiction sadly closed its doors recently short fiction reviewer Lois Tilton joined the extended Locus family as a short fiction reviewer for Locus Online.

The third instalment of Lois’s reviews just went up (they’re appearing three times each month*) and she looks at:

• Asimov’s, April/May 2010
• Analog, May 2010
• Clarkesworld, March 2010
• Apex Magazine, March 2010
• Electric Velocipede, Fall 2009

 You can also see her first two columns here and here.

* ETA: I originally thought Lois’s reviews were going up weekly. It’s since been confirmed they go up three times per month.

Some years ago I flew from Australia to California to meet up with Charles N. Brown, spend some time with him, and then head on to a convention. I don’t remember which one, but I remember that he met me at the airport with the newest Locus employee, a very sweet and kind woman named Amelia Beamer.  Over the years going to Oakland and going to WorldCon or World Fantasy was made much, much more fun because Amelia was going to be there.  We’ve eaten in restaurants in half a dozen cities, gone on road trips together, bought phones, accepted awards, taken pictures, laughed, cried, and basically become very good friends since that first meeting. I’ll never forget Wisconsin cheese hats or Liza’s first birthday party or any one of dozen other things. 

And over the years it became clear that not only was she sweet and kind and generous, she was tough and smart and talented, so when I heard she was writing an novel for my buddies over at Night Shade I was delighted.  The book, The Loving Dead, is only a few months away now.  It’s a zombie romance and I’m going to read just as soon as I can, but you can read it now (or at least start to) over at ameliabeamer.com. It’s a first novel, Connie Willis called it “a rollercoaster ride of a read” and it does have girls, zombies and zeppelins, along with a whole lot of other goodness.  What are you waiting for!?

The good folks over at Subterranean Press have just announced pre-orders for The Best of Larry Niven, a book I spent some time editing last fall.  It’s due out later this year and is a book I’ve always wanted to exist.  I love big career retrospectives and Niven’s initial burst of short fiction stands, in my opinion, alongside those from John Varley and Greg Egan, as one of the most impressive and important starts to a career in SF history.  I’d always been somewhat dissatisfied with the two big Niven retrospectives, N-Space and Playgrounds of My Mind, because they included novel excerpts and such.  This book is just the pure quill – 27 Larry Niven short stories in one big book.  For me it passes the toughest test of all – if I hadn’t worked on it myself I’d buy it. I think it’s essential.