A little bit late, for which all apologies, a second instalment in the “Books I’m Looking Forward to” series of podcasts.  I look at July and discuss:

• Lou Ander’s anthology Masked;
• Amelia Beamer’s debut novel The Loving Dead;
• Ted Chiang’s novella The Lifecycle of Software Objects;
• Terry Dowling’s new story collection Amberjack: Tales of Fear and Wonder;
• Ken Macleod’s latest novel The Restoration Game;
• Ian McDonald’s The Dervish House; and
• Charles Stross’s The Fuller Memorandum.

Had a good party last night. The eight of us – my mother, brother, sister, her partner, Marianne, the girls and I – all headed to my mother’s place for a farewell dinner for my sister Barbara and her partner Bec, who are moving to Melbourne tomorrow. As I said yesterday, we’re a small group, so it’ll make a huge difference, but we ate and drank and enjoyed each other’s company one last time for a while.  It was a good thing to do, and for some reason the cold, rainy evening held at bay outside made the perfect backdrop.

I meant to read when I got home, but we were in late and it took a while to get the girls into bed, so I goofed around on the web a little, then slept, if a little fitfully. It’s a rainy morning here now and I’m sitting in my front room and listening to a little more of the Neko Case. I have some things to do and some things I’d like to do today, so I’m not sure what will get done. Sophie’s got a playdate at 1pm, which sort of sits bang in the middle of  lunch and such, but I’d like to get down to Mt Lawley if I can, maybe stop in to Planet or something like that, grab a coffee – who knows?

There is a podcast to do, and I’m waiting to hear from Gary on that. There might be a special guest – Gary’s at Readercon and I told him to surprise me – so we’ll see how that goes.  That’s the only solid commitment. Still the day awaits. I’m going to approach it slowly.