The countdown to the publication of Engineering Infinity is definitely on. Even though the book isn’t out till January of next year, it just got its* first review (a decent one) over at Locus: Online, where Lois Tilton says many nice things about the book. Check it out. You can order it here.

*Spelling error corrected as per P.Hollo

I’m very pleased to announce that I have been asked to be an invited guest at Swancon 36, the 50th National Australian Science Fiction Convention, which will be held in Perth, Western Australia 21-25 April 2011.  It should be an enormous amount of fun, with friends coming from all over the place to catch up and discuss things SFnal.  I’m not sure what I’ll be doing there, other than sitting in the bar (best convention passtime EVAH), but I look forward to seeing you all over that weekend. It should be totally mintox! (Hmm, wonder if the Hyatt bar staff know how to make seabreezes…)

Sixteen days till Christmas here, and the weather’s turning warmer after a cool-ish turn. I’ve been working from home today, and likely will tomorrow as we’ve been somewhat struck down by illness here at Merton Way.  The ear problem that I’ve been struggling with off and on all year is back, and this time I’m going to see a specialist who hopefully will be able to finally get on top of it. Marianne has been knocked out by some kind of bug too – the flu or something, so she’s pretty much wiped out.

Neither of which is the serious one.  As some of you know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while my eldest has occasional seizures, and she’s just been through several. Having not had a seizure for a year, she had one three weeks ago and then two in the past 24hrs. It’s all a bit scary, truthfully, but likely not an enormous deal. She’s been exhausted as a result, and will see her neurologist on Monday. In the meantime we’re keeping a close watch on her and hoping all will be well.

Most of the other things happening are fairly trivial by comparison. Having delivered the year’s best three weeks ago, I’m waiting on the copyedits. Having turned it in so early I’m confident we’ll have a couple weeks to go over them, but you never know. The copyedits are almost certain to overlap finishing up Eclipse Four, which frankly has been the most difficult in the series to work on so far. I think the final book will be a good one, but it has called into question the viability of the whole enterprise again (even though I do love it).

Once Eclipse Four is laid to rest I can focus on The Best of Joe Haldeman, Cyberpunk, and Under My Hat. Busy busy. There are also the proposals I mentioned earlier, which will go out in the New Year. Oh, and I’ve been working behind the scenes to compile the short fiction section of the Locus recommended reading list, which comes out in February. Lest you think I simply put it together myself randomly, it actually involves collating votes and opinions from about ten people and is a little tedious to do, but worthwhile once done.

Have there been highlights? Yes there have! I finally got a copy of Godlike Machines – I bought it from abebooks.com and happily recommend them as a possible source – and I’m very pleased with it. I think it’s probably the best book I had published this year, though I’m a notoriously poor judge of these things. I greatly enjoyed recording the podcast with Gary, John and Cheryl that went up earlier this week. Lots of fun. I’m now reading Jo Walton’s fabulous Among Others, and am thinking it might be a good discussion basis for the next podcast. It’s very good, and Gary’s already read it. Hmmm.