Good pal and publisher Jeremy Lassen has just posted this question over at the Night Shade discussion board: What is your favorite Cthulhu Mythos story?  I think it’s a great time to be asking this question, and to see what kind of Mythos stories people are loving at the moment.  For what it’s worth, I think Laird Barron is doing some of the best new Mythos stories, but I especially love a story called “The Vorkuta Event” by Ken Macleod, which I was lucky enough to read just recently.

The Locus Poll has closed.

One of the (all too brief) highlights of the recent Swancon was seeing Glenda Larke, who I’ll also be seeing in Denver at WorldCon (yay!).  She is still travelling around Western Australia before heading home and has much that is sensible, smart and interesting to say about the Tiptree Award.  I also join her in congratulating Karen in making the short list.

Over at Small Beer they’re giving away John Kessel’s fabulous new collection, The Baum Plan for Financial Independence. Kessel is a wonderful writer, and his new book is a treasure. I’ve read all of the stories in the book and love far more of them than I don’t.  I love them enough that I’ve already ordered the hardcover edition of the book from Slow Glass Books.  If you’re not familiar with Kessel’s work, dowload the book from Small Beer, try it, and then consider picking up a dead-tree version.  This guy’s stuff is worth killing the odd tree for. Honest.

Awards are curious things, they exist for many reasons. One reason, for literary awards, is to effect the way readers behave. An award, hopefully, will make a book stand out from the pack and make a reader more likely to pick it up, consider it, buy it, and read it. But do we react to awards in that way? I was struck by my own reaction to the news that Sarah Hall’s novel, The Carhullan Army, has won the Tiptree. Before I heard the news I’d been vaguely considering picking up the book. When I heard it had won the Tiptree, I had this reaction where I went “Oh”, and lost interest. I think it may have something to do with whether you identify yourself as belonging to the tribal group that comes with the award. I identify as being part of the group that would like Hugo, Nebula, Locus, or World Fantasy Award winners. For some reason, I don’t identify with the Tiptree. I don’t think it’s a feminist thing, it’s something else.

Postscript: Checked the list of Tiptree winners. Some fabulous works that I have loved have won. And yet I can’t shake the feeling that if it wins the Tiptree, it’s likely to be a tract.  Illogical, but there you go.