I forgot that Sterling was fuh-nee! The Leggy Starlitz stories are f*cking hilarious. I love them. Even though they’re out of date, pointing back to some bygone moment just after the Russians tore down the wall, they’re still the most up to the moment thing Sterling’s ever written. There’s lots more to say on this. The Shaper/Mechanist stuff is a hipper version of Baxter’s Xeelee stuff, but out of date. Gone daddy, gone. “Dori Bangs”, though, will never date. Nor will the fantasy stuff. And, how did I miss that “Taklamakan” was what brought it all full circle? Suddenly, there is it is: Leggy Starlitz meets the Shaper/Mechanists. A Russian scam about star travel buried deep under some crazy-ass Asian steppe. Awesome stuff. More on this soon, but (a) you need to buy this book when it comes out – the collections are no substitute; (b) you have to read from the beginning to the end – no skipping; and (c) I need to write the goddamn flap copy.

Oh, and anyone got ideas for the title for an original antho series? It’s getting ridiculous.

PS: I love the interwebs when proofing. Sterling refers to ‘kawai’ as Japanese cuteness in a story. Google says 3.8 million hits, if you spell it ‘kawaii’. Neat. You need to be cautious, but how useful is that?

I stumbled across this on amazon.com. It’s the cover for Neil’s YA collection, M is for Magic. I’m very curious to see what stories are in the book, if there are new ones, and to get a chance to read it when it’s out (in July). Always more books to look forward to.

It’s the awards silly season, or at least the beginning of it. The Australian National Science Fiction Convention has just released the nomination form for 2007 Ditmars. All seems pretty much as usual, with nominations closing 27 March 2007. And Nippon 2007, this year’s World Con, has released the nomination form for the 2007 Hugo Awards. There may be some problem with this though, with Patrick Nielsen Hayden pointing out that there appear to be errors with the nomination form.

With some hesitation, and an awareness that you can step over the boundaries of good taste in these matters, I simply point interested nominators to this page.

Care package in the mail today. Five books from my San Francisco publisher: Al Reynolds’ Zima Blue; Jay Lake’s Trial of Flowers; Liz Williams’ Demon and the City; Matthew Hughes’ Majestrum; and Alex Irvine’s Pictures from an Expedition. Damn but these guys do pretty books, and good books. You need to go check out their site, I suspect they’ll have something for what ails you. They’re doing my year’s best in a couple months, and another project in October. I’m pretty happy about that.

Oh, and it’s Ditmar nomination time (via Russell) and there’s a good newsletter you can sign up for at Peter Beagle’s website. I just got the latest instalment today, and it’s worth it for Peter’s piece on winning the Hugo. Nice segue from the previous post, hey.

Some time this year Peter Beagle turns sixty-eight. Even though he’s nowhere near the oldest guy out there writing science fiction or fantasy, he’s getting up there. And yet, somehow, even though he’s sixty-eight and has been publishing first rank work since before I was born, he’s still producing fiction that wins awards, gets critically raved about and, more importantly, is loved by readers everywhere. I mean, he wrote The Last Unicorn in the late ’60s and “Two Hearts” in 2005, The Folk of the Air in 1986 and Tamsin in 1999. He’s a seriously impressive writer, and one of the best fantasists we’ve ever seen.

Which got me to thinking. I don’t think this is inappropriate. After all, the judges haven’t been empanelled yet, and if they have, they haven’t been announced and I certainly don’t know who they are, so… how about Beagle for the World Fantasy Award? Not for best novelette for “Salt Wine” or “El Regalo” (though both would be worthy nominees in my opinion), but for Life Achievement. I don’t know how many people deserve to be recognised for lifetime achievement by the World Fantasy Convention, but Beagle would have to be one of them. A writing career that stretches back nearly fifty years, at least one genuine world straddling classic, and a very, very impressive body of work. I really hope he gets considered.

PS: As a booklover and Beagle reader, I’d love to see a treasury of his best short fiction. I’m probably alone, but it’d be something really special.