I hate teasers and excerpts. They leave you interested, but unsatisfied. Still, Asimov’s has put about 30% of Ian McDonald’s latest Cyberabad story “The Djinn’s Wife” online as a teaser for it’s July 2006 issue. It’s well worth checking out, and you really should subscribe.

The admistrators of the 2006 Hugo Awards have placed the official ballot online. You can vote and all that Hugo goodness. All you need is your membership number and Hugo PIN. If, like me, you’ve not received your PIN yet, you can query that by email.

Marianne’s away this weekend, so I’ve been hanging out with Jess and Sophie, with help from Nan. Friday afternoon/evening was slow and easy. Took the girls to a party with about 40 little girls dressed and pink and getting into the disco boogie thing. This morning Sophie went to dance class, and I took Jess to Unigym. She swam, as you can see.

I’ve only just finished proofreading my forthcoming anthology, Fantasy: The Very Best of 2005. It has a lot of terrific stories in it, but one of my favorites is Mary Rickert’s “Anyway”. I love her story “Cold Fires”, and was really disappointed I couldn’t get it into the previous annual, so was particularly pleased I could include one of her stories this year.

I first noticed Rickert’s short fiction in the pages of F&SF, where most of her short fiction has been published, and as one story after another has appeared, have become more and more impressed by what she’s doing. That’s why I was really excited to hear that Golden Gryphon were going to publish her first collection, Map of Dreams, later this year. It’s edited by Marty Halpern, who always does an amazing job on the books he works on (he’s one of the really underappreciated editors working around the place), and, having read many of the stories in the book, I’m sure Map of Dreams is going to be outstanding. What I would say to Coode Streeters is, go read her story “Anyway” over at SciFiction. If you like it, pre-order it with the publisher, an online retailer, or your favorite bookstore. Publishing first collections is always a tricky business, and this is one that really deserves your support.

Today I emailed a proofread manuscript to the publisher, scratched away at an introduction for another book, hated PDFs, thought way too much about the Vance book, got a stress headache, posted a physical manuscript to another publisher, and blogged a bit. Tomorrow Jess and Sophie have a pink Princess disco party to go to. Marianne’s away for the weekend getting well deserved rest, so I’ll be doing that one. I’m not yet at the point where I can get to the long delayed taxes, but almost. Maybe next week.