It’s December. It’s raining outside on a Saturday night, two weeks shy of Christmas. Robert Sheckley just died, and the list of things that I have done lately is so much shorter than the list of things that I have to do, that I’m almost too embarrassed to mention it. Had a lovely chat with Simon, who is coming to Brisbane (aren’t you?) I think, if Sean is up for it, we’ll induct him into the International Society of the Little Pink Drink, expanding the membership in time for a full meeting of the Society in Saratoga. Tomorrow I’ll talk to CHARLES (who, on his occasional appearance here always appears in CAPS), which will be good.

In the meantime, I’m reading Sharyn November’s Firebirds Rising. It’s her second anthology, a follow on from the very fine Firebirds from a couple years back. I’ve not reached the end of the book yet (through no fault of the book’s), but have been struck by a string of very strong stories that sit close to the middle of the book. The best story in the book so far, and the best I’ve read so far that will be published in 2006, is Ellen Klages’ remarkable and lovely story “In the House of the Seven Librarians”. It’s the story of a library that is closed when a new building is opened on the other side of town, and how seven librarians move into the abandoned, but still functional building. As they settle into it, getting supplies and so on, a young baby is mysteriously left as payment for an overdue book fee. The story of how these women raise the child, the person the child becomes and such is utterly charming, without being sentimental at all. It is the kind of story that is done so well that it stands completely alone, but part of you secretly hopes it’s the prologue to an even more wonderful novel. Diana Wynne Jones’ “I’ll Give You My Word” is not quite as wonderful as Ellen Klages’s story, but it’s good. Jethro has a brother, Jeremy, who has some kind of language problem, answering questions with strange, complicated, seemingly irrelevant responses. Of course, they’re nothing of the kind, and Jeremy’s vocabulary proves very hand indeed. And then there’s Kelly Link’s “The Wizards of Perfil”, a story about a young woman sold into servitude by her mother and taken across country to serve one of the enigmatic wizards who live in tall stony towers in the marshes of Perfil, and are assisted only by young children. The wizards refuse to become involved in what’s happening in the country around them, but that may not be something that they can keep up in the face of the armies moving around them. There are other good stories in the book by the likes of Tamora Pierce, Sharon Shinn, and Nina Kiriki Hoffman, but these three are worth the price of admission to this book by themselves. In fact, I’ve got a rather battered looking galley (I’ve carried it literally half way round the world) and will almost definitely buy a copy of the book when it comes out in a couple months. At the moment, it’s a very strong contender for best fantasy anthology of the year. Check it out.
And now, back to work on Sophie’s book. She’s four, and she likes to write books with me. It’s sweet.

As I’ve reported here previously, I will be attending Conjure in Queensland next year. I’m pretty confident this will be my only convention appearance in Australia in 2006*, so I hope you’ll all buy memberships, and then head to BrisVegas for five days of fun in the Sun. I’m looking forward to seeing old friends, making new ones, and basically having a ball.

One of the reasons I’m particularly happy to be heading to BrisVegas is that Bruce Sterling is one of the guests of honor. I don’t know how long people have been trying to get Sterling out to Australia, but I know it goes back almost a decade. I’ve loved Bruce’s work ever since I read “Green Days in Brunei” in Asimov’s back in 1985, and think Holy Fire is one of the great science fiction novels of all time, so getting to meet him should be a blast.

And that leads me to my latest project. I’m delighted to announce that I will be editing Ascendancies: The Best of Bruce Sterling for Bill Shafer at Subterranean Press. The idea is to put together a massive collection (around 150,000 – 200,000 words of fiction) that gathers together the best of Bruce’s short work from 1976 – 2006. My guess is it should be somewhere around 500 pages long, in its final form, and will be published in the second half of 2006. I love the books that Bill produces, love ‘best ofs’ as a form, and love Bruce’s fiction, so I’m really excited to be involved. I think it’ll be something very special. I’ll get more information up here when and as I can. Oh, and if you’re a fan of Bruce’s fiction and want to make a recommendation about a story that you think must be in the book, feel free to say so in the comments, or drop me an email.

* I think Conjure will be the only convention I’ll get to in Australia this year. That said, I’d love to go to Continuum in Melbourne, with Charlie, Margo and Shaun, and think Conflux looks great too.

These are not good times, nor are they good days. Setting aside issues of climatic change, the collapse of democracy in the United States, and now the fear and reaction surrounding the hard line right wingers running our government, things are little better in any other sphere of life. As the ‘holiday season’ (forgive me if I say Christmas occasionally) approaches, it’s hard to feel celebratory.

It seems to me that books published around the end of the year, especially late December or early January, really run the risk of being completely overlooked. And, if those books are published other than in the general trade, the likelihood of being overlooked seems to increase markedly.

With that in mind, I thought I’d draw your attention to One Million A.D. , a new science fiction anthology edited by Gardner Dozois. It’s to be published by The SF Book Club in January (well, the website says it ships 31 December, so I’m calling it January), and features SF novellas by Greg Egan, Nancy Kress, Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Robert Silverberg, and Charles Stross. While I would be amazed if there wasn’t a trade edition of the book at some time, I can’t imagine a more convincing argument for making the commitment and joining the Book Club *. And, hey, they’ll be publishing my third best novellas anthology soon, and have a cool looking Marvin Kaye antho coming up too. All good stuff.

* Note: You can only join the Club if you’re in North America. Non-USians might try amazon.com or a similar reseller, who usually end up offering SFBC titles for reasonable prices.

Sunburnt and sore. Spent two hours swimming like a Mexican walking fish, which my passengers thought was hilarious fun, but left me tired. Sophie had her first ever Ferris Wheel ride, after an hour waiting in line. No work on projects this weekend. sigh. On with it this week, and the holiday ‘season’ approaches. I won’t have any time off, but I’m still looking forward to it.

If I owe you an email, all apologies. If you’re actually reading this blog in hope I’ll post something intelligent, apologies too. There will be something here soon. In the meantime, back to work.