Well, departure is almost nigh. Monday morning I head US-wards, although with some trepidation. It looks like a scary place these days. Here’s where I’ll be, if you’re interested.

Monday, Oct 24: Sydney, Australia
Tuesday, Oct 25 – Tuesday November 1: Oakland, California
Wednesday, November 2 – Monday, November 7: Madison Wisconsin
Tuesday, November 8: Oakland, California
Thursday, November 10: Perth, Western Australia

Hope to see lots of you!

Long time readers of this blog know that I always enjoyed La Gringa’s blogging and, after a long break, she’s back. You can read all about her adventures over at http://lagringa.blogspot.com.

It seems strange to be writing this but, as far as new short fiction goes, 2005 is almost over. I’ve read most everything published by the various print magazines, finished all of the anthologies and collections that I’ve been able to get hold of, and am reading the still-to-be-published online fiction as quickly as I can get my hands on it.

If all goes to plan, Karen and I will be turning in the final manuscripts for Science Fiction: Best of 2005 and Fantasy: Best of 2005 the week after I get back from World Fantasy in mid-November. And, with that in mind, pretty much the number one SF priority for the next few weeks is writing notes for the stories we’ve picked, and doing the introductions for the two books.

To add to that ‘end of the year’ kind of feeling, I have just completed a very rough first pass at the Locus Short Fiction Recommended Reading List, and Rich Horton has started to post his always essential Annual Magazine Summaries on his newsgroup (I don’t know if that link will remain stable, so check them out ASAP).

With all of that happening, I’ve been working out what I think of 2005, the year in short fiction. All in all, I think it was another good year. The original anthologies were perhaps, on average, not quite as good as last year. We were lucky to get a good mainstream SF anthology like Peter Crowther’s Constellations, but we sorely missed a strong mainstream fantasy book like Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling’s The Faery Reel or Al Sarrantonio’s Flights.. Were I forced to pick, I’d suggest that the best anthology of 2005 was actually a magazine. With outstanding stories by Paolo Bacigalupi, Peter S. Beagle, Esther M. Friesner, Elizabeth Hand, and Jeffrey Ford (amongst others), the October/November issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction was the best anniversary issue in some years, and as good a gathering of stories as were published anywhere during 2005. I’d also recommend Peter Crowther’s Constellations, Marvin Kaye’s The Fair Folk, Deb Layne & Jay Lake’s Polyphony 5, and Andrew J Wilson & Neil Williamson’s Nova Scotia: New Scottish Speculative Fiction.

It was an extraordinary year for single author story collections. It seemed like every second book review I read declared this or that collection the ‘short story collection of the year’. Given that the most of the collections published were quite different from one another, it was actually very difficult to make that call. Still, if pushed, I couldn’t go past these books:

Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link;
20th Century Ghosts, Joe Hill;
Harrowing the Dragon, Patricia A. McKillip; and
In the Palace of Repose, Holly Phillips.

I’d also strongly recommend Gene Wolfe’s Starwater Strains, Matthew Hughes’ The Gist Hunter, Robert Reed’s The Cuckoo’s Boys, and Maureen McHugh’s Mothers and Other Monsters.

I was disappointed that, the Robert Reed collection aside, there wasn’t a really strong SF collection published this year. The short story is integral to SF, and I hope someone will collect the recent short work from Wil McCarthy, Stephen Baxter, Ian MacDonald, Alastair Reynolds, Charles Stross and others into book form. To grind a personal axe, a collection from McDonald in particular, is long overdue.

There were several excellent retrospectives published during the year. The most fascinating (and frustrating) was Centipede Press’s Two-Handed Engine, which collected 30-plus stories by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore. Availability was very limited, so we can only hope someone will reprint it in a more accessible edition. While I’d also recommend Robert Sheckley’s The Masque of Mañana, my vote for the best retrospective of the year goes to Leigh Brackett’s Sea Kings of Mars: And Other Worldly Stories, from the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks Series. Important enough to attract an amazon reader’s review from Michael Moorcock, it did everything I think a good retrospective should. It reprinted an important body of work in an intelligently compiled edition that was widely enough available that anyone could get a copy. It was, potentially, a book that could find new readers for Brackett’s work, and that is worthwhile indeed.

I don’t go to many Australian SF conventions. Traveling back and forth across the country is just too expensive and time consuming, and it has been pretty easy to not go over the past few years. But…back in July I went to Continuum 3 and had a ridiculously good time. It’s now set that I’ll be going to Conjure to Brisbane – where I’m guest along with Bruce, Cory, Sean and Kim – which should be wonderful. It looks like Charles will be coming over for it, so I’m pretty excited.

Given that I’m planning on going to the LA World Convention I thought that, apart from a possible Swancon appearance, that that would be it for me next year. But, but, but my buddy Mitch is co-chairing Continuum 4, and it looks like enormous fun. Shaun is going to be a guest. So is Charlie and Margo, and I’m pining for that particular fjord. It’s at the worst possible time for me – less than three weeks before we go to LA – but I’m trying to find some way that I can be there. Hmmm. Mitch is town this weekend. If I can work out something with him, and get permission to go from Marianne…

Time continues to race past. Tomorrow is Robin’s wedding, which should be enormous fun. Next Friday is little Sophie’s fourth birthday, which will be a complete delight. And it’s only seventeen days till I fly to Sydney. No time at all. I need to start making some plans for what I’m doing everywhere, so…

I’ll be in Oakland from Tuesday 25 October until Tuesday 1 November, and again on Tuesday 8 November. If you’d like to get together, drop me an email. As always there’s lots and lots to do, but if I can fit it, I’d love to see people. I’ll also be in Madison for World Fantasy from November 3 to November 7. I’m co-hosting an open party on the Thursday, but other than that, am pretty much free and would love to see people. Let me know if you’ll be there, and if you’d like to get together.