It was a curious long weekend. As you all know, we’re being visited by Marianne’s mother, which is going very well. An unexpected side effect of her being here is that I’m getting a bit of time to get work done, largely because our car doesn’t fit three adults and two kids in car seats, so when trips are to be taken, Marianne takes her mother and the kids, and I stay home. This is, mostly, okay.

So, what have I done with this unexpected time? Well, I finished reading Jeff Ford’s The Girl in the Glass, which is a remarkably fine novel, and easily the best thing he’s ever done at book length. It’s set in the North Eastern US ’round the time of the Great Depression and tells of how a trio of conmen, who have been running a very effective spiritualist scam, become involved in solving the murder of a young girl. It should be out in August, I think, so make sure you check it out. I’m now reading Ian R. Macleod’s second novel for the year, The Summer Isles, an so far remarkably good alternate history set in a rather nasty post-WWII Britain. More on this soon.

Other than that, I hung out with family, picked up the new Bruce Springsteen cd under amusing circumstances, and fiddled around with anthology projects. Stories are slowly, but steadily, coming in for The Starry Rift. The deadline is still a little while away, and I can definitely see the core of the book emerging now, which is both good and a relief. Stories are also beginning to trickle in for Eidolon which is nice (I think we have the first story we’re going to definitely accept), and there’s been a little movement on the year’s best front. All in all, not too bad.

Oh, except for the washing machine dying yesterday. Much home maintenance is needed.

I was going to suggest that everyone should go read John Clute’s really quite interesting review of Andreas Eschbach’s The Carpet Makers, and you still should. But…I’ve just read the latest post from Ken Macleod over at Early Days of a Better Nation, where he queries the accuracy of his own recollections about the history of SF. It’s a subject I find fascinating because I think we are subject to the ‘collective wisdom’, do sign up for the consensus view of things, and don’t usually have time to go back and check that our facts are straight. Read it.

Oh, and another fascinating piece here, which ties up with the Macleod piece above, from Charlie Stross, about sf and the cultural zietgeist.

I was just reading Justine’s latest musing – she’s deep in a perfectly understandable reverie about the publication of Magic or Madness – and she mentions this book shop. We need one in Perth and, if it does turn out I’m in Manhattan in November, I am so going to go there. I’ve never been and it might be cool to see what Jess and Sophie would make of the place.

I’ve known Michael Walsh for a couple years now, and he’s a very cool guy. He has chaired a truly ridiculous number of conventions, including my all time favourite con (the Washington World Fantasy). This year, in amongst working a day job, publishing terrific books and so on, he is also the chair for Capclave 2005. All well and good you say. I’m living in Perth and you’re probably not in the Washington area either, so why should you care?

Well, turns out that one of the guests is the all-time, best ever Swancon guest, Howard Waldrop. This is nifty enough, but he’s committed to provide two never-before-published stories to be published in a free booklet that will be available only to Capclave members (limit one per membership). Now, anyone who knows the history of Howard knows that the best way to get him to write stories is to get him to be a guest at a convention where he has to do a reading (it worked at Swancon), so this is going to happen.

Because you are a scion of good taste (as am I), you are no doubt groaning and thinking how am I ever going to get one of these books? Well, simple. Memberships seem to be only $US30. You may not be able to go to the Con, but it’s cheap for two Howard stories and, hey, the Con might be able to put the money toward getting Howard a better class of fishing rod or somesuch.

I honestly never thought you’d see the eidolon name in print again, but here we go again. After a lot of conversation, and nearly three years in limbo, Jeremy Byrne and I have decided to dust off eidolon, give it a fresh coat of paint, and put it out as an original anthology series. It’s not limited to Australian folk or to any particular kind of story. We’re hoping to get something wonderful for the first volume, and then to really grow it over time. It’ll probably always be on a modest scale, but we hope it’ll have real impact, and give a slightly more internationally-focussed stage for Australian writers. The announcement, with submission details etc is over on my NightShade board and on the Eidolon Books website.