does ‘writer to watch’ just mean that they’re shifty, that you shouldn’t leave your car keys near them or something? I just ask because I’ve noticed a desperate look come into the eyes of some writers to watch at booksignings, and lifting your car keys to flee in desperation doesn’t seem that unlikely, somehow.

…continues unabated. The following good folk have now posted interviews on his livejournal: Chris Barnes, Stuart Barrow, Lee Battersby, Deborah Biancotti, David Carroll, Jay Caselberg, Bill Congreve, Stephen Dedman, Brendan Duffy, Russell B. Farr, Paul Haines, Robert Hoge, Robert Hood, Trent Jamieson, Martin Livings, Geoffrey Maloney, Chuck McKenzie, Ben Payne, Robin Pen, Nigel Read, Colin Sharpe, Cat Sparks, Jonathan Strahan, Anna Tambour, Lyn Triffitt, Iain Triffitt, Kaaron Warren, Grant Watson, Kim Wilkins, and Sean Williams.

I’ve had several conversations of late about small press publishers producing sets of ‘collected works’ or ‘collected stories’ volumes. In amongst mention of the Leiber, Simak and other sets, I’m almost always asked about whatever happened to that Vance project? For those who don’t recall, a group of dedicated and very well organised Vance readers, working under the Vance Integral Edition name, proposed to produce a set of 44 volumes reprinting all of his published works. More than that, they sought to restore the texts, with his approval/agreement.

Although it wasn’t very widely recognised beyond those most immediately affected, the VIE people decided to divide the books into two 22 volume ‘waves’. The first wave was published in the Spring of 2003, and I’ve just seen on their website that the second wave has been printed and delivered to the binders in Italy. Copies, one would expect, will ship in the next month or so.

There’s a lot to like about this project, and only one or two things that I have reservations about. I like that they were so respectful of Vance’s work, that they endeavoured to do the right thing by him, and that they created pristine digital texts that other publishers could use (a number of VIE texts have been used by mass market publishers, most notably ibooks, to produce new Vance mass market editions). I’m less sure about restoring texts, but that’s a call for Vance himself, whose wishes should be respected. For those interested, there are a number of variant options on obtaining VIE volumes, which you can find here.

So, I was out reading all of the usual blogs when I came across this line:

“Undead seagulls, feh.”

It easily rates as the best line I’ve seen on a blog in a long time. Made me smile, and want to read the story that should follow.

In other news, Ben Peek’s Livejournal experiment continues, with about 20 people answering the five questions. If you’re part of the OZ sf scene, go sign up. Maybe someone’ll gather it all in a cool little chapbook, and I want to see how many more ways he can come up with to kill us all.

So, when Tim asked me to name the one novel I was really looking forward to this year it nearly killed me. How do you pick between Anansi Boys, Accelerando, Fifty Degrees Below, Rangergirl, or any one of a dozen others. Yes, I picked The Girl in the Glass because I can’t wait to see it, but it was close. One book I’m really looking forward to is Justina Robson’s Living Next Door to the God of Love. You can read about it on her website, and it looks like it should be very, very cool. O