There must be something in the water. I don’t know if it’s school holidays, grandmother’s visiting (which is going famously, btw), or what, but Jessica (four and three quarters) and Sophie (three and a half) have been complete horrors the last two nights. Put them to bed at the usual time, and they have spent the next three hours running riot. We were watching The Supernanny on Monday for tips, and Sophie was up constantly, coming into the room. I swear, she was checking out the enemy, getting a head’s up on the tactics we were going to use. The kids are great in most every other respect, but in this regard they’re being terrible. There are a number of costs to all this, at the moment. First, peace of mind, second, any time to do any work at all. I need to progress a bunch of things, and just cannot get the time. It’s led to a couple projects being dropped, and pushed a few others out of shape. Hopefully domestic bliss will be re-established soon.

On another note: it’s look less and less likely that I will make Continuum in Melbourne in July, which is a bummer. It looks like fun.

Here are two things that I have been pondering: 1) why do I find YA fiction so attractive right now, and 2) what do I really think of the Australian SF scene at the moment. Hmm. Neither of these things are really interesting, I suspect, for you constant reader, but I’m going to indulge myself.

I wouldn’t say that I have a long history of working with/being aware of ‘young adult’ fiction. Like a lot of readers, I went through a long phase of reading it when I was a child and then young adult myself, and I occasionally (read unwittingly) dipped into it from time to time through my twenties and thirties, but I’m editing a YA book right now and reading quite a lot of YA fiction. Why? What suddenly makes books like Holly Black’s Valiant, Diana Wynne Jones’ Conrad’s Fate, Garth Nix’s Drowned Wednesday, or even Scott Westerfeld’s very wonderful ‘Midnighters’ books so appealing? Is it a post-Harry Potter thing?

On reflection, I think it’s a comfort factor. A lot of young adult fiction is both unrepetentantly imaginative and very welcoming in tone. I find the books, when they’re good (and don’t get me started about lazily written books by people looking to hijack the YA boom) to be cozy, friendly, engaging and nice. Yes there are characters in peril, yes the stories are riveting and things could go terribly wrong, but there’s something in the tone that evokes a different age for me, when the problems of the real world were a long way away. That’s why I read them, but why try to edit one?

The answer to that is twofold. The first part of the answer is that I saw what I thought was an obvious blindspot – a lack of intelligent, cutting edge SF for young adult readers. It seemed to me a book that moved beyond the Heinlein juvenile mode would be one that readers today would respond to. I think I may be right, and the stories I’ve seen so far suggest I might be. The second part of the answer is that it’s a personal exploration for me, as most of the books I edit become. I want to understand YA fiction better, to get a clearer picture of YA science fiction today. The best way to do that, for me, is to get involved. Work with people, meet writers, see the stories that get created. It’s also a book that I feel very passionate and excited about. Some time, in about 18 months, there’s going to be a beautiful book produced by Sharyn and the other wonderful folk who work at Viking, and I’m going to be enormously proud. It’s a wonderful thing.

Talking about what I think of the Australian science fictions scene at the moment is immensely harder (though I’ve addressed it a little over at Ben Peek’s LiveJournal). I was very active in Australian SF between 1990 and 1999, and have effectively been outside the country between 1999 and 2005 – my attention has been elsewhere. That said, every now and then something floats past that catches my attention, names like Andromeda Spaceways or Agog, Brendan Duffy or Deb Biancotti. I hear about writers who are doing well overseas like Marianne de Pierres or Trudi Canavan, and old friends like Dowling, Dann, Brown and Williams all still seem very active. And I’ve increasingly been hearing a lot about writers who don’t seem to be making much of a mark here at home, like K.J. Bishop, Anna Tambour and Rjurik Davidson, but are doing great work.

So, what’s the scene like? I think we’re just moving out of the post-1999 WorldCon phase for Australian SF. The 1999 WorldCon was the last great gasp, the last hurrah for the SF boom of the ’90s. A lot of writers and most of the small presses aimed their energies at making an impact on the international stage in Melbourne, and having done so, pretty much ran out of puff. They went home, and lapsed into some kind of coma. This didn’t mean good work wasn’t being written or people weren’t enthusiastic, just that the apparent center began to loosen, the scene to fragment. Suddenly there wasn’t one main ‘scene’ to be part of, but rather a number of smaller, separate groups. As those groups worked out who they were and what they were about during the early ’90s (and you can see those groups doing it, especially in Brisbane and Canberra), things picked up momentum again and the scene is beginning to look remarkably healthy. Oddly, perhaps, it still reminds me a little of the early 90s (though on a bigger scale). I think the various groups are doing better and better, writers are growing and developing, but I don’t see a new centre forming yet (though it may do so in Brisbane), but I think when it does you’ll really see things start to move forward. There’s still a lot of amateurish work published, still too much small town insularity, but things are picking up. It looks like it could be a very exciting time, and that’s something I’d like to be part of.

Over at Ben Peek’s urban sprawl, I answer five more questions, this time about what I’m doing. The other folk being interviewed are more interesting, so it’s worth checking it out.

Google has a cool new map feature that shows you up-to-date satellite images, mostly of the US. For example, should you be interested in visiting Locus HQ or simply nuking it from orbit, you would find it here:

Courtesy of Tim Pratt, the latest journal meme thing where interviews are done, questions are asked. It’s kind of fun. If you want to do it, you’ve got to:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your livejournal/website with the answers to the questions and leave the answers as comments here (or at least provide a pointer to your site).
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

(If by chance a bunch of people want to be interviewed, I reserve the right to only ask questions of the first two or three)

1.) What’s so bad about American coffee, anyway?

There are two different kinds of wrong with American coffee. The first kind of wrong is when the coffee is weak, watery, and tastes burnt. I’ll never forget walking through Los Angeles International Airport the first time I went to the States and seeing coffee on sale in these enormous cups, and thinking everyone must be off their heads with all of the caffeine. The second kind of wrong is when the coffee is over-done, overdecorated, all flowery and prissy. It’s all No-Carb Grande Mocha Almond Caramel Fudge Latte with a Hickory Stick. What’s with that? Can’t they just serve a simple cappuccino, latte or long black? I feel like every time I visit the US I have to relearn the coffee vocabulary just to get a flat white.

2.) I read this book one time that said Australia was a very dangerous place — poisonous snakes, lethal sea life, Prime Ministers who go swimming and disappear into the ocean. Ever had a near-deadly Australian experience?

Australia is a terrifyingly deadly place – nine of the world’s top ten most poisonous creatures live here, and dedicate their time to culling the population. That said, though I have seen enormous deadly red-back spiders and thought I’d been bitten by a horribly poisonous sea-dwelling creature when I was about eight (I hadn’t been – it was just a crab), I’ve basically gotten though unscathed. Broke my head open once, but that’s another story.

3.) Howard Waldrop vs. Joe R. Lansdale: Which is more Texan?

Lansdale hissownself. Waldrop is god, an amazing writer with a gift for constructing tales that no one would even think of, but Lansdale has the voice, the attitude, and the tall tales. The only competition would be Neal Barrett.

4.) God calls you up and asks you to edit the first annual Afterlife SF Annual, with all new stories by ten deceased SF/fantasy writers. Just name the writers, and God will get them to write something for you. Which authors do you commission?

Ooh. That’s a cool idea. The problem with compiling the book would be deciding whether you aim for a consistent, coherent book or just go for the writers you’d most love to work with, or see new work by. I think I’d probably go for the latter, because it’s too irresistible. Allowing that I could re-write this list a hundred times, I’d go with:

1. J.R.R. Tolkien
2. H.P. Lovecraft
3. Edgar Rice Burroughs
4. Cordwainer Smith
5. Robert A. Heinlein
6. Philip K. Dick
7. Theodore Sturgeon
8. Fritz Leiber
9. James Tiptree Jr
10. Avram Davidson

I think it would make for a brilliant, weird hodge-podge of a book.

5.) Name one novel, one collection, and one anthology coming out later this year that you’re really looking forward to reading.

I hate this question, hate it, hate it, hate it. I could name six novels, and five collections, and four anthologies, and not scratch the surface. I’m really eager to read The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl and Mothers and Other Monsters and too many others. But, if it has to be just one, then allowing for what I’ve already read this year, then:

Novel: The Girl in the Glass, Jeffrey Ford
Collection: Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link
Anthology: One Million Years A.D., Gardner Dozois