I spend far too long thinking about, writing about, or working towards publishing books of the year’s best stories to not be interested in what other people think is excellent. I’m always particularly interested in what my colleagues at Locus think, so I was interested to see Rich Horton’s annual ‘Virtual Best of the Year‘ post on his newsgroup.

He offers multiple lists, but the one below is for the short Terry Carr length volume that most closely resembles the length of the books I do for ibooks:

Giliad, Gregory Feeley
The Voluntary State, Christopher Rowe
The Third Party, David Moles
The Faery Handbag, Kelly Link
The People of Sand and Slag, Paolo Bacigalupi
PeriAndry’s Quest, Stephen Baxter
Quarry, Peter Beagle
Biographical Notes to A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with
Air-Planes by Benjamin Rosenbaum, Benjamin Rosenbaum
The Gladiator’s War: A Dialogue, Lois Tilton
Metal More Attractive, Ysabeau S. Wilce
Opal Ball, Robert Reed
Ten Sigmas, Paul Melko
State Change, Ken Liu
Dibs, Brian Plante
Family Bed, Kit Reed
A Keeper, Alan De Niro
All of Us Can Almost …, Carol Emshwiller
Being With Jimmy, Aaron Schutz

I think Rich estimates the above book would fill about 150,000 wds, which compares to the 110,000 we have for the ibooks anthologies. I was pleased to see that we overlapped on seven selections, and that he mentioned the Rosenbaum story from All-Star Zeppelin Stories, which I didn’t see until too late. Still, a good list.

One thing I would comment, briefly on, is Rich’s comment that “I caveat it by noting that I haven’t had to deal with issues like acquisition that might have caused other anthologists to not have their ideal TOC”. I was surprised at how much impact this has on the books I’ve worked on. I’ve edited or co-edited seven ‘year’s best’ anthologies so far, and I’ve lost at least one story in every book to permissions problems. This year, with the fantasy book, we lost two at the last minute, and there were two other stories we really wanted we couldn’t get at all. It’s all part of the business and to be expected, but is unfortunate. It does, though, make lists like Rich’s all the more interesting.

A quick follow-on to my post that mentioned Tim Tams. For those living abroad, there are now eight official types of Tim Tam: Original, Chewy Caramel, Mocha, Double Coat, Classic Dark Chocolate, Special Edition Tim Tam Hazelnut, Limited Edition White Chocolate and new Special Edition Chewy Choc Fudge.

To those you can add Chilli Choc Fling, Black Forest Fantasy, and Creamy Truffle Temptation, which are being trialled, and there were some alcohol laced ones that came out last year. The Classic Dark is the best of the rest, but the original is still the one to try, if you’re wondering what the fuss is about.

I am making some zombie contingency plans. So should you. Do zombies like chocolate, or fear bad elections, or are they above such things? Zombies. Hmm.

I was sitting in my office this afternoon, and had a moment that made me think about Sharyn. I’d just opened that day’s mail, and sat down with a chili chocolate Tim Tam in one hand, and a copy of the galley of Diana Wynne Jones’ new novel Conrad’s Fate in the other. Struck me as a Sharyn kind of moment. I’ve also been reading for the book I’m editing for her, and it’s looking very good. Happiness.

Thirty three years ago Randy Newman wrote and recorded “Political Science”, a satirical song about the role of his great nation in the modern world. Listening to it today, it sounds just as topical as it must have then. And, sadly, the description of Australia doesn’t sound satirical at all….

No one likes us-I don’t know why
We may not be perfect, but heaven knows we try
But all around, even our old friends put us down
Let’s drop the big one and see what happens

They all hate us anyhow
So let’s drop the big one now
Let’s drop the big one now