I remember someone once told me that you couldn’t hear someone’s accent when they were singing. It struck me as an odd, and not entirely accurate observation. After all, how could you account for the heavily Australian accent of Mick Thomas if that were true. I then heard Missy Higgins, who sounds so Australian it’s almost caricature. I mean, her big hit is “Scaah” (Australians are suffering a chronic shortage of the letter “R” and try to use it economically, if at all) and refers to ‘moi noightloight’ (my nightlight) in one song. Sounds good, if kinda weird.

Brad Denton writes wickedly wonderful books. If you’ve read Blackburn, Lunatics, or Buddy Holly is Alive and Well and Living on Ganymede, you’d know that. His most recent books have been published by St Martins, but the Subterranean Press site lists a new novel, Laughin’ Boy, as being due out this year. The description for it reads:

America at the end of the Twentieth Century was a dangerous place. It was a place conceived in liberty, yet threatened by the forces of oppression and evil. It was a place where fanatics–political and religious, foreign and domestic–sharpened their swords to attack an innocent populace whose love of freedom was matched only by its lack of irony. It was a sick place in need of sick heroes. And so they came: PORNO GIRL, whose consumption of filth was merely a disguise to conceal her purity of soul… THE RACIST RANGER, whose repugnant jibber-jabber masked the fact that his strength was as the strength of ten… And Danny Clayton, the infamous LAUGHIN’ BOY — born in tragedy, caught in a despicable act — who would become both the most beloved and most hated man on earth. In other words: Its Savior. Or not. It would depend on whether he lived long enough for the rest of us to find out.

I hope it sells really well for Sub Press and gets a mass market edition. Either way, I can’t wait to see it.

Sometimes things just leave you nonplussed. Pleased, but nonplussed. I was out browsing the web last week and saw that Asimov’s had posted Jim ‘Casey Kasem’ Kelly’s latest On the Net column, and that it was about blogs. In amongst the article, Jim names his top 40 blogs based on the criteria that ‘the posts be interesting, regularly updated and touch on genre, at least occasionally’. I was flattered, grateful, and more than a little surprised to see this blog on the list. It weas coo- … Um, very pleasing and rewarding.

I’ve edited a quarterly semiprozine, a one-shot critical ‘zine, some convention/conference materials, and nine reprint anthologies over the past ten years or so. They all have there own pitfalls and rewards, and I’ve enjoyed doing them. Currently, though, I’m working on my first ever, solo original anthology. It’s an exciting idea and I love the project, but until the last few days I’ve been feeling a tad stressed because I’ve not actually received any submissions and the book is due in mid-year.

As you can imagine, I’ve been very happy and more than a little relieved, to see the first submissions trickle in, and they’re good. If (if!) things hold steady, this is going to be a wonderful book.

The final Locus Recommended Reading List for 2004 is now available online at Locus: Online. Working on the annual list is a major job that I get to work on each year, and it’s a real highlight. Books are set aside throughout the year, stories are noted and so on, and then things go crazy sometime in September. Draft lists get prepared, essays are requested, correspondence with editors, writers, critics and so on begins. Throughout September, October, November and into December lists are updated, revised and such, and then Charles gets on a plane. During the week around New Year’s he flies out to Australia and we sit in air-conditioned luxury at his hotel and begin sorting through lists, recommendations etc. and work towards the final, final lists. This year I think it took two or three recommendations minimum from Locus reviewers, critics etc to get on the list, and in some short fiction categories it took three and even four recommendations to make it.

And, for any potential flaws the list may have, I’m pretty proud of it. It’s a very honest list. I know there’s no trickery or flim-flammery. I’ll be very interested to see what everyone thinks of it. You can see it here. I should also mention that the annual Locus Poll and Survey is online too. Please, please fill it out. Especially the question about the best fantasy short stories of all time.