It seems every time I pick up a newspaper or look at a news website human researchers have made another breakthrough in improving the health of mice. Following on from recent news that researchers had cured Alzheimer’s in mice, I now hear that a vaccine against heart disease is on the horizon. Cool.

Mark Kelly points out that Margo Lanagan is interviewed over at Arte Six, which is a cool thing. You should go read the interview and the book excerpt. I was particularly pleased to hear that she’s “nearly finished first-drafting the stories in the next collection, Red Jam, which is very much the same type of science fiction/fantasy/horror mix as White Time and Black Juice.” She also mentions that “I’m also rewriting the first novel of a YA fantasy quartet, which I hope to complete the remaining three volumes of in 2005.” Definitely happy-making news. If Lanagan isn’t the next big thing, there ain’t no justice in the world.

Sometimes your interests push up against the edges of what the world is willing to permit. In this case, my interest in a new James Blaylock novel. Over on the Blaylock forum they mention that he has finished a young adult sequel to The Digging Leviathan, and enjoyed writing it so much he is working on another. Both books are unsold. By rough count it’s been about four hundred years since the last Blaylock novel was published. Enough already! Cry mercy, give us surcease. Won’t someone publish it?

It is Christmas (well, almost) – something Elizabeth Hand seems to know pretty well. She has just written an interesting piece for the Washington Post. More importantly, and even more interestingly, a couple years back she wrote one of the best Christmas stories I’ve read in a long time. It should be a book. Oh, and as Matt Cheney points out, China Mieville has written one too.

There is a conversation going on out in the blogosphere started by Matt Cheney about the most neglected book of the year, which has been picked up here and there. It’s an interesting question, especially amongst those of us who are interested in making sure that great books get read.

I was tempted to nominate Leslie What’s debut novel Olympic Games, which is enormous fun and got only limited attention, as being amongst the year’s most overlooked books, or perhaps Jennifer Stevenson’s powerful debut, trash sex magic. However, at the end of the day there was really only one choice: Margo Lanagan’s Black Juice. Published in a small-ish print run in Australia as a young adult book, it’s a collection of powerful, tough minded, beautifully written, and generally quite extraordinary stories. For my money, it’s the best collection of 2004, and while it has won a mainstream literary award in Victoria, it really hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. Now, it will be getting more play, hopefully, in the US when the Eos edition comes out, and when stories start to pop up in year’s bests, but even then, this is a major book with a minor profile that you need to read.