A reminder, one and all, that the nominations for the Hugo Awards close on 28 February.  If you are eligible to nominate, please support work you think deserves the award.  It doesn’t matter whether you’ve read or seen everything in the category. What matters is that you make the Awards more representative by including your voice.   I nominated a few weeks ago, and know several friends who have already done so.  The online form is here, and the process is quick and easy.

I’d also add that if you think this stuff doesn’t matter, I respectfully disagree. I had the honor to be nominated last year and it was an incredible experience.

I am hard at work on several new projects, and I’ve decided to put out a call for recommendations here on the blog and out in Twitterverse land.  I am working on a new hard SF anthology and am compiling a list of hard SF writers that the book might include. Now, when I say hard SF writers I’m not talking about writers who could write hard SF or are capable of writing hard SF, but about writers with a track record of writing hard SF: writers like Greg Egan, Greg Bear, Nancy Kress, Linda Nagata and so on.  So, if you can think of a terrific hard SF writer who should be in an original anthology of hard SF stories, jump on the comments thread here and recommend away. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

With publication time coming soon-ish, and with the information already out, here’s the final table of contents for The New Space Opera 2.

1. “Utriusque Cosmi”, Robert Charles Wilson
2. “The Island”, Peter Watts
3. “Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance”, John Kessel
4. “To Go Boldly”, Cory Doctorow
5. “The Lost Princess Man”, John Barnes
6. “Defect”, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
7. “To Raise A Mutiny Betwixt Yourselves”, Jay Lake
8. “Shell Game”, Neal Asher
9. “Punctuality”, Garth Nix
10. “Inevitable”, Sean Williams
11. “Join The Navy and See the Worlds”, Bruce Sterling
12. “Fearless Space Pirates of the Outer Rings”, Bill Willingham
13. “From the Heart”, John Meaney
14. “Chameleons”, Elizabeth Moon
15. “The Tenth Muse”, Tad Williams
16. “Cracklegrackle”, Justina Robson
17. “The Tale of the Wicked”, John Scalzi
18. “Catastrophe Baker and a Canticle for Leibowitz”, Mike Resnick
19. “The Far End of History”, John C. Wright

The book is due out from HarperEos in the United States and HarperCollins Publishers in Australia this coming July.

It’s been a busy weekend. I was working from home on Friday, getting contracts out, soliciting stories and so on.  That took up the morning, then Marianne and I had a very pleasant lunch together before picking up the girls from school.  Friday evening we went to an open air concert at the Maylands Golf Course, where Marianne’s band swing band played for a couple hours.  It was surprisingly chilly for the time of year, but the girls enjoyed dancing at sunset.

Saturday was slightly less productive.  Up early-ish, do some puttering around the house, off to do some shopping, home again to get ready to go out, then off for Bec’s birthday in Mt Lawley which proved highly enjoyable. Home late, watched Rock Wiz, then off to bed.  And then up stupidly early this morning, hence this post.  Truthfully, I’m not especially looking forward to today or the next ten days.  The house has been cluttered since the ceiling collapse of January 2 (a month ago!), but we’re moving into the final phases of the recovery now.

Today the family come over and we move the book cases from the front room and stack them in the family room (making it mostly dysfunctional).  Then we move the large couch into the hallway.  Tomorrow at 7.00am tradesfolk come to sand and polish the floors in the front room.  It’ll take Monday and Tuesday, and must then be left empty for a week.  The following Monday the painter comes to repaint the entire room, strip back the remaining woodwork and revarnish it and so on. We estimate three days for that, but more realistically four.  That means most likely on Saturday 20 February we can put the furniture and bookcases back into the front room, put the curtains back up and begin to get back to normal.  In renovation terms this has been a fairly mild disruption, I guess, but living in the clutter, shuffling around things and so on for a month has been less than fun. I can’t wait to get the house back to normal, and then to begin to attach my office.

And reading?, you ask.  Well, I don’t think I’ve read much of anything except for anthology submissions since the ceiling collapsed.  Can’t seem to get settled enough, for some reason.  I suspect that’s going get worse not better over the next two weeks, but we’ll see. I’ll then have some significant catch up to do.

The mail came early this morning, and it brought with it the Aurealis Award trophy for Best Anthology.  It was mailed to me by Margo (thank you!!) and is really lovely.  The photo doesn’t do it justice. I wish I could have been there, and am dead chuffed.