Friday brought a heavy package from somewhere deep in the heart of England.  It weighed in at about 3lbs or so, and was nicely padded with bubble wrap to protect its contents.  On unwrapping it I discovered an advance reader’s copy of Powers: Secret Histories, a book compiled by John Berlyne and soon to be published by the good people at PS Publishing.

As I skimmed through it I began to realise what an extraordinary book it is.  Advance reader’s copies are typically published by presses to generate pre-publication buzz for a book, but are often simple, uninviting affairs. Powers: Secret Histories is anything but that. Running to over five hundred pages, printed in full color throughout, filled with images of books covers, scans of manuscripts, notes and so on, it’s a fascinating object. It’s also profoundly odd.

Why? Well, as I was thumbing through the book I began to wonder who it was for, what it’s purpose was?  Readers of this journal will be well aware of the work of Tim Powers, author of The Anubis Gates, Declare, and many other works of wonder. He is one of the best fantasists ever to grace our field and Powers: Secret Histories is an exhaustive, annotated list of everything he’s ever published.  There are all kinds of other additional materials, from pieces by Dean Koontz, China Mieville and others, to novel outlines and a chunk of an unpublished novel.

It’s fascinating, but Powers: Secret Histories is a book that must be expensive to produce and accordingly is going to put something of a dent in your monthly book allowance should you buy it, so should you? After all, it’s a list.  I think the answer to that question can be found in your answer to this one: would you buy The Collected Works of Tim Powers, if a publisher were to do a handsome uniform edition bringing together all of his novels, short fiction etc?  If your answer to that question is yes, then this is a truly essential book. Why? Well, because it’s the Bonus Features DVD that goes with the boxed set. There’s extra material, some Powers commentary and so on. And if you love Powers’ work, it’s engrossing and totally worthwhile.

I’d also like to take a moment to acknowledge Peter Crowther and PS Publishing, who are taking an incredible punt on this book. At a time when publishing is looking to the commercial mainstream, Crowther is producing something rich, strange, and a little quixotic. We should celebrate his courage and support his efforts.  The field is better for the book he produces.

I’d only just discovered his music a year or two ago, and had slowly fallen in love with it.  And he’s dead. At 60. I am far more saddened by this than I’d ever have expected.

The post office is a tiny shore where, occasionally, wonders wash up.  This afternoon I went to collect the mail and found the advance uncorrected proof of Wild Thyme, Green Magic: Stories by Jack Vance. This is the third and almost certainly final volume of the work of the great Jack Vance that I have compiled with Terry Dowling.  Although I’m most proud of the tragically out of print The Jack Vance Treasury (a book I believe to be one of the field’s truly essential compilations), I have a soft spot for each of these three fine books.  I’m hoping Tom Kidd will do the cover for this one, though I don’t know if that’ll be the case.  Certainly, it stands happily alongside The Jack Vance Reader, the forthcoming Songs of the Dying Earth and This is Me! (Jack’s autobiography) as a wonderful shelf of Vance from Subterranean.

Given that it’s unlikely that I’ll do another Vance project, though I’d be delighted to, I’d like to thank the Vances, John Schwab,  Bill Schafer, Tom Kidd and Terry for letting me work with them on these books. It’s been a privilege.

There is a report over at SFSCope.com that Realms of Fantasy will cease publication with its April 2009 issue.  If this is confirmed then it’s very sad news indeed.  Realms of Fantasy has been around since 1994 and seemed a very solid, dependable publication. With the loss of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and with F&SF going bimonthly, this is bad news indeed.

I just got news that Sophie Strahan has sold her first short story, “Pegasus Makes a Friend”, to children’s magazine Alphabet Soup.  As delighted as we are – and we *are* delighted – we caution the reader that this work should of course be read as juvenilia.  Sophie, who is now seven, was only six when she wrote the story.  Newer work is much more sophisticated.

I think this is the coolest thing I’ve heard all week.