I’m delighted to see that Ted Chiang’s story from Eclipse Two has been nominated for the British Science Fiction Award. I love the story, and can’t wait to see how the story fairs on the big night in April.

Back in the dim, dark past when I was working on both a year’s best science fiction and a year’s best fantasy volume for iBooks with my dear friend and co-editor Karen Haber, I was sent a story by Jeff VanderMeer. It was a captivatingly odd piece titled “Errata” that was due to appear in Argosy Quarterly. I loved it, and spent some time twisting Karen’s arm to see if it could fit into our fantasy volume.

Sadly, Argosy ceased publication and “Errata” didn’t appear. Jeff and I corresponded about the story once or twice, but it remained unpublished until now. Patrick Nielsen Hayden, editor of the landmark Starlight anthology series, has picked it up in his capacity as fiction editor for Tor.com, and you can check it out here and see just why it knocked me out. And if you loved it too, let them know in the comments over at Tor.com, at Jeff’s blog, or even here.

Jeff also has two interesting posts over at Ecstatic Days. In between his crazed and quixotic quest to read the Penguin Great Ideas series in just sixty days (60 in 60 – which is both nutty and kinda cool, because then you’ve read those books, which maybe you never otherwise would), he has posted about the Top Five Things Editors Hate – And What Do You Hate? and the Top Five Things This Writer Hates–Writers Out There, What Do YOU Hate?.  I love, love, love these two posts. Why? Not so much for what is or isn’t said – either by Jeff or his commenters, though they’re interesting and worth reading – but because it creates a venue for a dialogue in an area where one doesn’t usually exist.  Writers and editors are co-dependent, but that doesn’t mean we discuss our problems, so anything that promotes that is terrific.

Well, the path back to normality has begun.  Builders began the task of putting a new living room ceiling up.  They should finish tonight by adding cornices etc.  Lights go back in on Thursday, and then we need to schedule painting, floor polishing and so on.  Slowly, slowly.

…is underway.  I just bought the first story for it, and am waiting for another dozen to come in over the next months so it can be even better than Eclipse Two. Yay!

Since I was quick enough to criticise the Nebula Preliminary Ballot that was recently released, I feel like I should be just as quick to applaud the newly published Nebula Award rules. There has been a lot of comment over the past few years about how the Nebula rules seemed to make little sense, with rolling eligibility and so on.  These new rules are a massive improvement, and as an Associate Affiliate Member I applaud them and will be nominating etc when I can be following the Awards with interest.

Note:Amended to reflect that I’m not an Associate Member, but an Affiliate one, which gets me the novelty coffee cup, but not the right to nominate/vote.