Well, the first copies of Eclipse Two are now in the wild.  I was down at Planet Books, my favouritest bookstore in the whole world right now and  a guaranteed place where I always spend money, and saw they had a stack of Eclipse Two on their new releases table.  If you’re in Perth and want a copy for Christmas, or are in Australia and don’t want to wait, Planet is the place.

Oh, and if you’re not in Perth (poor unlucky souls), email me when you spot the book in store and I’ll post links etc.

My early morning epiphanies are typically inaccurate and unreliable, but this morning I was pondering why I’ve been struggling to come up with a candidate for ‘best new album for 2008’ when I had an epiphany of sorts.  The selection of an album of the year isn’t in itself important, but I think it speaks to how I’m feeling about things.  In times of happiness I consume a lot of new music, and bond with it strongly. When things are more stressful I turn to old favorites, preferring music that has comforted me in the past.

When I look back at what I have been listening to during 2008 it’s mostly been old favorites and soothing sounds: albums like Joe Lovano’s All for You, Sufjan Stevens’ Greetings from Illinois, and Crosby, Stills, & Nash’s Greatest Hits.  Most recently I’ve been playing Van Morrison’s Moondance over and over – it would probably be my album of the year if I had to choose one.

And that made me think: why?  Why old favorites and soothing sounds?  I think the answer is this: while 2008 has overwhelmingly been my most successful year in professional terms, full of some wonderful things happening (the stunning surprise of the Hugo nomination, winning the Locus Award, my first job promotion in years, some terrific books published etc etc), I’ve not been very happy.  2008 was supposed to be a year of rest and recuperation. I had more than four months off from the day job to relax. I had two trips to the United States to see people.  It was a year free of disasters.  And yet, looking back, I spent a heck of a lot of the year stressed and unhappy.  Or at least that’s how it seems, as I sit here with the Christmas coming and the end of the year weeks away. It’s made me think about what I need to change to make 2009 a better year.

Tis the season, and everyone is doing their end of the year wrap-ups. I’ve got to finish up the short fiction lists and write one for Locus, and I’m blogging a note or two here too.  However, I thought I’d do something a little different and discuss what I’m going to be working on in 2009. Some of this is tentative, because contracts are still being finalised, but it’ll give you an idea of what I’m spending my time on when I’m not firing up the hibachi to entertain the family or building up business plans at the day job.

Every year always starts with finishing up what you were working on last year.  I expect to spend part of January doing copyedits for Godlike Machines, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 3, and the just-delivered The New Space Opera 2. At the same time, I’ve got proposals to get together. I have three projects I’ve been meaning to get in train for some time, and January is the time they have to either get out into the world, or disappear.

Over the past few years I’ve also done some non-anthology editing, and I’ve got a couple projects lined up to work on in the first half of the year.  If all goes to plan, then I’ll be co-editing a Fritz Leiber retrospective with Charles Brown.   It’ll be a 175,000 wd (approx) overview of his career, and should be out in 2010 for the Leiber Centenary. I’m pretty excited about it.  I’m also working on a new Walter Jon Williams collection (a book that’s pretty much assembling itself) and doing another retrospective that I don’t want to talk about yet because it’s not signed up.

I’m very excited to be working on a special issue of Bill Shafer’s Subterranean Magazine. It’s due mid-year and I’ve got contributors lined up.  We’d originally discussed doing this one as a special hard SF issue, but it’s broadened in scope just recently. In fact, I just bought a terrific Maureen McHugh zombie novelette for it.  I’ve not done much editing for online publications, so this is fun, and something I’d like to do more of.

And then there are the books.  The main ones, simply because they’re signed up and due right now, are Conquering Swords and Dreamtime.  Conquering Swords is a big swords and sorcery anthology I’m co-editing with my pal Lou Anders.  We already have some great stories by Glen Cook, Steven Erikson, and James Enge, and are working away as others come in. This one’s due in August, so it’s going to take a lot of the first half of the year.  Then there’s Dreamtime. It’s a collection of fantasy novellas by bestselling Australian fantasy writers that I’m co-editing with my buddy Jack Dann for Australian publication in 2010.  Stories are coming in for it too, and it’s looking great.  Oh, I should I add, I expect both of these titles to change before publication.
Of course, there are the series as well. Although we’ve not formally signed up yet, I’m already reading for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 4.  Because of changes at Last Short Story I’ve actually read more 2009 short fiction already than I’d have expected to, and there’s some cool stuff coming.  I’m also working hard on Eclipse Three.  Solicitations went out last June or July and some great people said they’d like to write for it, so I’m excited to see what’ll come in. That’s due with the publisher in June for an October publication.  Then there’s Life on Mars, a new young adult SF anthology I’m doing for the wonderful Sharyn. Everything’s in place for it, and it’ll be a second-half-of-the-year book.  I also have another book that I’m negotiating ‘as we speak’, which I hope to be doing then too.

On top of all of that, there’s my beloved Locus. I continue as reviews editor there, and am very excited about our new reviewers Gardner, Adrienne, Paul and Stefan.  There are also some developments there which should take more of my time, but should be fun.

So, on top of day job and family, that should be my year. What about yours?

I was going to split this into best movie and best TV, but the truth is there is no contest.  I saw a handful of good (though no great) movies in 2008, but I finally caught up with The Wire and it was extraordinary.

For the three of you who don’t know about The Wire, it’s a five-season-long examination of crime and corruption in the city of Baltimore.  It’s gritty, realistic, and utterly absorbing.  I can’t imagine watching it in any other format than the dvd boxed set.  I gulped down four seasons in September and am just now watching season 5. Brilliant stuff, but what next?

In August I bought a Sony Reader PRS505.  I know the software is clunky, and I know you can’t buy e-books for it in Australia, but I can deal with the software and I don’t ever, ever, ever want to buy an e-book.  What I needed was a sturdy, reliable screen reader that could handle text files reasonably flexibly and that had a great screen to read on.

The Sony pretty much did all of those things right. Yes, the screen could be bigger. But I’ve read short stories, novellas and even a handful of novels on it (the entire output of one K. Scholes, in fact) and it hasn’t skipped a beat.  It’s made my job easier, and that’s made my life easier.  It also makes reading those books that I get a sneek peek at in e-format a lot friendlier to read.  What more could you ask for?  Oh, and many thanks for Charlie Stross, who recommended the Reader, and to AAron who gave me some very helpful pointers.