There has been talk around the place about the many and varied cutbacks at major publishing houses in the New York.  There’s no doubt that those cutbacks will have all kinds of effects on people working directly for those publishing houses, on people working in the field generally, and on readers. Ultimately, we potentialy face less choice, less editorial freedom and so on.
A couple people, most notably John Scalzi and Lou Anders, have suggested that readers get out there and buy books, both as a way of giving great Christmas gifts and as a way of supporting the industry.   It’s a good idea, and it got me to thinking about a meme:

1. Choose four books published during 2008 that you loved and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to others
2. Write a brief description (it doesn’t have to be much – a few words, a sentence)
3. Post the descriptions on your blog under the title Books for Christmas
4. Link to some suitable book retailer that you’d like to support

To keep it simple, make sure you have no direct connection to the books you’re going to blog about – no books you’ve written, edited, or published (you can blog about those another time), just books you’ve loved.  And link to other posts if you see ’em.

My post later today or tomorrow!

I’ve not decided how or where or in what form I’m going to blog about my 2009 reading, but I’m pretty much resolved to do so.  The changes at Last Short Story have me reading much earlier than usual – I normally deliver the year’s best and take a month or so off short fiction, but this year I’m already a couple magazines and anthos into next year.

There’s much to do, of course, that might derail me.  In addition to festive celebrations, I’m back at the day job, which looks like it’s going to be interesting and challenging, but for some reason just now feels more like an entirely new thing and kind of intimidating. I’m also waiting on copyedits for the year’s best and the much-delayed Godlike Machines, while doing my part to complete New Space Opera 2.  I also have a couple unwritten proposals sitting in the back of my mind, bothering me, which I should get to soon.

Still, what am I reading? Well, I’ve just finished off the January issues of F&SF and Asimov’s, and am working my way through Peter Crowther’s We Think, Therefore We Are.  I found the opening salvos from the magazines for 2009 pretty solid, but overall unspectacular.  The best in F&SF, for mine, was Charlie Finlay’s “The Minuteman’s Wish”, which apparently ties in with some upcoming novels.  It’s a good story, but does feel like it leads into something longer, rather than being complete in an of itself.  The best in Asimov’s was probably Will McIntosh’s “Bridesicle”, which I would describe as a very solid professional piece of short SF centered around the old theme of why would people revive frozen corpsicles in the future.  It’s too early to say much about the Crowther anthology – I’m only four stories into it – but it seems worth your while.  When I’m finished it, I’ll say more.  Then back to Ellen’s Poe, I think.

So, I was woken at about 2.30am this morning and didn’t get back to sleep.   Not good for the first day back at work.  Went to the office for the first time in five weeks, and everyone was lovely, but this is a new job really and I was feeling tired and out of my depth.  I’m sure all will be good, but it just left me on edge. I then got home to find that the 20kg box I mailed on Saturday to Victoria containing the dead CD player was sent to me rather than the right place. So, rather than crashing for a while I took MJ and Jess to gym and went and fronted the Post Office about it. It’s now on its way to where it needs to go.  I got home and felt tired and irritable.  As a result, I’ve closed down my Facebook account for a while.  This isn’t a big deal and isn’t a thing against anyone or anything – I just didn’t want to think about status updates and friend requests and vampire pigeon wrestling matches.  Another day, yeah?

As I write details are yet to be finalised for a fourth volume in my Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year anthology series, but Jeremy at Night Shade has said they want the book and so I believe it will happen.

With that in mind, along with the crew at Not if You Were the Last Short Story on Earth, today I’m starting reading 2009 short fiction.  I have Ellen Datlow’s Poe anthology and Sharyn November’s Firebirds Soaring as the first things on my to read list, and will be actively hunting new short fiction out. If all goes to plan, I’ll be reading new short fiction till 1 November 2009, at which point I start working on the manuscript for volume five in time for a 1 December delivery date.  It’ll be tight, but doable.

Now, although it’s not been announced the LSSOE gang are mixing up what they’re doing and I’m planning on doing the same.  First, there should be more blogging about what I like and don’t.  I’m not sure where yet, but it’ll happen. Second, there’ll be more outreach. If you see, hear, or publish short fiction please let me know. I want to see everything I can.  Please don’t be shy about getting in touch. I read anything under novel length and anything that could be considered science fiction or fantasy (I do read on the peripheries of horror, but the book I’m doing is only peripherally horror).  Thirdly, I hope to have a year’s best announcement here soon that I’m pretty excited about.  The minute it’s confirmed, I’ll let you know.

Well, that’s it for the moment.  More soon!

The good folks over at Night Shade have posted the table of contents for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 3.  You can check it out over there.  It’ll be out in March and I’m pretty happy with it.  I hope you all like it too.