Cory Doctorow has some things to say about Facebook, which are pretty interesting.  I have a Facebook page thingie, but I’m not a big fan of it. I just removed all of my obviously personal information from it, and don’t intend to spend much time dealing with it from here.  Please don’t be offended if I don’t friend you back or something.  It’s me, not you.  If you need to contact me, or chat about something, this remains the place to do it. Oh, I’ve also discontinued all emails from Facebook, so if you send me a message there I’m unlikely to get it.  This is the place.

Night Shade have posted the table of contents and cover for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Vol. 2 over on their website.  I’m pretty sure the cover’s going to change, but the list of stories is solid.  As always, there were three or four stories I really wanted to squeeze into the book, but given that I’m already overlength, I couldn’t make that happen. I’m pretty sure galleys will be going out soon-ish, and the book should be on the shelves in March, 2008.  Although I complain on the blog about the reading, it’s a joy and a privilege to be allowed to do the book, and I hope readers enjoy it.  I’m already reading for the third volume, which should come your way in March of 2009.

I have sitting on my computer desktop a draft call for submissions for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 3. It seems that, although I’ve read almost nothing during my time off from short fiction reading except for Kathleen Duey’s excellent Skin Hunger and the opening chapters of Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea (which I never finished as a child), it’s time to get moving. I have a handful of magazines and anthologies on hand already, and I feel like I should be reading them. I also have this overpowering feeling that I need to start tracking stories down as aggressively as possible.  The number of venues for short fiction is proliferating, and it seemed harder than ever to get everything considered at the end of 2007.

With that in mind, I’ll probably start reading Ellen’s The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy and Lou Anders’ Sidewise in Crime this week, and get on to chasing down other things soon.  I also need to get on with Eclipse Two. The first book has done well, and I’ve just received the first submission for the second book (which is excellent).  I’d also draw your attention to the first book from Golden Gryphon for 2008.  They’re publishing a new collection from Nancy Kress – Nano Comes to Clifford Falls – which looks great.

Speaking as a private citizen, my problem with voting at tomorrow’s Federal election is that I don’t want to vote for ANY of the candidates. We seem to be offered the choice between reprobates and the reprehensible, the insincere and the unconvincing, the dishonest and the dissolute. I suspect that the only real wish of mine that might be granted tomorrow is that the Australian Democrats could lose their status as a political party. That, at least, would be a consolation.

I’m feeling a bit dazed this morning. Somehow we always manage to lose track of time. It’s about four weeks to Christmas, and the next week or two are going to be consumed by preparations for Jessica and Sophie’s end of year ballet and acrobatics performances. We’ve got a half day rehearsal this Sunday, a rehearsal next week, one all day next Sunday, then a dress rehearsal, then two performances of the three hour long show. I get tired just thinking about it, and Marianne’s got to do it! The five minutes of stage time the girls will clock up will be brilliant, but this does seem the hard way to do things,.

My mum’s due out of hospital tomorrow, which is a great thing. Her surgery seems to have gone well, and she is in good spirits. I’m not sure she expected to be coming home at all, so it’s been a great thing to see it all work out. I’ve been going over to her house every morning to water the garden and all of that stuff. This morning I decided to see if I could get ten minutes at a coffee shop before starting work. That’s where this photo was taken.

What next for me? Well, I need to work out Christmas menus. The family are coming to our house, which will be great, but we need to do something nice. Also I want to work out some fun things for the girls to do. Usually our family events are pretty dull for them. There are six or seven adults, and two little kids. I think games or something would make it work. Maybe I’ll ask Uncle Stevie to do that . I also need to get more work done on Recommended Reading, draft my essay for Locus, write three book proposals, and give some thought to actually reading. On that front, no sign of Matter yet. Sigh.