The World Fantasy thing is coming together. There’ll be a HUGE Aussie Bash party on the Thursday evening. If you’re at the convention in Saratoga, it’s on at 9pm and you must come. It’ll be fun, there’ll be FREE booze, and lots of good folk to talk to. If the party is half as good as the Madison party, it will be awesome. I can now also announce my one panel appearance for the convention. It is:

SATURDAY, 4 PM. City Center C
Survey of the Field: 2006.
Charles N. Brown, Ellen Datlow, Paula Guran, Stephen Jones, Jonathan Strahan (m)

I have no idea how I ended up moderating this puppy, but there you go. I imagine Ellen and Stephen will want to talk horror, Paula will want to talk paranormal romance, and CHARLES will want to talk about 2007.  And me? Well, I’m moderator, so I guess I get to push them around and try not to dominate things too much. It should be fun. Where else will I be during WFC? Well, apart from meal times, I guess around the dealer’s room, and hanging out. If you want to say hi or catch up, please come up and say hi. I’ll even wear the badge so you know who I am, and I hateses the badges. Actually, come to the Aussie bash and say hi, and then we can chat over the weekend. Saratoga should be fun.

So, you love Bruce Springsteen. You know you do. And you’ve just heard they’ve announced a second concert for Thursday, 25 October, which is great. But, how do you get from either downtown San Francisco to the Oakland Arena or from the Oakland hills without a car? This is the question. An answer is needed before tickets go on sale on Monday. Springsteen has never toured Australia. There may never be a better chance to see him in concert. How can this dilemma be resolved?

I took the first steps towards being ready to head off to the US. Last night I configured Skype so that I can talk to the loved ones while I’m in the US without experiencing undue expense. They can even see me, which should be novel. If you’re on Skype, drop me a line. And, if you’re not and you want to stay in touch, sign up. Other than that, the year’s best and Vance books race towards completion, which is good. I’m also beginning to put together my ‘to do’ list, covering everything I need to get done before I get on the plane on Wednesday, 24 October.

Speaking of getting on the plane, if you want to cross paths, here’s when I should be in your town:

San Francisco/Oakland: Oct 24-25
Manhattan: Oct 26-30
Saratoga Springs: Oct 31- Nov 4
San Francisco/Oakland: Nov 5 – Nov 9

I’ll also be passing through Sydney on Oct 24 and Nov 11, but those are really just connecting flights. I am still contemplating minor changes to this itinerary, but that’s pretty much it at the moment. Let me know if you’d like to get together.

Well, after a busy morning The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 2 exists in first draft form! Whew. That means I have clean copies of all of the stories, all of the interstitial material drafted, and a tentative running order. From here I’ve got to go over and clean up the main volume intro and add some very useful thoughts from Gary, and add various contributor changes to story notes. I’d love to have an actual single file with everything in it today, but more likely that will happen later in the week.  The good thing about today’s work is that it means I will definitely make my deadlines, which is a relief. I’ll have a final copy of the book by 24 October, and it’ll be with the publisher in time for the deadline on 5 November (who I know would like it earlier).  And that’s a relief!

Each year, for about a million years, Western Australian science fiction fandom has held a local science fiction convention called Swancon.  The current one, which will run next March is the thirty-third such event (which suddenly makes me feel old – I helped run the 17th and started attending back at the 11th). Swancons have been held at different times during the year, but for some time now they’ve been held over the Easter weekend.  I’ve come to appreciate over the past ten years what a bad idea this is. For whatever reason, chunks of Perth shut down for the Easter weekend. Restaurants and bars are closed, there’s nothing to see or do. Good Friday is especially bad, but Sunday isn’t great either. Unfortunately, the burden for this falls most heavily on people who visit from out of State, who are looking to enjoy both city and convention. I’m sure Swancon 33 will be a hoot, and I’ll definitely be there for the first time in some years, but I hope future Swancon committees consider running the event at another time during the year. For conventions, Easter sucks a bit.