Although I’m still (!) struggling with the flu, I wanted to post the cover for The Starry Rift by the devastatingly talented Stephan Martiniere. I feel like rubbing my hands together and cackling ‘It’s alive!’. This book has been in progress for so long, and the writers have been so patient with it, but at last we’re making real, concrete steps towards publication. We have an approx publication date (February 2008), we have a format (hardcover), we have a beautiful cover and, before you know it, we’ll have galleys. Galleys filled with marvellous stories by Garth Nix and Ian McDonald, Neil Gaiman and Walter Jon Williams, Ann Halam and Alastair Reynolds. And many more. I cannot wait. In fact, I think I’m going to have to dream up some kind of competition to give away a few galleys. This book is going to rock, and I want people to have a chance to read it as soon as possible. Hmm. See? Even through the flu, this book gets me excited. It’s something special.

Dear blog,

Another quick note from the State of Congestion. This morning my beloved editor Sharyn November emailed me the final cover for The Starry Rift. It’s by Stephan Martiniere. I know you’ve been following the amazing run of art I’ve been having from Stephan recently with the covers for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Best Short Novels: 2007, and The New Space Opera. All of those covers rocked, but this one really kicks ass. It’s schweeeet. I don’t know when I can post the art, but I will when I can. The book, so long in gestation, is going to be the best damned-looking anthology of 2008, a beeyootiful new hardcover from Viking in February or so. What a joy it’ll be to see it at last. I literally cannot wait.

Best,

Jonathan

Via Andrew Wheeler, a note that Bertelsmann have appointed a new Senior Editor for the SF Book Club.

Dear blog,

Well, that flu seems to only have gotten started. Am sick, sick, sick. No going out tonight. Maybe no reading. Head’s clogged, glands swollen, and all that. Going to have to help the girls get ready to go out, then bed. Might try to read for a little while or even watch some Torchwood. Don’t know. Sorry if I’ve been slow to respond to things. Soon,.

Best,

J

Seven minutes and fourty two seconds of music, unthinkingly ripped from a cd casually bought. Seven minutes and fourty two seconds of music not listened to for weeks and weeks, until it unassumingly shuffled to the front of a randomly generated queue, and then quietly, like a comfortable pair of old shoes, slipped into my psyche, seemingly to stay. Who ever thought that’d be Bob Dylan? That he’d write a song that would do that, or that he’d play such a gentle shuffle or sing it in such a quiet way? The song is ‘Spirit in the Water’ and it’s from Modern Times and is as good an argument as you could come up with why Dylan is neither over the hill nor past his prime. Comfort food for the soul, indeed.