Ok. Time to start a little fresh, I think. The Ashes are safely back where they belong, we’re moving into the tonk-a-pom phase of the cricket season, and projects are bubbling along, so let’s try for optimism as a keynote.

The first thing I thought I’d try is to ask you all what you’re looking forward to reading in 2007. I know the readers of Coode Street either are eager readers or are work in publishing, so I’m sure there are books you can’t wait to see. What are they? Are their ones I’m likely to overlook or pre-judge that you’d like to tell me about? I want to know about great upcoming SF, fantasy, YA, whatever.

In the spirit of fair play, at the moment I’m looking forward to Bill Gibson’s Spook Country,  Ellen & Terri’s The Coyote Road, and a bunch of other stuff. I’ve already read a great book by Ysabeau Wilce this year (Flora Segunda, check it out!), a good one by China Mieville, and have a bunch on my to read shelf.

I’m actually thinking that if I can discipline myself (hah!), I might start blogging about what I’ve read this week, mostly for myself, but also for you faithful readers who’ve had such a rubbish six months or so of posts.

The SF Book Club will publish an edition of The Jack Vance Treasury shortly after Subterranean Press publishes the first edition in January. This is wonderful news! The whole point of editing the Treasury was to get as many readers for Vance’s work as possible. I encourage everyone, of course, to grab the Subterranean edition, but if that’s not possible, the Book Club edition is a fine thing in itself. Now, for the project to be completely successful, we only need a mass market edition and a UK edition (hi Gollancz Masterworks people!), and then I’ll rest easy.

Dear blog,

It’s my birthday today. I’m 43. I have a long complicated, and not entirely happy, relationship with my birthday. I don’t know if I could explain why, even if I tried. It has to do with a combination of a history of weird birthday disasters, some kind of internalised Capra-esque ideal of the day, and the pressures of a family eager to finally get it right and make me happy. It seldom works, of course, which isn’t their fault.

Today started just before 6am when I got up and immediately dived into trying to finish my Locus recommended reading essay, which has been sitting awaiting completion for a few days. I then had a small, and very, very sweet family breakfast. At the most superficial level, I got a rock and some candy from Marianne and the girls. More importantly, I got a lot of love. The girls had both put a lot of work into handmaking some cards and stuff, so it was really, really special. Marianne made some raspberry pancakes for breakfast, which can’t be a bad thing. I then started to feel a bit off colour, jetlagged almost. The cricket was delayed, so I went off to get the mail, and arrived home feeling a bit so-so. When I got back I had 200,000 words of proofing waiting for me, which was a fairly happy thing. Of all of the projects I’ve done over the past ten years, this is the one I wish I’d walked away from six months ago. Anyway, the end is in sight. Since then, there was some weirdness to do with lunch, and now blogging.

I’ll also mention that normally this is the blogging high point of my year. I post a lot. This time I’ve simply been too depressed to want to inflict my views on you. Why depressed? I’m tired, less than fit, and not getting enough downtime. I’m determined to change this. I’ve just stopped proofreading Locus after six years (I’m still reviews editor), which is a relief. I’m going to restructure a few other things, as well, to make things work better. Although 2006 was hard, it certainly wasn’t bad. I had four books published. CHARLES and Locus really stood up for me and published my two years bests, and then there was Best Short Novels: 2006, and Eidolon 1. And this year will be busy too. I’ve got my year’s best with Night Shade in March, Best Short Novels: 2007 from the Book Club in May and Prime in September, The New Space Opera from Harper in July, the best of Bruce Sterling from Subterranean in August, and the first of a new original anthology series for Night Shade due in October. I’m also assembling Godlike Machines, a novella anthology for the Book Club, and hope to see The Starry Rift finished and in print by January/February 2008. I remain very proud of and protective of my role as Locus’s reviews editor, and will be over for World Fantasy in November. Hopefully by then things will be simpler.

Hope your holidays were good, your year simpler, and that 2007 is huge for you.

Best,
Jonathan

We were being silly today, at lunchtime. A crazy family! Sophie says “I love you very much, mommy”. Jessie says “I love you daddy, squat squat.” I don’t know what to say.

I don’t talk about sport much here because, mostly, it doesn’t fit. Still. As many of you know, Australia is currently leading ‘the stinking surrender monkeys’ four nil in the latest Ashes series. This is a simply a restoration of the normal order of things. Now, some people are starting to talk about how things will change when Australia next plays in an Ashes series. This will be in England in 2009. By that time a number of very important Australian players will have retired from the game, and new players will have been blooded to fill out the team.  The talk is that this will make Australia more beatable, give England a realistic chance of winner. I don’t think so, and here’s why. Despite losing champions from this champion team, what Australia does have is a champion system. It produces excellent players. We also have a deeply established culture of competitiveness, of professionalism, of pushing to win that has been embedded over the captaincies of Border, Taylor, Waugh and now Ponting. This just won’t ‘go away’. No matter how the personnel change in either the Australian or the England teams (and some of these stinking surrender monkeys will go too, don’t doubt that), Australia will take the field in 2009 believing it WILL win. That will be the difference.