I’ve only just finished proofreading my forthcoming anthology, Fantasy: The Very Best of 2005. It has a lot of terrific stories in it, but one of my favorites is Mary Rickert’s “Anyway”. I love her story “Cold Fires”, and was really disappointed I couldn’t get it into the previous annual, so was particularly pleased I could include one of her stories this year.

I first noticed Rickert’s short fiction in the pages of F&SF, where most of her short fiction has been published, and as one story after another has appeared, have become more and more impressed by what she’s doing. That’s why I was really excited to hear that Golden Gryphon were going to publish her first collection, Map of Dreams, later this year. It’s edited by Marty Halpern, who always does an amazing job on the books he works on (he’s one of the really underappreciated editors working around the place), and, having read many of the stories in the book, I’m sure Map of Dreams is going to be outstanding. What I would say to Coode Streeters is, go read her story “Anyway” over at SciFiction. If you like it, pre-order it with the publisher, an online retailer, or your favorite bookstore. Publishing first collections is always a tricky business, and this is one that really deserves your support.

Today I emailed a proofread manuscript to the publisher, scratched away at an introduction for another book, hated PDFs, thought way too much about the Vance book, got a stress headache, posted a physical manuscript to another publisher, and blogged a bit. Tomorrow Jess and Sophie have a pink Princess disco party to go to. Marianne’s away for the weekend getting well deserved rest, so I’ll be doing that one. I’m not yet at the point where I can get to the long delayed taxes, but almost. Maybe next week.

Back in 1997 Mark Zeising published one of the most underrated story collections / story cycles I know of: Kim Newman and Eugene Byrne’s Back in the USSA. The book, now sadly long out of print and pretty much only available to collectors, is clever, moving, and a lot of fun. It deserved to be a lot more widely read than it was, and hopefully time will correct that.

Today’s mail, happily, brought a new short story collection from the indefatigable Mr Newman, The Man from the Diogenes Club. The book, which features an absolutely note-perfect cover from John Picacio is a thing of beauty, and I can’t wait to sit down and read it over the coming days. You’ll hear more about the adventures of Richard Jeperson and the Diogenes Club here soon enough, in the meantime go buy one. What’s it like? Hmmm. Imagine if Austin Powers was as cool as he thinks he is, and actually investigated something, then you might be in the area. The stories are, generally, smart, creepy and very well done. I can’t wait.

Kevin Kelly has an interesting article about books, copyright, scanning, google, and all that stuff at the New York Times site. Regardless of the correctness or incorrectness of any of his views, opinions or research, one thing is indisputably correct: technology will take the argument away from us all. Last week I was on a website that offered 1100 science fiction titles by authors with surnames beginning with “V”. Had I wanted them, searchable texts of fifteen or twenty Jack Vance books sat there for me to take. I didn’t, but I could have. It won’t be that long before we won’t be able to stop the digital tide, should we even want to.

I first encountered Ian McDonald’s work back in early 1988. Bantam Spectra had decided to make a fuss about McDonald by releasing both his first novel, Desolation Road, and his first collection, Empire Dreams, pretty much simultaneously. I was already a loyal Locus reader at the time, and had read Faren Miller’s reviews of the books in the November 1987 issue, and had ordered copies from a local specialty bookstore in Perth. When Empire Dreams arrived I was knocked out by stories like “Unfinished Portrait of the King of Pain by Van Gogh”, “Vivaldi”, “King of Morning, Queen of Day”, and “The Catherine Wheel”. The latter story was closely linked to McDonald’s first novel, Desolation Road, which arrived a couple of weeks later. A tale of a sun-drenched Martian desert and the mighty atomic-powered railroad that runs across it, it wore its influences on its sleeve, but was captivating nonetheless, and developed something of a cult following. I followed McDonald through his trilogy of fantasy novellas, King of Morning, Queen of Day, and on through the criminally underappreciated novels Necroville and Chaga.If McDonald’s name came up in conversation after that, as it would from time to time, there’d be a small group who had been bitten by the bug and loved his work, a smaller group who thought he was perhaps too facile, something of an imitator, and a disappointing number who’d never had the chance to read his work. And, through the 1990s he kept producing one finely crafted story after another, and occasionally a novel, all of which were never less than interesting, but by the end of the 1990s he’d lost his US publisher and it began to look like we’d heard as much of the McDonald story as we were going to.

And yet there were occasional rumours of a big project, Cyberbad, in the wind. First, though, we saw the short novel “Tendeleo’s Story” and Desolation Road sequel Ares Express. Despite the quality of “Tendeleo’s Story” and short stories like “The Old Cosmonaut and the Construction Worker Dream of Mars”, nothing really prepared us for the book that became River of Gods. First published in mid-2004, it is a bright, energetic novel that tells a sprawling tale of an India facing it’s Centenary. In 2047, with a population of 1.5 billion people spread across a dozen nation states, facing extremes of wealth and poverty, beauty and tragedy, incredibly ancient and equally cutting edge. Where else could a Krisha Cop chase a rogue AI while a politician deals with the failure of the monsoon, or a stand-up comic run a power utility while a scientist lands on an asteroid. More than anything else, this surprising and wonderful novel managed to re-establish (or even establish in some places) McDonald’s reputation as one of the best writers working in the field today, and even helped him to get a new US publisher, who has just published a US edition of River of Gods.

If you’re interested in the best in science fiction, a book that takes The Sheep Look Up into the 21st century, then you should try River of Gods.To get a taste for the book, you can read the opening chapter on the publisher’s website. You can also read “The Little Goddess“, a related story that is up for the Hugo Award this year at Asimov’s website. If you like the story, buy the novel. You’ll love it. And keep your eye out for the other three stories set in this universe: “The Djinn’s Wife”, “Kyle Meets the River”, and “The Dust Assassin”. They’re all terrific.

And, as per a note from Ian, there’s a fifth story, “Sanjeev and Robotwallah”, coming in early 2007 in an anthology from Lou Anders, Fast Forward 1. I know it’s not scheduled, and no-one has committed, by a collection of the Cyberabad stories is already my selection for the best collection of 2008. Surely someone’s going to do it.
Note: This is the third title from Lou Anders’ Pyr imprint that I’ve discussed over the past week. While Lou is a friend, this is really coincidence. On to other publishers shortly!