I am fickle. I often want something desperately, right up until the moment anyone can have it. Then I lose interest. This is not a good thing, but I am a weak, fallible person and this is not the worst failing a person could have. Right now I’m craving Elizabeth Bear’s new novel, which a nice publicist could send me a copy of (hint hint ), and will probably crave it right up until the release date, at which point it will immediately be too late to read the book. I don’t understand it either. It has something to do with chasing reviewing deadlines of one stripe or another for eight years, and spending too much time reading Forthcoming Books. Who wants this year’s books? I want next years! That said, I should add a thank you to Jason. I’ll be reading those books over the next week or so.

Every Monday morning Jessica’s teacher asks her class to report in on what they did on the weekend. While sometimes Jessica is a clear and energetic reporter about her activities, sometimes she struggles a bit. And so, The Monday Book was born.  The idea is that each weekend Marianne, Jessica, Sophie and I keep a bit of a record of what we’ve been doing on the weekend, keeping track, taking photos and so on. On Sunday evening we then take the photos, place them in a Word file and add comments on what we did, what happened, and what was important over the weekend. The pages then get printed out and added to The Monday Book. We’re only getting started, but I think it should be fun, and good for Jess. The picture at right, the very first Monday Book picture, is of Sophie just after she returned from dance class. She’s showing off her new moves. And yes, parents find these things endlessly fascinating, and we realise others don’t. :)

I wrote the post below for Talking Squid, but after this post I just couldn’t see a way to make it fit. Back to the drawing board!

During the coming nine months ten companies will publish no fewer than nineteen separate books collecting the best science fiction, fantasy, horror, paranormal romance, noir, long, Australian, Nebula nominated, Tiptree shortlisted, and even overlooked stories that were published during the 2005* calendar year.

Now, given that trade journal Locus reported that it saw a record 3,000 short stories in 2005, and noted that even that represented only a small sample of the number of stories actually published, nineteen books collecting maybe 300 stories may not necessarily seem like a lot, especially given that a number of those books will appeal to quite different readers. And, if industry insiders might expect some kind of reduction in those numbers over time, it doesn’t explain the value of the year’s best annual. What interests me the most, as an editor of three different year’s best anthologies myself, is the role that these books play in defining what science fiction (or fantasy) is for the modern reader.

Continue reading Year’s Best Annuals and the Consensus View of SF →

Back in the late ’70s Del Rey published a series of author “Best of” collections. There was The Best of Lester Del Rey, The Best of Leigh Brackett, The Best of L. Sprague de Camp, The Best of Fritz Leiber, The Best of Cordwainer Smith, and The Best of Jack Williamson. These books were about 350 pages long and came with an intelligent introduction written by someone close to the field, who was able to say something meaningful to put the writer in context. These were good books, single, concise arguments for why these writers were important.

I love these books, and this kind of book. If I could get a dream job, it would be to edit a series of similar books for the writers of the ’60s, ’70s. and even 80s.  I mean, we have a few awful collections for Larry Niven, but how about The Best of Larry Niven? Or The Best of Harlan Ellison, or The Best of Connie Willis or The Best of Stephen Baxter?  And there are others. The Best of Gene Wolfe! It would be very cool. Publish them as a set, matching design, numbered as a set – it’s definitely a dream job. sigh.