This is the beta of the new blog. I’m making a lot of changes, as I learn how to use Word Press, and such, so please forgive any missteps. I’ll be setting up an LJ feed soon, and so on. In the interim, thanks for your patience.

Bruce Sterling has a new book coming out, a collection of stories called Visionary in Residence. It’s to be published by Thunder’s Mouth Press , and features most of his post-A Good Old Fashioned Future short fiction. I think Bruce is, and has for two decades, been one of the most interesting science fiction writers working in the field. I have a feeling that this is one of the books we most likely will, and should, be talking about this year. In case you’re interested, the table of contents for the book is:

I. Science Fiction

Bruce Sterling has done a State of the World: 2006 over at the well. If you haven’t seen it already, it’s worth checking out.

Last year Garth Nix and I attended the World Fantasy Convention in Madison, Wisconsin. While we were there, Garth hosted the biggest and best party of the convention – a party aimed at both having a good time and promoting Australian science fiction and fantasy. As part of the event, I helped Garth put together a catalogue of some (not all!) of the new science fiction and fantasy by Australians set to be published in 2006. For those interested, Garth has put the catalogue online, and you can:

• download it here as a 400k PDF *.

The event was a good thing, and the catalogue was neat too. Check it out.

* This post has been edited to correct the address for the catalogue.

John C. Wright has been publishing new stories set in the world of William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land over at Andy Robertson’s The Night Land website. I thought the first of the stories, Awake in the Night, was terrific, and reprinted it in Best Short Novels: 2004. The second, The Last of all Suns, was also good. A third story, The Cry of the Night Hound, is currently being published in several parts (Part 1, Part 2) and looks pretty interesting. All of the stories are long, so I’m guessing that someone will produce a book of them which would make for a good book.