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.

A few things that have come to my attention of late:

• first, Jeff VanderMeer’s cool new novel, Shriek: An Afterword, will be on sale in Australia in about six weeks. Check out the info on the book at the link above or over at Jeff’s website.
• second, John Clute has an interesting, if puzzled, review of Andrew Butler’s Christopher Priest: The Interaction, over at Strange Horizons.

I like writers. I do. But honestly, working with them sometimes is a little like the apocryphal attempt to herd felines. Continue reading Writers… →

Got an email from CHARLES this morning wishing me happy birthday, which was swell. Normally, we get to have a drink over dinner to celebrate, but this year we’ll hold it over till BrisVegas. Actually, we might even have a double birthday dinner, him and me, one night. I think Liza is coming, so it would be fun. I also missed a birthday call from Sharyn, but she left a great message singing me happy birthday, which was very cool.

And how was the birthday? It was fine. Got nice presents, spent time with loved ones, didn’t drink too much – all in all, it failed to suck. Of course, I’m 42 now, but there you go. Today is the day, though. No more excuses. I owe CHARLES a year-in-review piece, so it’s head’s down until it’s done. I’m guessing tomorrow, but we’ll see. I have notes, and know pretty much what I want to say, but I need to get it all down in words. It’ll be horrible, but you gotta do it. :)