I have just delivered my latest project! For the past year I have been working away on a special issue of Subterranean Magazine for Bill Shafer and Subterranean Press. I love Subterranean and feel incredibly lucky to have been invited to edit a second issue of the magazine.  There’s still a little work to do on the issue, which features an anthology’s worth of new original science fiction and fantasy stories, but here’s the table of contents!

• The Scrivener, Eleanor Arnason
• Bit Players, Greg Egan
• The Prelate’s Commission, Jeffrey Ford
• Nanny Anne and the Christmas Story, Karen Joy Fowler
• Hayfever, Frances Hardinge
• Caligo Lane, Ellen Klages
• I Met a Man Who Wasn’t There, KJ Parker
• Pilgrims of the Round World, Bruce Sterling

The issue, which I think will be the Winter 2014 issue, is due out in early January. I’m searching for some cover art for it at the moment!

Every episode of the Coode Street Podcast tends to be an unedited, unplanned ramble through whatever circular discussion topic might occur to Gary and I. Generally, we’ve not discussed what we’re going to chat about beforehand, which means we’ve also not dont any particular research either.

This makes for a quick and relaxed preparation for us, and also makes the workload of doing a weekly podcast in amongst everything else we do manageable. What that means, though, is that it’s critical that we acknowledge when we’ve got it wrong, or have just not presented as balanced a picture as we should.

During Episode 167 of the podcast, Gary and I discuss fantasy, fantastika and things terminalogical. One of us – probably me (Jonathan) – incorrectly refer to “fantastika” as a term coined by our good friend and critic John Clute.  This, as commenters have correctly pointed out, is not true.   As John himself writes in the SF Encyclopedia:

“A convenient shorthand term employed and promoted by John Clute to describe the armamentarium of the fantastic in literature as a whole, encompassing science fiction, Fantasy, fantastic horror and their various subgenres; (see also Equipoise; Horror in SF). The term has long been used in Czech, other Eastern European and Russian discussion of genre; it is the title of Bulgaria’s first sf magazine (formerly known as F.E.P.) and, as Fantastyka (which see) of Poland’s. Clute discusses the term in his Pardon This Intrusion: Fantastika in the World Storm (coll 2011), where he advocates the use of the term primarily to describe works of the fantastic after about 1800, when the genres for which it serves as an umbrella began to take on conscious form, and began tentatively to use the planet itself (past, present and particularly the future) as a default arena (> Ruins and Futurity). [JC/DRL]

John is quite clear about the origins and usage of the term, as should we have been. Our apologies, and thanks commenters for bringing it to our attention.

Friday felt like the first real day here in London. I’d woken early and headed out for breakfast at a cafe on Marchmont Street. The area the hotel is in is quite close to the British Museum, so the plan was to have breakfast, see a few things, wait for the traveling companions to arise, and then experience London.

Because jet lag is a cruel mistress, G didn’t emerge till 11am and E till nearly 1pm. We ended up having lunch at a nearby pub (fairly appalling fish and chips), then strolled over to the BM for a long look at their Greek, Egyptian, and European collections, which were fairly breathtaking. We spent hours there, tried and failed to find stuff we needed to buy in the Museum Shop, and then headed off in search of a pub. We found one and the next hours disappeared in a series of pints, some terrific conversation, and then back to the hotel.

Today: Trafalgar Square, DN, and maybe Forbidden Planet.

Without ever being sure when or how, and with a year or so’s careful non-planning, my trip to London and Brighton started at around 5pm on a warm and sunny Wednesday afternoon. Marianne and I had shared a pleasant late breakfast at Mrs S in Maylands, picked up the mail, seen my mum, and then headed home for me to finish packing. Then a circuit to pick up the girls, so they could seems off at the airport.

Based on Alisa’s recommendation, I decided to give Singapore Airlines a try, with mixed results. The check-in was smooth and the staff terrific, but aspects of the old 777 layout made the flight extremely uncomfortable. The SA people were lovely, though, and the long haul flight much better on SA’s new and very comfortable layout. I even slept a little, in between blearily watching TV and reading Lavie Tidhar’s The Violent Century. By the time I got to Heathrow, 22hrs after Perth and 35hrs after my last night’s sleep, I was more than ready to get off the plane. I am, however, optimistic about the flights home.

It took about an hour to clear Customs, and I then wandered around a little before deciding to take the express train into London, and a cab over to the hotel. It was about 9:45am when I got there, where I was told I couldn’t get a room till 3pm. With that, I decided to go with our original plans, so I headed over to Camden Town to visit John and Judith Clute. They have a wonderful, filled but not cluttered, intriguing, arty home at 221B and were delightful and welcoming hosts for a weary traveler. We talked till Gary Wolfe arrived just after 1pm, then had some lunch in their rooftop garden. Ellen Klages arrived at about 3:30pm, and our London group was complete.

We talked till around 5pm, when we headed back to the hotel, the over to Picadilly to me up with Garth and Sean for first whiskey and then dinner at a nearby Mexican/Polish restaurant where we had a terrific South Australian red and I had some wild boar. Jet lagged, we all decided to head back to our hotels early. A quick tube ride, though, and Ellen & Gary & I found ourselves drinking in a Camden pub till nearly midnight.

This morning has started slowly. Frankly, I didn’t sleep well, but have enjoyed puttering around and exploring the local area. Next: the British Museum (I think).