I don’t anthropomorphise my technology. I don’t have cute or clever names for it, and I don’t think it has any particular personality. Still, today I am a little sad about something.  I bought an iPad 2.0 back in June of 2011, just on two  years ago. I have carried it with me around the world, recorded (and lost) some wonderful podcasts on it, read books, read graphic stories, listened to music, watched television and music, whiled away flights, blogged, photographed, and even played games, performed bank transfers and who knows what all else during that time. I doubt that a day has gone by when I haven’t used it extensively for some purpose or other, and I’ve become very attached to it.

So, today, when I had to while away a little time sitting on my front porch I decided to kill ten minutes playing a game (Asphalt 7, for the curious). And, as has never happened before, the iPad slipped from my hand, skidded slightly down the step, and hit the concrete path just *s0*.  At first I thought I’d escaped, but I quickly saw that one corner has been crunched, that some glass was missing there, and then noticed hairline cracks extending over most of the screen (including a great big diagonal doozy of a thing). Basically, though the device is still functioning, it’s cactus.

It’s something I wish hadn’t happened. I’d no plans to replace the iPad, and I’m not sure what I’ll do. I’ll take it to Apple tomorrow, who will probably replace it rather than fix the screen. A fee, I believe, of about $280. There’ll be some fiddling around, then onwards I guess. I am considering switching to an iPad Mini, but am doubtful since I use the iPad to watch TV, and I could switch to an iPad 4, but the 5 is apparently not far away. Something to ponder.

In the meantime, though, a moment of very mild melancholy. “Jonathan Strahan’s iPad”, nifty Coode St sticker appended to the back, has been a faithful servant these past two years and will be missed.

The trade paperback edition of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven was published by Night Shade Books back in March. Since then the publishing house has changed hands, with Skyhorse Publishing taking over the print editions of Night Shade’s titles and Start Publishing taking over the ebook editions.

One effect of the transition was that the ebook edition of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven was delayed. I’m delighted to see that you can now buy it from:

• iTunes Bookstore for your iDevices; and 
• Barnes and Noble for your Nook.

I would expect it to be available from other digital retailers shortly.  I really appreciate everyone’s patience with this, and hope you enjoy the book!

I was saddened by the news that Jack Vance passed away a couple of weeks ago. I’d met him once, and I suppose I’d been reading him on and off a little for years. I have a fond memory of being given an Isaac Asimov edited volume of Hugo winners by my dad in the early 1980s. Dad would stop off at the Mt Lawley Bowling Club on his way home from work for a drink or two. The Bowling Club had this shelf of second hand books for sale.  He picked up that battered copy of The Hugo Winners for $2 and gave it to me, a way I think of reaching out to my love of science fiction which he’d never really understood. It has “The Last Castle” and “The Dragon Masters” in it.

Even though I loved those stories, I never really followed up with Vance. I remember several rounds of reissues coming out in the ’80s and ’90s from the UK, and being curious. I tried Lyonesse, but I wasn’t really read for it at the time. And Terry Dowling, who I was in frequent contact with at the time, would often recommend him to me, but it was only in the late 1990s I connected. I was in Oakland once and Terry took me up to Jacks’ house in the hills. I met Norma, who was lovely, and then Jack came stomping up from downstairs. He’d been working on Lurulu, I think. We sat and drank coffee and talked about 1930s jazz, which he loved very much, and had a wonderful time. It was and is still a surprise, though, that I ended up working with Terry on eight volumes of Jack’s work for Subterranean Press. I am intensely proud of The Jack Vance Treasury, and hope someone brings it back into print, but reading for the others opened his fictional worlds to me and I confess I’ve come to love them.

That said, nothing has prepared me for how I’d feel about the news today that Iain Banks has died. I started reading science fiction when I was seven and read my way through the classics (and some that were fun but definitely not classics).  Banks was the first writer whose work I discovered after I became an adult, and he always felt like one of “mine”. The old guys — Heinlein, Sturgeon and others whose work I’ve loved – came from an earlier time. Not Banks. I find myself deeply saddened, though not devastated – I’d never met him, but I think if I had I would be shattered – that he is gone.

I first met Iain in the pages of Consider Phlebas (always Considerable Phlebitis to me), a book I’d heard about and ended up hunting down in a warehouse on the wrong side of the railway tracks, south of the river. I was swept away by the breadth of imagination, the humour and above all the depth of humanity in his work. I devoured The Player of Games and each of the books that came after. I went back and read The Wasp Factory and The Bridge, and reserve my deepest love for The Crow Road (one of my very favourite books with possibly the greatest opening line I know). Some of the later books were better and some were not, but all of them contained something magnificent. They are all worth reading.

Though our paths never crossed , I felt I had a sense of him too. A larger than life figure who wrote wonderful science fiction, who climbed the outside of hotels for fun, who drank scotch  prodigiously and laughed more, and who was always racing across the Highlands in an enormous car.  When I think of him, and I shall, it will be aboard the GCU Very Little Gravitas Indeed, sipping a scotch and having a laugh. He will be missed.

Busy days here on Coode Street. Having recorded a new podcast last weekend with Mary Rickert and Christopher Barzak, I’ve been busy with Fearsome Journeys and writing more blog posts than I think I have in the past five years. That’s actually proving sort of fun. And then, in amongst it all I ended up chatting with David Barnett about Australian science fiction for his article “Science fiction and fantasy: the wonderful wizards of Oz” which reports on the two recent amazing UK book deals for Ben Peek and Rjurik Davidson, and then touches on a few points about Australian SF generally.

And a special thanks for tonight’s award announcement. Any anthology is only as good as the stories it contains.  The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Six is a combination of some wonderful work by Stephen Baxter, Peter S. Beagle, Libba Bray, Cory Doctorow, Jeffrey Ford, Karen Joy Fowler, Neil Gaiman, Nalo Hopkinson, Dylan Horrocks, Kij Johnson, Caitlín R Kiernan, Ellen Klages, Margo Lanagan, Kelly Link, Ken Liu, Paul McAuley, Ian McDonald, Maureen F. McHugh, Nnedi Okorafor, An Owomoyela, K. J. Parker, Hannu Rajaniemi, Robert Reed, M Rickert, Geoff Ryman, Robert Shearman, Bruce Sterling, Michael Swanwick, Catherynne M. Valente, Peter Watts, and E. Lily Yu. I would like to thank each and every one of them for letting me feature their stories in my book. This Aurealis Award is every bit as much their award as it is mine.