The good folk at the British Fantasy Society have released the long-list of the British Fantasy Awards. It is a very long list, but I’m delighted to see Eclipse Three, The New Space Opera 2, and The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Three amongst the thirty-seven anthologies recognised by the Society. Whilst Iwould be surprised, and delighted, if any of my anthologies made the final list (I’m not being modest. All contain SF and other stuff, and this is a fantasy award), I would like to thank Society members for this recognition and will work to make electronic texts for the books available to voters, should any of them make the final list.

I have occasional problems with my right ear. It tends to get blocked with wax from time-to-time, and every now and then I get a virus or something affecting it. What this usually means is a week or so of tinnitus, and then all’s back to normal.  The tinnitus struck up about two weeks ago and I’m still dealing with that, but on Wednesday morning I woke feeling dizzy and not at all well. Like an idiot I got up and started to head to work. I made it less than a kilometre before turning around and heading home. I spent some time violently throwing up and feeling rotten, before sleeping deeply for the rest of the morning.  I then saw the doctor and spent Wednesday and Thursday doing nothing much but being sick.  Friday wasn’t too bad, and Saturday is still up in the air.  Meh.

In the meantime I turned my attention to WorldCon and flight/hotel bookings.  Some friends of ours are staying in an apartment hotel, and we may well stay there. We are also considering the Hilton, which has some very nice apartments too.  Dollars are a big consideration, though. I was annoyed to discover that room rates went up while we pondered, so we’ll push to get this, and airfares I suppse, dealt with soon. This means nudging a few people out there to pay some bills so we can, but this is the life of everyone so I while I’m complaining, I’m not complaining (if you know what I mean).

I seem to have dropped off the radar for another week.  The march to finish Wings of Fire is complete.  Marianne and I delivered the final manuscript of the anthology a few days ago.  As always seems to be the case, though, I’m waiting on a few details before we release the table of contents.  There’s still a healthy chance at least one story will be added very late in the piece, and maybe two, so I don’t want to pre-empt that. However, I’d say we should have a list to go public with in the next week.

Now the Wings of Fire is done Marianne is about to get started on cyberpunk research, while I get taxes done. Once taxes are done, then it’s our April holiday (yay!!!), most of the rest of the year will be occupied with Engineering Infinity (June), Eclipse Four (July), The Best of Joe Haldeman, and The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 5 (November). That should see us through till December, when I think I might close the editing doors for a little while for Christmas (that’s assuming we’re on schedule!). Then it’ll be Locus end of year stuff and Under My Hat.  A busy year, but quieter than last.

With all that in mind, I actually read a book this week. I can’t tell you what it was, but I really enjoyed it.  I also picked up a few cds, and tried to watch some cricket.  Taxes, however, are most on my mind now.  How I don’t love them.

There comes a time in any project, no matter how much you love it and have enjoyed working on it, when you’re ready for it to be done.  Marianne and I spent time today putting the finishing touches on Wings of Fire. We’re not quite done – we need to tinker with story notes a little and one or two other things – but we’re nearly done and when we are it goes off to the good folk at Night Shade for the next step on its journey towards becoming a book. When it does come back to us, as a copyedited manuscript for checking some time in early May, I’ll be delighted to see it again. Right now, though, I think I’ve seen enough dragons stories for a few days.

Things are progressing with Wings of Fire and I wanted to check in and let you all know the latest.  The first, and most important, piece of news is that I’ve acquired a co-editor for the book. Last year when I was feeling swamped with deadlines I turned to my wife, Marianne Jablon, for assistance. She’s a former managing editor of Locus, a comics reviewer, and worked for Dell at one point in an editorial capacity, so she was horribly overqualified to act as helper on the book.

Initially I just asked Marianne to help with paperwork, but as time passed and we got deeper and deeper into the project I realised that she was co-editing the book in all but name, so I thought that should be corrected. It’s our first co-edited project, and I doubt it’ll be our last.  She has great taste and is diligent at times when I might be asleep at the wheel, so Wings of Fire is going to be a lot stronger because of her involvement.

Where are we otherwise? Well, the stories are contracted, the story notes and introduction are written, and the various bits of interstitial material have been created.  We’re currently juggling the running order of the book, but once that’s finalised (and we’ll go right down to the wire), we’ll be done. The book is due at Night Shade on Monday, and we’re definitely going to make that deadline.

I’ve no doubt some of you would love to see the table of contents for the book, and I’d love to oblige, but we’re not quite ready. Give us till early next week, when we’ve delivered the final manuscript, and we’ll post it here. I think you’re going to be impressed. I know I’m very happy with how the book has developed.