I am ridiculously sentimental and have a real weakness for silly and romantic things. Christmas has always been a favorite time of the year, even though it only seems to become more stressful and complicated with time. One thing I really love is a good Christmas song, and so I thought that since this is my blog and these are days of self-indulgence, I would put together a list of my Top 5 Christmas Songs.

Because I’m older many of these are a little melancholy, but they’re all ones I’ve come to love.

1. Fairy Tale of New York, The Pogues with Kirsty MaColl

This one’s the gold standard in indy Christmas songs. MaColl and McGowan are perfect, even if the story they tell is a sad one.

2. How to Make Gravy, Paul Kelly

Another sad Christmas song. A man calling from prison to make contact with his family. Probably my favorite Australian Christmas song ever.

3. White Wine in the Sun, Tim Minchin

Though this one is a close runner up. The image of the family drinking white wine in the sun is one the resonates when you live in a place where Christmas Day itself is often blisteringly hot.

4. Happy Xmas (War is Over), John Lennon and Yoko Ono

One of the first great rock/pop Xmas songs, and a Lennon song I like better than “Imagine” these days.

5. Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, Bruce Springsteen and the (mighty mighty) E Street Band

But most great Xmas songs aren’t sad. Every now and then you have to turn to the hard rockin’ E Street Band to kick out the jams and party at year’s end.

We have official permission, so here it is. This is the cover for Swords and Dark Magic, which will be out from HarperEos in July. The cover, arranged by the wonderful Diana Gill, is by Benjamin Carre. We’re very happy with it, and also sort of excited that there’ll be another cover to see too, when the Subterranean cover comes out (we’ve not seen it yet). Lou and I had so much fun doing this book, and really hope to do another one. In the meantime, we can’t wait to find out what the world will think of this book we’ve enjoyed doing so much.

With the manuscript safely in the hands of the publisher in San Francisco, I can now reveal the final table of contents for The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year: Volume 4. As anthologists always do, I wish I’d had more space to include other stories that I loved, but I think that these selections are very strong.

Introduction, Jonathan Strahan
1.  It Takes Two, Nicola Griffith (Eclipse Three)
2.  Three Twilight Tales, Jo Walton (Firebirds Soaring)
3.
4.  The Island, Peter Watts (The New Space Opera 2)
5.  Ferryman, Margo Lanagan (Firebirds Soaring)
6.  A Wild and Wicked Youth, Ellen Kushner (F&SF)
7.  The Pelican Bar, Karen Joy Fowler (Eclipse Three)
8.  Spar, Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld)
9.  Going Deep, James Patrick Kelly (Asimov’s)
10.  The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Holly Black (The Eternal Kiss)
11.  Zeppelin City, Michael Swanwick & Eileen Gunn (Tor.com)
12.  Dragon’s Teeth, Alex Irvine (F&SF)
13.  This Wind Blowing, and This Tide, Damien Broderick (Asimov’s)
14.  By Moonlight, Peter S. Beagle (We Never Talk About My Brother)
15.  Black Swan, Bruce Sterling (Interzone)
16.  As Women Fight, Sara Genge (Asimov’s)
17.  The Cinderella Game, Kelly Link (Troll’s Eye View)
18.  Formidable Caress, Stephen Baxter (Analog)
19.  Blocked, Geoff Ryman (F&SF)
20.  Truth and Bone, Pat Cadigan (Poe)
21.  Eros, Philia, Agape, Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com)
22.  The Motorman’s Coat, John Kessel (F&SF)
23.  Mongoose, Sarah Monette & Elizabeth Bear (Lovecraft Unbound)
24.  Echoes of Aurora, Ellen Klages (What Remains)
25.  Before My Last Breath, Robert Reed (Asimov’s)
26.  Jo Boy, Diana Wynne Jones (The Dragon Book)
27.  Utriusque Cosmi, Robert Charles Wilson (The New Space Opera 2)
28.  A Delicate Architecture, Catherynne Valente (Troll’s Eye View)
29.  The Cat That Walked a Thousand Miles, Kij Johnson (Tor.com)
Recommended Reading

Eagle-eyed readers will note one of the spots is blank.  This isn’t an error. I’ve agreed not to publicise one of the stories until the book comes out, so that publication here doesn’t step too badly on the toes of its original publisher. I will, however, reveal the omitted story in March.  And yes, if space permits, there will be a Recommended Reading list in the book for the first time ever. If it doesn’t make it for length reasons, I’ll make sure it’s published online.  You can pre-order the book at Amazon.com here.

ETA: Added source info.  Been in a hurry, so took this from the ToC of the book.
ETA 2: You can see the ToC for my Locus colleague, Rich Horton’s year’s best over here.
ETA 3: Corrected misattribution of Jo’s story, which proves I shouldn’t edit posts late at night when I’m tired. Apologies on that!

This past week the good folk over the The A.V. Club posted a list of their ten best short-story collections of the 00’s. After presumably much deliberation, they chose: George Saunders Pastoralia, Charles Stross’s Toast, John Crowley’s Novelties & Souvenirs, Alice Munro’s Runaway, Kelly Link’s Magic for Beginners, Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things, Deborah Eisenberg’s Twilight Of The Superheroes, Lore Segal’s Shakespeare’s Kitchen, Joe Hill’s 20th Century Ghosts, and John Updike’s My Father’s Tears And Other Stories.

That got me to thinking. If The A.V. Club named five genre collections amongst their top 20, what would I come up with if attempted to assemble a list of the top ten genre collections of the decade? I got to thinking, then I began looking through lists and making notes. In the end I think I considered three hundred or so collections (as my starting point I used Locus’s annual recommended reading list as an aide de memoire), and then began whittling it down.

My criteria for the list were simple. The collections had to be outstanding on every level. They had to be science fiction, fantasy, or horror. They had to be original collections. I deliberately excluded major career overviews like The Complete Stories of J G Ballard, which are wonderful, but which strike me as different things. And I had to love them. That left me with the list below…

1. Beluthahatchie and Other Stories, Andy Duncan (2000)
2. Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang (2002)
3. Black Juice, Margo Lanagan (2005)
4. 20th Century Ghosts, Joe Hill (2005)
5. Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link (2005)
6. The Empire of Ice Cream, Jeffrey Ford (2006)
7. Map of Dreams, M. Rickert (2006)
8. Pump Six and Other Stories, Paolo Bacigalupi (2008)
9. Oceanic, Greg Egan (2009)
10. Cyberabad Days, Ian McDonald (2009)

Although I could argue over details, and did consider annotations and explanations, I thought I’d leave the list as is.  I’m curious, too, to hear what you think I missed?

The nominations for the 2009 Aurealis Awards have been announced and I’m delighted to say that Eclipse Two, Eclipse Three and The New Space Opera 2 have all been nominated in the Best Anthology category, along with Keith Stevenson’s x6 and Alisa Krasnostein & Tehani Wessely’s New Ceres Nights.  I’d like to thank the judges, wish Keith, Alisa and Tehani well on the night, and thank all of the contributors and publishers of my books.  Congratulations, too, to all of the other nominees.