It’s a weird thing for me, but December/January and April are the times of the year when I tend to get Meniere’s attacks. I don’t know why, though I have and continue to look into it.  In the time since my return from the UK my hearing has very slowly deteriorated. It was pretty good, all told, in the US, but it’s gotten quite poor of late. Tinnitus is up, hearing is down, and life tends to grind to a halt when that’s happening. I’m hoping I can get it to clear up without an attack, not so much because I loose a day or so to the attack and it’s symptoms, but because each one carries the risk of further permanent hearing loss, and I’ve lost as much as I feel I can. I already should be using hearing aids, something I’ll definitely sort out after this has settled down.

Time otherwise is a haze of desultory Christmas shopping, whisky obsessing, and reading short fiction.  I’ll update on the latter sometime soon.  This past weekend we recorded a marvelous podcast with Kij Johnson and I got to hang out with my brother for lunch. No music listened to at all (obviously), but we did rewatch Elf for family movie night (Jessica’s choice).   A busy week ahead with graduations, friends and more.  Were it not for the ears etc, life would be good!

We tell ourselves stories. We do it about things we’re doing, things we’re about to do, and things we have done. I tend to do it about the year I’m living. This one was ‘tough’. That one was ‘successful’. The adjective doesn’t matter. The year gets reduced to something less than it was when I was living it.

For example, 2014 is a year I would probably describe in passing conversation as difficult or tough, mostly because of medical issues. As long-time readers know, I was diagnosed with Meniere’s Disease in April of this year. During two attacks in April I lost enough hearing to make it permanently noticeable and to make the resulting tinnitus far more noticeable.

I am yet to surrender to getting hearing aids, though I will, so maybe that will help. But that was my ‘difficult’. No-one I loved or liked or even didn’t-like-but-knew died. No-one was hurt or injured or starved. When I think about friends of mine who are dealing with real problems (Kate & David or Glenda & Jock, Liza and others), this is pretty minor stuff.

As a counterbalance to this feeling I began to think about some of the good things that happened this year. These include:

1. France and England with Sophie! – In August I was stupidly, incredibly lucky enough to travel to Normandy, Paris and London with my now thirteen-year-old daughter. We spent time in a farmhouse near Saint-Martin-de-Landelles in Normandy where we celebrated Ellen’s birthday, visited Mont Saint-Michel, and spent time with Maddy, Greer, Kate and David, Elise and Jean, and the gang. Sophie learnt to play the ukulele a little and fed Pig! We then got to go to Paris (!) where we saw all the things and had the world’s greatest ice-cream and hot chocolate! Then London and the London Eye and Barbara and Matilda and Billy Elliot. So much! It was, even though it had its moments of reality, pretty incredible. Memories for a lifetime.
2. Washington – Suddenly, unexpectedly I was traveling to Washington and WFC, for which I will always be grateful, where I got to spend time with Garth, James, Guy, Gary and the gang. There was a walk-through the National Air and Space Museum, late night secret whisky with Guy, Mary, Garth et al., and a lot more.
3. Bruce! – This year I saw four Bruce Springsteen shows. He played “Jungleland”!! I stood for somewhere between four hours and a hundred years on a Melbourne Sunday, but it was a lifetime memory that I got to share with my best friend, my brother. I also got to introduce my love, Marianne, to the joy of live Bruce, and made a convert.
4. Suzanne Vega – Early in the year we saw Suzanne Vega, and it was unexpectedly wonderful.
5. Dunsborough – Two trips to Dunsborough – one at Christmas and one mid-year. A happy, beautiful time with family, even if I was unwell over Christmas.
6. Books – I sold books. I’m editing The Best of the Year 9 now, as well as the fourth Infinity anthology and a climate change book (of sorts). I’m hopeful I’ll shortly sell Best of the Year 9 & 10, and am working on several yet-to-be-announced projects.
7. Friends – I saw, spent time with, was supported by, loved and laughed with friends around the world. Too many to mention. Alisa, James, Garth, Guy, Ellen and many more.
8. The podcast – four years of chatting with Gary and we’re only just beginning to either hit our stride or run out of stuff to talk about, and more to come. Reinvention but continuation, as we push for our first decade doing it.

And there was other stuff. I turned 50! I celebrated fifteen years of marriage to the wonderful Marianne!  I spent time with my mum, who drives me to work every day! I discovered whisky seriously for the first time. I found new writers. I read great books. I watched way too much television (that was worth it). I got to work with an amazing team of people at ye olde day jobbe, who are fun and friends and make long days shorter.

So, with all that and more going on (I know I’ve not mentioned some things) I couldn’t possibly call 2014 a bad year or a horrible year. Difficult, yes. Amazing, yes. Filled with memories and joy, definitely.

I have only one real regret. I wish I could bring everyone I know – all of my friends and family from Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Brisbane, London (!), Edinburgh, New York, New Jersey, Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco and goodness-knows-where-else –  together for a single night to celebrate, to say “thank you!”, and so my little family could get to know them all and see how lucky I’ve been. It’s easy to forget just how lucky, and while there may only be six people at our Christmas dinner this year, there’s so many more that belong there.

I am very lucky to be published by the wonderful team at Solaris, who have treated me incredibly well since we first worked on Engineering Infinity together. I’m currently working on several projects with them, and hope to still be working with them for some years.

They have just told me that they are holding a sale. If you like ebooks and if you can buy stuff in the UK, Rebellion is selling all of the ebooks they’ve published that have been nominated for or have won awards. There’s some pretty cool stuff in there, along with my own Infinity and other books.

If you’re looking for a great pre-Christmas bargain check it out!

I am going to do my best to summarise the #BestSFF2014 discussion happening here, on Twitter and on Facebook.  The list below is a quick summary of the first day of recommendations, omitting my own recommendations (this is about you!) and where someone recommends their own work (you need someone else to like it too!).  So here goes. If there are errors or omissions let me know!

[updated 30 November 2014]

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

Joe Anderton, Guardian
Alan Baxter, Bound
Monica Byrne, The Girl in the Road (first novel)
James L. Cambias, A Darkling Sea, (first novel)
Michel Faber, The Book of Strange New Things
Daryl Gregory, Afterparty
William Gibson, The Peripheral
Peter F. Hamilton, The Abyss Beyond Dreams
Nick Harkaway, Tigerman
Dave Hutchinson, Autumn in Europe
Simon Ings, Wolves
Chang-Rae Lee, On Such a Full Sea
Ann Leckie, Ancillary Sword
Liu Cixin, The Three-Body Problem
Emily St John Mandel, Station Eleven
David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks
Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Paul Park,  All Those Vanished Engines
Richard Powers, Orfeo
Hannu Rajaniemi, The Causal Angel
Adam Roberts, Bete
James Smythe, No Harm Can Come to a Good Man
James Smythe, The Echo
Charles Stross, The Rhesus Chart
Sarah Tolmie, The Stone Boatmen
Jeff VanderMeer, The Southern Reach Trilogy
Jo Walton, My Real Children
Peter Watts, Echopraxia
Will Wiles, The Way Inn
David Wingrove, The Empire of Time

FANTASY NOVEL

Katherine Addison, The Goblin Emperor
Elizabeth Bear, Steles of the Sky
Lauren Beukes, Broken Monsters
Robert J. Bennett, City of Stairs
Rene Denfield, The Enchanted
Max Gladstone, Full-Fathom Five
Lev Grossman, The Magician’s Land
Robin Hobb, Fool’s Assassin
Charlie N. Holmberg, The Paper Magician.
Kameron Hurley, The Mirror Empire
Jay Kristoff, Endsinger
Richard K. Morgan The Dark Defiles
Brandon Sanderson. Words of Radiance
Mark Smylie, The Barrow
Brian Stavely, The Emperor’s Blades

YOUNG ADULT

Joe Abercrombie, Half a King
Gwenda Bond, Girl on a Wire
Alaya Dawn Johnson, Love is the Drug
Robin LaFevers, Mortal Heart
Marie Lu, The Young Elites
A.S. King, Glory O’Briens History of the Future
Jaclyn Moriarty, The Cracks in the Kingdom
Garth Nix Clariel
Danielle Paige, Dorothy Must Die
Tricia Sullivan, Shadowboxer
Greg Van Eekhout, California Bones

ANTHOLOGY

The End is Nigh, John Joseph Adams ed.
Upgraded, Neil Clarke ed.
Suspended in Dusk, Andrew Dewar ed.
War Stories, Jaym Gates & Andrew Liptak eds.
Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Fantasy, Alisa Krasnostein & Julia Rios eds.
Infinite Science Fiction One, Dany G Zuwen & Joanna Jackson eds

COLLECTION

Mike Allen, Unseaming
Chaz Brenchley, Bitter Waters
Adam-Troy Castro, Her Husband’s Hands and Other Stories
Zen Cho, Spirits Abroad
Eileen Gunn, Questionable Practices
Stephen Graham Jones, After the People Lights Have Gone Off
Helen Marshall, Gifts for the Ones Who Come After
K.J. Parker, Academic Exercises
Robert Shearman, They Do the Same Things Different There
Angela Slatter, The Bitterwood Bible and Other Stories

SHORT FICTION

Octavia Cade, Trading Rosemary
Adam-Troy Castro, The Thing About Shapes to Come, Lightspeed
John Chu, Double Time, Kaleideoscope
Haddayr Copley-Woods, Belly
Ruthanna Emrys, The Litany of Earth, Tor.com
K.M. Ferebee , The Earth and Everything Under, Shimmer
Eugie Foster, When it Ends, He Catches Her
Maria Dahvana Headley, If You Were a Tiger
S.L. Huang, Hunting Monsters, Book Smugglers
Nancy Kress ,Yesterday’s Kin, Tachyon
Eliot Langley, A Place Without Monuments and Endings, Clarkesworld
Ken Liu, In The Loop, War Stories
Ken Liu, Running Shoes, SQ Magazine 16
Karin Lowachee, Enemy States, War Stories
Usman T. Malik, Resurrection Points
Sunny Moraine, To Increase His Wondrous Greatnesse More
Sunny Moraine, What Glistens Back
T R Napper, Dark on Darkling Earth, Interzone 254
Garth Nix, Shay Corsham Worsted, Fearful Symmetries
Yukimi Ogawa, Rib, Strange Horizons
Thomas Olde Heuvelt, The Day the World Turned Upside Down, Lightspeed
Suzanne Palmer, Shatterdown, Asimov’s
Tony Pi, No Sweeter Art, Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Alastair Reynolds, In Babelsberg, Reach for Infinity
Mary Rickert, The Mothers of Voorhisville, Tor.com
Chris Roberson, Gold Mountain, Clarkesworld
Sofia Samatar, Walkdog, Kaleidoscope
John Scalzi, Unlocked, Tor.com
Angela Slatter, The Way of All Flesh, Suspended in Dusk
Natalia Theodoridou, The Eleven Holy Numbers of the Mechanical Soul
E. Catherine Tobler, Migratory Patterns of Underground Birds
E Catherine Tobler, We As One Trailing Embers, Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Genevieve Valentine, The Insects of Love, Tor.com
LaShawn M. Wanak, 21 Steps to Enlightenment (Minus One)
Kai Ashante Wilson, The Devil in America, Tor.com
J Y Yang, Patterns of a Murmuration in Billions of Data Points, Clarkesworld
Nathan Ballingrud, Atlas of Hell, Fearful Symmetries
Kaaron Warren, Bridge of Sighs, Fearful Symmetries
Sean Williams, The Cuckoo, Lightspeed

If I get a chance, I’ll try to add links and publication references, but no promises on that. This is a crazy time of the year, after all. And thanks to everyone who has taken part so far!