Oh, and right now I’m reading Ellen Datlow’s Lovecraft Unbound and Poe (I’m late getting to this one), Dann & Dozois’s The Dragon Book, Dozois & Martin’s Songs of the Dying Earth (I have to dip into this), issues of F&SF and Asimov’s,  while also catching up on stories from Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, and Subterranean. I almost never read anything consistently or cover-to-cover for short fiction. I tend to dip in an out, so I’m making sure I’ve not missed anything. That said, I’ve already picked the first handful of stories for year’s best 4 (which is due at the publisher in December).

I did read a novel – Citizen of the Galaxy by some Heinlein guy – the other month, but my novel reading’s been spotty of late.  I do desperately want to find the time to read Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl and to finish Pandemonium by Christopher Brookmyre.  I’m woefully behind on my novel reading this year, as I have been the last couple.  But then, who has enough reading time :)   Onwards!

Progress is slow, but it is real. I am now taking the biggest honking great antibiotic tablets I have ever seen in my life. I’m not sure whether they’re intended to kill a bug, or me. Still, if they do their job, I’ll be right as rain shortly and that will be a great thing. I’ll then be able to sleep the night through, which will mean energy and light and happiness and normality. I have my fingers crossed.

In the meantime, Swords and Dark Magic, the book formerly known as Conquering Swords, has a publication date. It will be out in July 2010, which really isn’t that far away.  Lou and I have a manuscript we’re just filing a few rough spots off, a cover artist has been commissioned, and all sorts of other goodness is in train.  We’re both really thrilled about the book, which I think is as big and exciting a book as The New Space Opera was a couple years back. The moment Lou and I hand in the final manuscript of the book we’ll most likely post the table of contents. It’s strong, and we’re both very, very happy. There is other news, but it can wait!

Well, we made it. And when I say we, I mean all of us. Authors worked through the weekend, Ross at the Shade was awesome, and it got done. For those who are wondering, I just got the official email from the Shade’s production head saying that the book is off to the printer. The next time I see it will be as a beautiful bound object in San Jose, California at World Fantasy. I could not be happier about it.

As noted previously, the proofs for ‘a certain anthology’ came in on Friday (well, some time early Saturday my time) and had to be turned around by Monday to be sure we’d get that book out for World Fantasy. All of the contributors have put in 110% to make it happen, whether they’re on holidays in a farmhouse in Wales, at home on a hill in San Francisco, or beaming in from Providence. I’m incredibly grateful. This could not have happened ten years ago. My sincerest thanks to them all, and to Mr Lockhart who has kept the lights on at the publisher’s offices to make sure we’re not doing it for nothing. I’m more than a little in love with this book, and am trying to come up with things to do for it at World Fantasy. Hmmm.

I don’t usually post reviews of books of mine here (well, not often), but I’ve just got one of the first major reviews for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 3 from Booklist, and it’s quite good.  They said:

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume.3.
Strahan, Jonathan (editor).
Sept. 2009. 479p. Night Shade, paperback, $19.95 (9781597801492).
REVIEW. First published September 15, 2009 (Booklist).

The third edition of Strahan’s best-of collects, as promised, many of the brightest lights of sf and fantasy. Strahan defines the cousin genres broadly enough to embrace a satisfying and diverse selection that may not be generically all-inclusive yet affords a wonderful dip into what’s out there. It begins with Ted Chiang’s tragic “Exhalation,” in which a being whose people depend on the movement of air for life discovers the possibility that the air will one day cease to move. From there, it’s on to—among others—Elizabeth Bear’s Lovecraft pastiche, “Shoggoths in Bloom”; Ian McDonald’s future India in “The Dust Assassin”; John Kessel’s brilliant melding of Jane Austen and Mary Shelley in “Pride and Prometheus”; a delightful approach to the relationship problems of humans and gods in Rachel Swirsky’s “Marry the Sun”; Greg Egan’s evolving AI in “Crystal Nights”; Maureen McHugh’s future China and its “Special Economics”; Michael Swanwick’s alien encounter, “From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled”; and, finally, Kelly Link’s shape-changing “Pretty Monsters.” Strahan’s talent as an anthologist shines brightly, too, in this tremendous collection.

Setting ego aside, I’m very pleased indeed. Oh, and I’ve just advised the first author for Volume 4 today that I’d like to reprint their story. Ever onawards!