I need to do this. You may need to do it too. But, Jeff VanderMeer’s doing it first. He’s having a book sale. Check out the information here, get some great stuff and help him clear out his house.

Having posted about Kelly’s new book yesterday afternoon, a copy showed up in the mail box about two hours later. Synchronicity. It’s a beautiful book, and I’d encourage anyone to buy the Small Beer edition rather than any other. All of the scans I’ve seen of the cover left me fairly discouraged, but on the book, as an artifact, it’s wonderful. Can’t wait to see Maureen McHugh’s book now.

They don’t. We know they don’t. Except, well, back on 1 July Small Beer Press published Kelly Link’s new short story collection, Magic for Beginners. It’s a wonderful book, filled with great stories, and it’s been very well reviewed. There’s a new review over at The Believer, where reviewer Dennis Lim suggests the collection’s central question is ‘How are zombies like Canadians?’. While I’m not sure about that, I did notice that the header material for the review says the print run for the book was five thousand copies in hardcover. I also noticed, over at co-publisher Gavin Grant’s journal, that Magic for Beginners has gone back to press. And they’ve just sold paperback rights to Harcourt. Hmm. Five thousand copies in a month, a second printing and a deak for a paperback edition. It sounds like maybe short story collections can sell, if they’re good enough and interesting enough.

* This isn’t a reference to Gregory Feeley’s journal entry about selling collections to publishers. This is about whether they sell to readers, which is a different thing.

Tired. Very broken sleep last night, hence the 1.00am post. Reading Scott’s Blue Noon (not still, I’ve just been distracted), the October/November F&SF, Justina’s Living Next Door to the God of Love, Eidolon stories, and some other stuff. Feeling dazed and confused. Pushing forward, though. Editing is half-finished, the Second Test starts tonight, and sleep. I’m not ‘not thinking about’ Glasgow. Honest.

Thanks to Chris McClelland at Diamond Comics for pointing out that ibooks have reprinted Bob’s Phases of the Moon in a handsome trade paperback. If you don’t have a copy, it’s an essential part of any SF library, and you can get it here. I was particularly tickled to see the cover, which is the same piece of Michael Whelan art that HarperCollins put on The Locus Awards anthology here in Australia. It is a very small world.