The finalists for the 2005 Locus Awards have been announced over at Locus: Online. Go check ’em out. There’s some good stuff on the list. Winners will be announced at Westercon in July.

…soggy sisters’ day. After school, Jess came home and plotted domestic domination with her sister.

I do not believe I could edit this book myself, though there is a part of me that would like to try, but I wonder if the world would have any interest in a book collecting the year’s best writing about science fiction or fantasy; you know, reviews, essays, articles, blog postings and so on; a book that would synopsise the field’s discussions with itself. I’d love to read it, if it should ever happen. Strikes me as a Borgo Press kind of book. It’d be fun to do.

Not everything that looks cynical is cynical. For example, it seems like everyone is doing a ‘young adult’ book of some kind. The cynical interpretation might be that, following the success of J.K. Rowling, now is a good time to do something (anything) YA. While that is, no doubt, true in a number of cases, it’s not always true.

One book I might have wondered about is the third anthology from the wacky folk at McSweeney’s who, having shown us their enchanted chamber and their mammoth treasury, now prepare to offer us A Book of Evil Marauders, Purple Blobs, and Some Other Things which contains lots of yummy YA goodness by the likes of Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, George Saunders and others. What I decided, in wondering whether this is a cynical exercise or not is that it doesn’t matter. I’m familiar with most of the authors’ who are in the book, and they don’t write cynically. And to be fair, it’s hard to see something like McSweeney’s Valencia St. project as a cynical exercise. Those are the things that matter. So, another cool book for the ‘to read’ pile. It should be very interesting reading.

The Science Fiction Book Club’s write-up for Best Short Novels: 2005 is over on their website. I’m delighted it’s up on their site, and that you can now order it. The only part that fills me with fear is that it says the ship date is May 27. Given that the proofing for the 210,000 wd book only arrived here May 11, I think it may be a little longer than that. But, not much. I think it’s supposed to go out in July.