This morning has been a bit of a blue morning. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been listening to a cd of acoustic reworkings of old Stephen Cummings songs and some old Elvis Costello country music, or because colliding deadlines are leaving me a bit out of sorts.

It’s probably not a good thing, but I find that when I get towards the end of a project I start second-guessing a lot of my decisions. Suddenly something that looked perfect three months ago looks decidedly dodgy. I get through it, and things look fine once I’m done, but right at the end-point it’s not much fun. I’m guessing that’s where I’m at with the annual anthologies today. As I posted yesterday, we’re reaching the endgame and suddenly I’m wondering did I miss something, and was that piece I liked in February really as good as I thought it was? For me, I think this is a natural part of the process, but it can be a bit hard on my unfortunate collaborators, and I almost always end up very happy with what we’ve done (for example, I went through this last year, and I think we ended up doing a good job on last year’s ‘year’s best SF’).

I’m hoping I’ll be feeling a little perkier though. It’s a beautiful day outside – cool and sunny – and I’m meeting up with my friend Russell for lunch, so things should pick up in the afternoon. I just have to learn not to brood.

In the meantime, let me direct your attention to the estimable John Klima’s latest issue of Electric Velocipede. I picked up issue 7 of the ‘Pede in Boston and it features cool stories by Liz Williams, Christopher Rowe, Chris Roberson and Steve Nagy. I think it costs about the price of a cup of a coffee and a couple staples, so don’t hesitate. It’s a neat ‘zine.

Niall Harrison has set up a Livejournal community, Short Form, for the discussion of new short SF and fantasy. If it lives up to the last Short Form, Scott Card’s review zine, it should be a valuable thing indeed.

The year is hurtling to a close, and with it the reading period for Science Fiction: Best of 2004 and Fantasy: Best of 2004. With a little luck, Karen and I’ll have final tables of contents for both books in a week, and I can then get down to the job of writing introductions and story notes, and debating sequencing. Once that’s done, it’ll be on to Locus‘s annual recommended reading, which I need to get under way shortly, back to my own reviewing (ha!), and some work on other anthology projects. In the mean time, a call to readers of the blog. If you have any 2004 stories to recommend that we consider for the year’s bests, now’s the time. Drop me an email using the address on the right side of this page, post to the comment field, or post to my NightShade message board. I will follow up on recommendations. I’d also like to thank everyone who’s helped so much this year, letting us see material early and so on. It’s never easy meeting these deadlines, and we couldn’t do it without your help.

One of the mixed blessings about attending international conventions is that you make friends that you only see once a year, or sometimes once every few years. And then, because conventions are typically an insane cascade of happenings, must-do’s, and obligations, you never quite see those people for long enough.

One of the people who I didn’t get to catch up with properly in Boston was Mike Walsh, publisher of Old Earth Books and all round good guy. I first ran into Mike following up review stuff for Locus, and found that we share a love of the fiction of Howard Waldrop and Avram Davidson (Mike gets to walk with the angels, if for no other reason that he published Limekiller), which you should go buy right away).

At Boston Mike published a handful of beautiful looking, and intrinsically cool, new books. Two of them came as a bit of a shock – Centenary editions of Cliff Simak’s City and Way Station. They were a shock because I couldn’t quite believe that the Centenary of Simak’s birth was going by essentially unremarked upon. I’m really happy Mike has published these books, and you should buy them too (especially Way Station which I love beyond reason), but a major publisher should be doing something. If we can have treasuries of short fiction by Avram Davidson, Jack Vance or R.A. Lafferty, shouldn’t there be one from Simak acting as a bulwark against the possibility of this fine writer being forgotten? sigh. Oh, Mike also published an edition of Edgar Pangborn’s Davy. I’ve never read it, but if Mike thinks it’s worth reprinting, I should. In my spare time. Soon.

Neil Gaiman mentions, a photo that David Hartwell took which you can see over at Kathryn Kramer’s blog, of Neil, Stephen Dedman, John Clute and Terry Pratchett, and wonders when the caption competition will begin. I don’t know if it will, but something like “New Hawkwind line-up announced” comes to mind. I’m guessing Pratchett would be on drums, Clute on bass, Dedman on keyboards and Gaiman on guitar and vocals.

He also mentions writing ‘a book about naked, bisexual, hard-swearing wizards who drink a lot while disparaging the Second Amendment’. I don’t know about a whole book, but a short story would be a lot of fun.