A while back, may be a month ago, a friend emailed me to say that he’d heard Alex Irvine read a new short story at one of Ellen Datlow‘s KGB readings. It was, he assured me, about zombies and damn fine in the extreme.
Now, you simply can not get too many tips like this, so I promptly emailed Gordon over at F & SF, who assured me that the story was in hand, and would be in print before too long. Well, when I got the January issue of F & SF last week and it contained Alex’s story “The Lorelei” I thought that this must be it. I read it and it is a very fine story. It lacks for little, but what it does lack is zombies. At first I wondered if my source had been mistaken, but then I saw over on Alex’s website that he has another story, “The Golem of Detroit”, due out from F & SF shortly. This is a very cool thing and I await it with some anticipation. And it occurs to me that, considering there’s already one fine Irvine story in the magazine in ’05, and another one on the way, shouldn’t you have subscribed?
I’ve just started reading Gwyneth Jones’ new novel Life, which so far is very impressive. I also, just today, found out she had a blog. I know, of course, that all of you already knew about this, but just forgot to mention it, but still… Anyway, on her blog, Jones mentions she’s handed in Band of Gypsies, the fourth ‘Bold as Love’ novel. I thought the first book was brilliant, the second almost as good, and the third solid. I’m eager to see the fourth, and penultimate book, so I guess I’ll have to see if I can get one from the publisher. Wish me luck. Oh, and I’d add a congratulations to the guys at Night Shade for having the smarts to decide to publish Bold as Love in the US. It’s dynamite.
I don’t know if I’m the only one who reads one of the outcomes of Saturday’s Federal election this way, but it seems clear to me that the Australian electorate has picked up the cudgel and is smiting the Democrats for their sins.
For those who may have forgotten, two elections back the Democrats rode a promise to oppose the introduction of a goods and services tax (GST) to their best-ever electoral result. Presumably power-drunk on their new level of influence, the Democrats then-leader Meg Lees negotiated a deal that allowed the GST to be introduced by the Howard government. It cost Lees her party’s leadership, her political career, and now the party seems to be poised on the edge of oblivion. Speaking as a voter who expressly changed his vote that year to support the Democrats and oppose the GST, I couldn’t be happier. The Democrats deserved then, and deserve now, to be removed from the Australian political landscape, and that seems to be happening. There’s a real chance they won’t even have the support to continue to be registered as a political party. Good. No retreat, no surrender and no forgiveness. Ever.
Well, we at Coode Street are braver than the media outlets and are willing to call the Australian Federal Election for 2004 for the Liberal Party. With 25% of the vote counted, it seems that John Howard & co will be returned with an increased majority. A dark day.
