Assuming all goes to plan, in the next two weeks or so I have to write two main volume introductions to Science Fiction: Best of 2004 and Fantasy: Best of 2004, as well as (I think) twenty-five individual story notes. I have previous notes for nine of the story authors, but that’s still something like 8,000 words or so of new stuff to come up with. I expect it’ll take all of that time to get everything right, but then we’ll be pretty much done till next time.

Oh, I should add that doesn’t mean we’ve officially stopped reading for the two books. The reading period closes this coming Friday, and we’ll still look at anything we see up till then (and keep a weather eye out for anything between 1 October and our delivery date), but we have the main list bedded down and a couple floaters that may or not make it. The one decision we have made about this year’s books is no recommended reading lists. We could readily have compiled lists, but we’re so much under the microscope for space that we decided it was best not to push it.

What else? For those interested, I expect to have official news on the fate of Best Short Novels: 2005 in a couple weeks. I’ve seen some great stories for it, and am quite optimistic that it’ll happen, but you never know. After that, it’s on to Locus‘s recommended reading lists, some proposal work for some anthologies, and I’ve got to knuckle down and get seriously under way with The Starry Rift. And somewhere in there we’ll be having a fairy princess party for Sophie’s third birthday, which should be the real highlight, and visit from Sean, which should be fun.

We all need a cause…and there are many good ones. My latest is not the most serious in the world, and certainly doesn’t address any of our globe’s many injustices, but it’s my cause and I’ll blog if I want to.

Earlier this year Tor Books – a fine company that publishes many excellent books – published Gene Wolfe’s new novel, The Knight. It was published to much acclaim, and shortly Tor will publish its sequel, The Wizard, which contains the conclusion of the story of Sir Able of the High Heart. This is a good thing.

However, it’s widely known that The Knight and The Wizard were conceived as a single work, The Wizard Knight, and are not really two novels at all. There was, no doubt, an excellent reason for such surgery, and Wolfe is such an accomplished writer that he makes the separation seems entirely natural and intended. But, it does have one no doubt completely unintended side-effect. It robs the book of some of its impact, and perhaps makes it less likely to get the attention it deserves.

When seen as a single nearly 900 page fantasy novel it quickly becomes clear that The Wizard Knight is one of the finest novels of 2004, and one of the finest fantasy novels of the past decade or more – a book that also comfortably stands alongside Susanna Clarke’s debut, Stephen King’s ‘Dark Tower’ closer and Neal Stephenson’s enormous slices of the past as one of the best ‘big’ novels of the year. To underscore this fact, Gary Wolfe will be reviewing The Wizard Knight in the November issue of Locus (in addition to our coverage of The Wizard).

And so to my cause: I’m exhorting awards juries and reviewers to recognise that, though split in two, The Wizard Knight is a single book that should be considered as such. By all means acknowledge the publishing realities, but this book deserves serious attention and should be on the major award short lists for next year. Let’s all think outside the box on this one.

Niall Harrison, over at Coalescent, is reviewing Lucius Shepard’s enormous new 300,000 word short story collection Trujillo, story by story, here. Also, Ellen Datlow has just published Howard Waldrop’s latest story “The Wolf-Man of Alcatraz“, which you should check out.

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.