Notes from Coode Street

Journal announcement...

2006-01-19T07:31:00.000+08:00

Last night I was working on the new blog, which looks like it will probably reside over at www.jonathanstrahan.com.au/wp, assuming I don't change my mind. While doing so, something mysterious (and suspicious) happened, which wiped out the blog's template, killing all of the links, the comment fields, and so on and so forth. This was not good, and failed to make me happy. I am now pushing forward with work on the new blog, and will announce a changeover ASAP. As an interim measure:

I will be posting all posts (with the exception of this one) to both blogs (www.jonathanstrahan.com.au/wp); and
comments remain live here.

I also note, for everyone reading this on the LJ feed that it seems likely that the feed will die sometime soon, and we'll need to shift to a new one. More on this soon.

More Sterling ...

2006-01-18T16:39:00.000+08:00

Bruce Sterling has a new book coming out, a collection of stories called Visionary in Residence. It's to be published by Thunder's Mouth Press , and features most of his post-A Good Old Fashioned Future short fiction. I think Bruce is, and has for two decades, been one of the most interesting science fiction writers working in the field. I have a feeling that this is one of the books we most likely will, and should, be talking about this year. In case you're interested, the table of contents for the book is: I. Science Fiction

In Paradise II. Fiction About Science

Luciferase III. Fiction for Scientists

Homo Sapiens Declared Extinct

Ivory Tower

Message Found In a Bottle IV. Architecture Fiction

The Growthing V. Design Fiction

User-Centric VI. Mainstream Fiction

Code VII. Cyberpunk Meets Ribofunk

The Scab's Progress (with Paul Di Filippo)

Junk DNA (with Rudy Rucker) VIII. The Past is a Future That Already Happened

The Necropolis of Thebes

The Blemmye's Stratagem

The Denial

Sterling's State of the World

2006-01-18T16:26:00.000+08:00

Bruce Sterling has done a State of the World: 2006 over at the well. If you haven't seen it already, it's worth checking out.

Australian science fiction and fantasy ...

2006-01-18T14:30:00.000+08:00

Last year Garth Nix and I attended the World Fantasy Convention in Madison, Wisconsin. While we were there, Garth hosted the biggest and best party of the convention - a party aimed at both having a good time and promoting Australian science fiction and fantasy. As part of the event, I helped Garth put together a catalogue of some (not all!) of the new science fiction and fantasy by Australians set to be published in 2006. For those interested, Garth has put the catalogue online, and you can:

download it here as a 400k PDF *.

The event was a good thing, and the catalogue was neat too. Check it out. * This post has been edited to correct the link to the catalogue.

The Night Land...

2006-01-17T10:18:00.000+08:00

John C. Wright has been publishing new stories set in the world of William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land over at Andy Robertson's The Night Land website. I thought the first of the stories, Awake in the Night, was terrific, and reprinted it in Best Short Novels: 2004. The second, The Last of all Suns, was also good. A third story, The Cry of the Night Hound, is currently being published in several parts (Part 1, Part 2) and looks pretty interesting. All of the stories are long, so I'm guessing that someone will produce a book of them which would make for a good book.

A quick head's up

2006-01-17T07:05:00.000+08:00

A few things that have come to my attention of late:

first, Jeff VanderMeer's cool new novel, Shriek: An Afterword, will be on sale in Australia in about six weeks. Check out the info on the book at the link above or over at Jeff's website.
second, John Clute has an interesting, if puzzled, review of Andrew Butler's Christopher Priest: The Interaction, over at Strange Horizons.

New Agog! in the works...

2006-01-16T10:38:00.000+08:00

Cat Sparks has announced that the reading period for the fourth Agog! anthology, Agog! Ripping Reads!, is now open. Cat will be reading from January through March 2006. The book, which is open to Australian residents (and others by invitation), will be launched in Canberra in June 2006. The Agog anthologies, which now include Daikaiju, Smashing Stories, Terrific Tales, and Fantastic Fiction, have become a staple of the Australian SF scene over the past four years and it's great to see, after a year's hiatus, that another one's in the works.

2006-01-16T08:34:00.000+08:00

Jeremy wrote an article about the brontosaurus for wikipedia.

2006-01-15T21:23:00.000+08:00

Hmm. Jeff's done the 'New Year's Resolution' thing, which I continue to avoid, though I'll probably give into to it shortly. His decision to buy fewer books and cds resonated. Last year I bought an enormous amount of new music and an iPod. I immediately ripped everything onto the iPod, set it on shuffle, and proceeded to not listen to an enormous amount of it. So, the idea of buying less music, but listening to what I do buy more sounds solid.

Some oddities

2006-01-13T17:37:00.000+08:00

Just a quick service notice. Some of you may recall that I mentioned working on this site (and my general web presence) in the New Year. Well, that's slowly happening. The first step, registering my own domain name, is done. You can now find a version of this blog at www.jonathanstrahan.com.au I'm going to try to keep two copies of it going for a few weeks, until I decide how to change/rebuild the whole thing.

Ticonderoga, Troy and on...

2006-01-12T07:57:00.000+08:00

I know I mentioned this earlier, but Russell Farr's ticonderoga publications is ramping up its publishing programme after a lengthy hiatus. Back in the mid-90s Russell published some fine books by Sean Williams, Simon Brown, Stephen Dedman, Steven Utley and others, but ceased publication following the 1999 WorldCon in Melbourne. Just over the past couple months, Russell has announced plans to publish two anthologies, The Worker's Paradise and Fantastic Wonder Stories, and a short story collection. The collection, Simon Brown's Troy, is one of the projects that somehow got lost towards the ends of the '90s. Several publishers, including ticonderoga, discussed publishing the book*, but it never happened. Now, happily, Russell has announced that it will come out in April (I assume to be launched at Conjure). Troy will collect twelve stories, several original to the collection, all of which retell stories from the Iliad. I read a number of the stories when they were first publised, and have long thought they were amongst Simon's best work. Given that he's improved as a writer since then, I'm particularly looking forward to the new stories in the book. It's a book to keep your eye out for, come April. And, hopefully, Russell will offer up some pre-order information soon so you can get your names down for a copy. * This post has been amended to correct an error. Three different small presses discussed publishing Troy, but only one made a commitment to do so. Ticonderoga was not that press.

More Conjure...

2006-01-12T07:16:00.000+08:00

The good folk at Conjure have started a blog where they can keep you all up to date with the latest on all things Conventional. Be sure to go check it out, make programming suggestions, and so on.

Conjure...

2006-01-05T07:12:00.000+08:00

Kate and the gang at Conjure have just posted the draft list of panel topics for the convention. As Kate says they're looking for feedback, and "For anyone else interested in putting their hands up to be on panels, now is the time to tell us and, you know, join the convention." All of which I can only second. Running my eye down their list, it seems that CHARLES and I will be doing the dreaded 'best of the year' panel, cunningly disguised as What’s hot in speculative fiction? (did they think I wouldn't notice?). I hate list panels, where panelists just sit there and run down a long list of things you need to know/read/buy. I guess we'll have to do some preparation for this one, so we actually have something intelligent to say. You up for it, CHARLES? :) One topic I'm interested in discussing -- assuming the organisers like it, I can find the right panellists and can work out what I think on the subject -- is how we oversimplify the history of science fiction and fantasy in Australia. The published histories of Australian SF that I have seen seem to assume a causal chain from World War II shortages all the way to HarperCollins launching Voyager, and from Bert Chandler all the way to Sara Douglass. The problem is, it can't have worked that way. Very few of the people who write science fiction or fantasy in Australia seem to have read any science fiction or fantasy written by other Australians prior to starting to write, and so are unlikley to have been influenced by Australian science fiction and fantasy. And it's also difficult to see a causal relationship between, say Lee Harding and Damien Broderick, and Sara Douglass and Trudi Canavan. And surely, the attempt by Pan to launch a fantasy line and the success of Voyager in launching an SF/F line, had nothing to do with anything being done in Australia. It was a reflection of the success of the sale of imported fiction in this country. On the other hand, while Miracle Ingredient A is a load of rubbish, surely living in Australia must have some impact on writers and what they write. See? All of this stuff could make an interesting panel.

Podcast.Doctorow

2006-01-04T07:55:00.000+08:00

The only reprint in The Starry Rift, the young adult SF anthology that I've been working on forever but is nearly done, is Cory Doctorow's terrific "Anda's Game". I love the story, and it fits the book perfectly. Over at his website, Cory is offering a wonderful podcast of the story as a free download. I've only really started checking out podcasts, and this is a really good one. NB: This post has been edited to clarify that "Anda's Game" is the only story in The Starry Rift that was previously published.

The funniest thing

2006-01-04T07:22:00.000+08:00

Sophie thought the funniest thing in the world, the absolute official funniest thing in the world was to go up to someone and say 'Happy New Ear'. She'd run up to people, say 'Happy New Ear', collapse into giggles, run away, run back, and say it again. It never wasn't funny. Never. Really. Well, to her.

Books I'm looking forward to...

2006-01-04T07:02:00.000+08:00

Gavin Grant discusses The James Tiptree Anthology 2 over at 'Not a Journal', and along the way mentions one of the books I most excited about seeing. Later this year St Martin's Press will publish Julie Phillips' biography, James Tiptree Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon. There's an excerpt from the book in the anthology, and it's terrific. From everything I've heard, Sheldon led an extraordinary life, and Phillips seems to be a writer who can do it justice. Can't wait to see it.

Year's bests

2006-01-03T09:27:00.000+08:00

I posted this over on my Night Shade message board, and thought I'd repeat it here. Karen Haber and I completed and delivered the final two year's bests we're doing together for iBooks a month or so ago. The books will be published in February. After that, if things go well, I'll be editing both series solo. In the meantime, the tables of contents are: Science Fiction: Best of 2005

Triceratops Summer, Michael Swanwick
Little Faces, Vonda N. McIntyre
The Second Coming of Charles Darwin, James Morrow
Is There Life After Rehab?, Pat Cadigan
Zima Blue, Alastair Reynolds
The Fulcrum, Gwyneth Jones
The Blemmye’s Dilemma, Bruce Sterling
They Will Raise You in a Box, Wil McCarthy
Finished, Robert Reed
The King of Where-I-Go, Howard Waldrop
The Calorie Man, Paolo Bacigalupi
The Fate of Mice, Susan Palwick
I Robot, Cory Doctorow
The Little Goddess, Ian McDonald

Fantasy: Best of 2005

Two Hearts, Peter S. Beagle
Snowball’s Chance, Charles Stross
A Knot of Toads, Jane Yolen
Boatman’s Holiday, Jeffrey Ford
Ikiryoh, Liz Williams
CommComm, George Saunders
The Language of Moths, Christopher Barzak
Anyway, M Rickert
The Emperor of Gondwanaland, Paul Di Filippo
The Pirate’s True Love, Seana Graham
Intelligent Design, Ellen Klages
Pip and the Fairies, Theodora Goss
Grace Notes, Megan Lindholm
Leviathan, Simon Brown
The Denial, Bruce Sterling
The Farmer’s Cat, Jeff VanderMeer
Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link

I should have a final ToC for Best Short Novels: 2006 shortly too.

2006-01-03T08:04:00.000+08:00

Got an email from CHARLES this morning wishing me happy birthday, which was swell. Normally, we get to have a drink over dinner to celebrate, but this year we'll hold it over till BrisVegas. Actually, we might even have a double birthday dinner, him and me, one night. I think Liza is coming, so it would be fun. I also missed a birthday call from Sharyn, but she left a great message singing me happy birthday, which was very cool. And how was the birthday? It was fine. Got nice presents, spent time with loved ones, didn't drink too much - all in all, it failed to suck. Of course, I'm 42 now, but there you go. Today is the day, though. No more excuses. I owe CHARLES a year-in-review piece, so it's head's down until it's done. I'm guessing tomorrow, but we'll see. I have notes, and know pretty much what I want to say, but I need to get it all down in words. It'll be horrible, but you gotta do it. :)

Brother, Can You Spare a Hyperlink?

2006-01-03T07:34:00.000+08:00

The latest instalment of Plumage for Pegasus, by the ever amazing Paul Di Filippo, is online over at F&SF. The internet has collapsed, life as we know it is over, and Paul is faced with the question: "I HAD TO run a few errands downtown, but I hesitated to go. What if I ran into bloggers?". Warning: May contain traces of Cory Doctorow.

Dear LJers

2006-01-02T17:34:00.000+08:00

While I think someone mentioned to me that there was an LJ feed for Coode St. I was unaware till a little while ago that there was a comments feature with the feed. My apologies for not responding, if you commented. I'll be sure to keep an eye out over there from now on.

2006-01-02T09:14:00.000+08:00

It's raining in Sydney, while Perth's long cool start to Summer seems nearing an end. Today there'll be BBQ with the family, which should be sweet. Then reading, writing, editing, and planning 2006. Must plan, or we'll never get the family to the US in August.

Book stuff...

2006-01-02T07:27:00.000+08:00

I had an odd Amazon.com experience recently, which affected what I'm reading right now. Looking for a nice Christmas present, Marianne decided to checked out my Amazon.com wish list, and found a recent book listed, which she promptly bought for me. Problem is, I don't have an Amazon.com wishlist, and I'm not that interested in reading Fannie Flagg's A Redbird Christmas. So, a couple days back we went back to the book store (Marianne bought a copy locally), and I swapped it for Nick Hornby's The Polysyllabic Spree, which I've long been interested in reading. For those not in the know, The Polysyllabic Spree is a small book from McSweeney's that collects Hornby's columns from The Believer. Every month Hornby lists the books he's bought that month, the books he's actually read that month, and then discusses his reading experiences. Hornby is a funny guy and, while TPS isn't a knee-slapper, it's the kind of personable book that reading obsessed folk like me are likely to enjoy. I don't buy that many books these days - the most recent was probably Pete Dexter's Deadwood in the bookshop in San Franciso airport back in November - but it did prompt me to think about making 'what I should be reading this week', and 'what I actually am reading' lists. For example: What I should be reading this week: Asimov's, March 2006 F&SF, April 2006 Novellas for Best Short Novels: 2006 Bruce Sterling stories for Ascendancies: Best of Bruce Sterling Books for Locus Recommended Reading essay What I am reading this week: The Polysyllabic Spree, Nick Hornby A Princess of Roumania, Paul Park "The Diversification of Its Fancy", John Barnes Fishin’ With Grandma Matchie, Steven Erikson The Life of Riley, Alexander C. Irvine Burn, James Patrick Kelly ...and to make sure I feel guilty about deadlines whizzing past: What I should be doing this week: Editing book review columns for February 2006 issue of Locus Writing year-in-review essay for February 2006 issue of Locus Finalising Locus Short Fiction recommended reading list What I've been doing this week: Seasonal celebrations Reading Finishing the short fiction list All of which makes it clear that, when I finish birthday celebrations, it's writing and editing for me! Oh, and speaking of birthday celebrations, Happy Birthday Ellen for a couple days ago, and Happy Birthday Nick, who shares my birthday=!

on music...

2006-01-02T07:15:00.000+08:00

After all these years, I still haven't worked out how to write convincingly about music. It always has been, and remains, one of those things where two parts of the brain don't seem to connect and produce the right output. Yesterday I was trying to describe Sufjan Steven's "Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois" (my most played song in 2005, according to iTunes), but only came up with cliched rubbish that didn't really convey the sense of the music at all. It's a cool song, though. I actually spent the flights to and from Madison listening to Come on Feel the Illinoise! on the iPod, which seemed appropriate. I'm tempted to say that Illinoise was my favorite album of 2005, but that honor probably belongs to Blinking Lights by The Eels. Check 'em both out. I did have one disturbing realisation about music this morning. I was reading the latest issue of Mojo, which listed their Top 50 albums of the year. I had maybe thirty of them. Am I only buying albums because they're well reviewed? Maybe? Sounds shallow, though. sigh. Speaking of shallow, I bought my first cd of 2006 yesterday: Nickel Creek's Why Should the Fire Die? I'm using it to test a thought that I had about the iPod. I love iPod, but does it lead to you not listening to albums, just songs? I think it does. I mean, I've had some of the year's best reviewed (ha ha, see?) albums on the iPod for a while, but have no real sense of them as albums. Rather, I know songs here and songs there. It's something I'm going to keep an eye on. I do have one music-related New Year's Resolution. I intend to buy/consume less music this year than I did last year. Why? I'm adding new music to my collection faster than I can listen to it, which seems dumb to me. So, I'm going to list here all the new music I buy, and monitor whether I actually listed to it. Or, at least, I will until I get bored with doing it, which seems to be how New Year's Resolutions work anyhow .

Gilmore - note to self...

2006-01-01T23:01:00.000+08:00

We're up to episode 87 of Gilmore Girls, "Raincoats and Recipes", here in Australia. The US is up to episode 122. Who knows if Channel 9 will deign to show the rest of it? I guess we could order it from amazon.com, but that seems excessive.

2006-01-01T21:01:00.000+08:00

Can I just say one thing? I'm going to preface it by saying that I like creative people. Some of my best friends in the whole world are artists and writers and such. They're good, cool, fun people. There should be more of them. What sh*ts me, though, is the twee creative person who wants everyone to be creative, and really only values you as a 'real' person if you're an artist of some sort; the person who thinks you're only whole and complete if you're writing or drawing or painting. One of my friends actually referred to what I do as secondary creativity, or creativity gone astray. What I do every day was somehow less worthwhile, less valuable to the world than sitting in a room by myself producing my own 'art'. Can you spell f*ck off, girls and boys? The only true art you have is your life and how you live it. So here's a New Year's wish. In 2006, may you spend time with the ones you love and do something that fulfills you. This has been a venting by the management of Coode Street.

Borrowed resolutions...

2006-01-01T20:42:00.000+08:00

If you don't have any New Year's Resolutions of your own, then borrow someone else's. Here Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman hook up to present New Year's resolutions for Crowley and Aziraphale from Good Omens. Maybe it's a sign we may see a new Good Omens story some day, which would be cool.

Avoidance...

2006-01-01T09:46:00.000+08:00

Oh yeah. As I know kdl would appreciate, all of this blogging is avoidance. I am overdue for a year-in-review column for Locus. I need to talk to CHARLES about it, just to get his angle on a few things, but I'm delaying. Still, I didn't get it in till January 11 last year, so another two days won't kill anyone. I'm also avoiding a LOT of other deadlines, still...

Images...

2006-01-01T09:36:00.000+08:00

I've been meaning to replace the photo at the top right of the blog for a while. It was originally taken by Beth Gwinn in Oakland back in 2002. It doesn't really reflect how I look now, which is older, greyer, larger, and less likely to wear contact lenses all the time. With that in mind, I've borrowed the photo here from Ellen Datlow's flickr journal. She took it at Madison back in November so (sadly) it pretty accurately reflects what I look like. As I rebuild the blog over the next few weeks I'll be replacing the old photo with a new one and making other changes. What else? I'll be 42 tomorrow, and yet somehow I don't feel like the answer to life, the universe and everything. Still, it should be ok. One question I've been meaning to put to all of you Coode Streeters out there is this: in April I'm traveling to Brisbane for Conjure where I will be a guest of honor. I'll be doing at least four panels, and some other stuff. My question is, is there anything you'd like to hear me talk about it? I actually think I might dive back into the Australian SF question, but I'd like to do something more interesting than the 'year in review' panel, which always seems dull to me.

NY2006

2006-01-01T08:27:00.000+08:00

I have to remember not to judge a year by the way you feel on the last few days before New Year. It feels like a long, tiring year that left me wrung out, and kinda depressed. Certainly, career-wise, the last three months have been a bust. Still, these things were good in 2005:

No-one I know closely had any major personal tragedies. Standard sized disasters and other problems, yes. But no-one's dead, and no-one's more seriously ill or injured than they were at the beginning of the year. This is a happy change from previous years.
Robin and Toula got married. This is a very good thing. Robin is one of my oldest and dearest friends, and Toula is great.
I had three new books published during the year, finished two more, sold a couple, and am well progressed on a couple more.
I had dozens of Saturday mornings, Sunday afternoons, and occasional moments when domesticity and family life was golden, and my three girls were the best people to be with in the world.
I went to Sydney, Oakland and Madison in October/November and saw Terry, CHARLES, Liza, Amelia, Kirsten, AAron, Teddy, Karlyn, Tim, Carolyn, Gary, Garth, Justin, Sharyn, and lots and lots of other people.

There are other things, but that's enough to be getting on with. I don't know that I'll bother with NYresolutions, which tend not to work, but I've got some stuff to work out. I need to re-think my work approach (which has hit a dry spot), work out how to enjoy what I'm doing more, and so on. I even think I might re-title and rejuvenate this blog a bit. It's been some years since I lived at Coode Street, so it seems a bit silly to keep the name.

New Year's Resolution

2006-01-01T07:58:00.000+08:00

Vi a Margo, a New Year's Resolution:

In the year 2006 I resolve to: Pick my nose at stop lights.

Oh, and there's a great profile of her here.

Happy New Year

2006-01-01T00:05:00.000+08:00

Well, it just turned over to 2006, so Happy New Year!!! More soon... (well, tomorrow).

Into the abyss...

2005-12-31T17:46:00.000+08:00

I've enjoyed Eileen Gunn's Infinite Matrix, so I was saddened to hear it was closing. Eileen has fought the good fight for a long time to keep it going, but it plainly wasn't to be. As it prepares to join SciFiction and Lenox Avenue in the digital abyss, it seems fair to suggest that the future of the online publication of original fiction seems likely to undergo some major seachange. With new 'zines from Jim Baen and Orson Scott Card either online, or due online in the New Year, and with podcasts and such on the rise, these are interesting times. In the meantime, a book containing the best of Infinite Matrix seems like a swell idea.

What's hot...

2005-12-31T17:31:00.000+08:00

I spent a lot of time at World Fantasy this year talking to publishing folk. I like talking to publishing folk, and it was a lot of fun. One very strong impression I came away with is that the 'hot' thing at the moment is romantic fantasy, especially romantic fantasy with vampires. It seems that, following in the footsteps of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake and Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, everyone wants to tap into the romance/fantasy/vampire/chicklit crossover. I don't know why this is so, but it is. sigh.

Awards...

2005-12-30T17:07:00.000+08:00

Louis Menand, who is a kinda interesting guy, reviews James English's The Economy of Prestige for The New Yorker this week. I don't have the English book, but I'm tempted to get it. I like the thesis that English apparently expounds, and Menand comments on, about awards being part of the 'reputation economy'. He talk about the Nobel committee overlooking Tolstoy and such, and along the way gets into the notion that it's not about the rightness or accuracy of the result of an award (which is pretty much nonsense, though nice), but the part it plays in the reputation economy (or the economy of prestige). This came back to me when reading the discussion of the Aurealis Awards on Ben Peek's journal. Ben seems like a good guy, and everyone posting to the thread has worthwhile stuff to say. What none of them get to though is that none of it really matters. There is no such thing as 'fair', 'open', or 'correct' with awards. They're just awards. Every award - every single one - is flawed, and probably every single awards-decision is flawed in some way or other. The only thing you can do is be happy and gracious when you get one, and applaud the winner when you don't. It's all good.

Not about the money

2005-12-30T09:29:00.000+08:00

Well, it probably wasn't about the money. SciFi.com have mentioned that 2005, the year they decided to close their wonderful and successful online fiction publishing arm SciFiction, was their most successful yet.

Things I'd Like to See on the Web

2005-12-30T04:23:00.000+08:00

I'd love to see Gary Wolfe, John Clute, and Dave Langford do this, but for the year in review for science fiction and fantasy.

Meme

2005-12-30T04:04:00.000+08:00

Herewith, one of those meme things... Four jobs you've had in your life: 1. Apprentice chef 2. Assistant car mechanic 3. Policy & research officer (It's a government job. No-one knows what it means) 4. Web designer Four movies you could watch over and over (Interestingly, this has nothing to do with quality. It's another kind of thing. There are crap movies you can love, and crap movies that are infintely rewatchable): 1. When Harry Met Sally 2. My Neighbour Totoro 3. Uncle Buck 4. Raiders of the Lost Ark Four places you've lived (I'll be 42 on Monday. I've lived a few places): 1. Old Manse Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland 2. Parkerville, Western Australia 3. Second Avenue, Mt Lawley, Western Australia 4. Yosemite Avenue, Oakland, California Four TV shows you love to watch (I copied this from Margo, but she was right - love to watch? TV shows? Love? ): 1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2. Spicks and Specks 3. Yes Minister 4. something else? Four places you've been on holiday: 1. San Francisco 2. New York 3. London 4. Paris Four websites you visit daily: 1. www.locusmag.com 2. www.news.com.au 3. www.scifi.com 4. www.guardian.co.uk Four of your favorite foods: 1. My mother's trifle 2. Apple crumble 3. Steak 4. Sushi Four places you'd rather be: 1. Margaret River 2. Tasmania 3. New Zealand 4. California

A little linkage

2005-12-29T08:59:00.000+08:00

A few quick links:

Lucius Shepard reviews King Kong, in Everybody Loves-a Da Big Monkey. I liked the movie, but still managed to agree with pretty much everything he says.
via Sean Williams, the Onion AV Club nominates the Least Essential Albums of 2005.

Catching up...

2005-12-29T07:41:00.000+08:00

I spend most of the year reading short fiction. I enjoy it. This wasn't always the case. Probably four years ago I was reading selected collections, the main year's bests, the occasional issue of a magazine, and a lot of novels. These days I read all the magazines, the online sites, print anthologies and collections, and every other 'published' story I can get my hands on. The thing that has suffered the most, in this otherwise enjoyable exchange, is time spent reading novels. Where I once read over a 100 novels each year, I'm probably reading closer to 50 these days. There's not a lot I can do about that, but as we move towards finalising the annual Locus recommended reading list, I'm reading a last few 2005 novels before doing my write up. So far the book that's impressed me most is Paul Park's A Princess of Roumania. I'm halfway through it, and think it's terrific so far. Makes me very happy that a galley of The Tourmaline happened to show up here the week before Christmas. I need to read some novellas shortly, but I think I can sneek the second Park book in. I should add that nothing Park had written before had really prepared me for Princess. I'll post more when I'm done, but it looks like it's going to be very special. Speaking of recommended reading, CHARLES would normally be traveling to Perth about now, so we could spend some time down at the beach finishing up the list. I'm really sad he won't be making it this year. Not only am I a lot less involved with the list, but I won't see him, which I really enjoy. And, even though we'll both be in Brisbane and Los Angeles this year, they're both work events, so I won't see that much of him. sigh.

Amusing...

2005-12-28T13:13:00.000+08:00

A work colleague pointed out the rather amusing work being done over at Despair.com. Check it out.

Madman's Myazaki in March

2005-12-28T11:43:00.000+08:00

Somehow Marianne and I managed to miss seeing Howl's Moving Castle. Still haven't. So, I was very happy to see the press release from Madman that they will be releasing two-dvd sets of Howl's Moving Castle and My Neighbour Totoro (one of my favorite films) on March 15. I honestly can't wait.

And second thoughts...

2005-12-28T10:01:00.000+08:00

The subject of gifts is always a difficult one, when it comes to me and my family. Things often don't go that well, and they're sure I'm difficult to buy for. There's no point in arguing this, as sometimes it's true. Still, given the time of year, I thought I'd mention a few things on my mind, giftwise:

Back in May I suggested that The Complete Calvin & Hobbes would be a great Christmas present. I had a change of heart in November, but on reflection I think I was right. It looks very cool, if a bit of a Rolls Royce gift.
I also doubt that anyone would be lucky enough to get something like Grado's SR-125 headphones. Way too expensive, but...
I note that, at least in the UK, Tom Kidd's Kiddography is out. I've always liked his books, and it looks like this should be very special.
I think I'd like to have the full first season of the new Dr Who on DVD - I certainly enjoyed watching it the first time.
There's always music, like Richard Hawley's Coles Corner, the Willard Grant Conspiracy's There But for The Grace of God, Thelonious Monk Quartet & John Coltrane's At Carnegie Hall or even a JB HiFi gift voucher.
The folk at Lagavulin (16 year old) and Strathisla make a fine product.
Even something like this might make for an interesting experiment.

There is, at the end of it all, always something.

Kong and Narnia

2005-12-28T08:02:00.000+08:00

I don't like going to the movies. I love it. Everything about it, from the lining up, to the sitting in the dark, right through the whole experience. I used to go all the time, but since I've become a parent, it's very much a from time-to-time thing. Unusually, I've had the chance to see two movies of late: King Kong and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I thought Jackson was nuts to make Kong, but in the end it's a good movie. Probably thirty minutes too long and has one too many last minute rescue and one too many bug scenes, but otherwise great. Might have been a classic at 2.25, but at 3.15 it's good. I dread an extended edition, though. As to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: I'd love the book, but this was dull. Marianne actually fell asleep during it, and I didn't believe in any of the characters or situations. Maybe a two star film.

Eidolon and Leviathan

2005-12-27T06:46:00.000+08:00

Back in April Jeremy G Byrne and I announced that we would be editing a new anthology, Eidolon. It would be, we hoped, the first in an annual series of science fiction & fantasy anthologies continuing the tradition of Eidolon magazine, and would be published to co-incide with the 2005 World Fantasy Convention in Madison, Wisconsin. As history has shown, though, while we received a wonderful batch of submissions from around the world, and assembled a fantastic table of contents, production eventually delayed the publication of the book to early 2006. However, things are now gearing up, and it looks like the book should be out shortly. As part of the advance publicity for Eidolon I, we have decided to publish one of the stories on Eidolon: SF Online. The story, Simon Brown's "Leviathan" is one of my favorite stories of the year, and I think is one of his best yet. Be sure to check it out.

It's Christmas!

2005-12-25T09:12:00.000+08:00

Up late wrapping and packing and putting away. Up early unwrapping, unpacking and learning to play. O calloo, callay, oh very happy frabjous day! Merry Christmas to all and to all a great day!

A special seasonal gift...

2005-12-22T08:26:00.000+08:00

Since, thanks to the estimable auspices of Time, everyone now knows that they must get a copy of Magic for Beginners as soon as possible, it struck me that it might be worth adding a second recommendation for USians about to head out to the bookstores, looking for the perfect Christmas gift. Assuming you have a love of rock 'n' roll, and like that pirate kind of image thing, the Night Shade edition of Gwyneth Jones's Arthur C. Clarke award winner Bold as Love is hard to go past. The book is terrific. What's it about? Well, the cover blurb says this:

Dissolution Summer: the soon-to-be-former UK was desperate. The world was in the grip of a fearsome economic depression. The anti-globalization movement threatened stability throughout Europe, supported by rioting youth, bitterly disaffected voters, and encroaching environmental doom. The Home Secretary decided to recruit a Countercultural Think Tank: pop stars would make the government look too cool to be overthrown. His girlfriend, club-promoter and music biz socialite Allie Marlowe, filled his shopping cart for him with such indie notable as Ax Preston, the soft-spoken biracial guitar virtuoso; Aoxomoxoa (aka Sage Pender), techno-wizard king of the lads; and Fiorinda Slater, the baby punk-diva with a horrendous past. It was just another publicity stunt for the rockers, until the shooting began. Now Slater and her friends must find a way to stay alive, and overthrow the dominant social order, while the UK disintegrates under their feet. Will rock & roll's revolutionary promise finally deliver, or will ethnic violence drown hippie idealism in rivers of blood? Either way, the world will never be the same.

In these days when Bono spends as much time with Prime Ministers and Presidents as he does on stage, it's not hard to see how a rock star might step over from one world into another. When I first read this back when it was published in the US I loved it. I still do. Go buy it for someone you love, and let them know that three more books have been published and Jones has just finished the final book in the set, Rainbow Bridge.

Abandoned post...

2005-12-22T08:17:00.000+08:00

I've just scrapped about three thousand words of aborted attempts at a post on Australian SF. I want to talk about some of the thoughts that the panel on Australian fantasy at World Fantasy stirred up, but they lead down long blind alleys. The kind of questions related to the state of the field in this country at the moment, what 'Australianness' might mean, the persistent view that there is a single 'scene' here in Australia (despite the obvious fact that writers like Douglass and Dowling have nothing in common), and so on and so forth. Looking back at the panel, I'm convinced that the quality of answers given (at least by me) wasn't what it might be. These are questions that inspire all kinds of knee jerk responses. More to think on, when I can...

Time Link

2005-12-22T07:52:00.000+08:00

Time magazine, you know the one, has put out its list of the best books of 2005. There are five fiction titles, and one of them is Kelly's Magic for Beginners!! O mi god!

links

2005-12-19T10:51:00.000+08:00

According to a post from Farah Mendlesohn, Wesleyan University Press is set to publish The Collected Stories of Joanna Russ. I don't know what the schedule is, but I'd guess late 2006, if they're in the midst of proofreading / copyediting. If so, a major book for next year. And, for those interested, you can download all three volumes of Sufjan Stevens' Hark! Songs for Christmas. Having really liked Come on Feel the Illinoise, I'm enjoying these.

Poppins...

2005-12-19T07:02:00.000+08:00

The New Yorker has a good article, "Becoming Mary Poppins" about P.L Travers, her creation and the Disney movie. I only found out a couple years ago that Travers was Australian and am yet to read her novels (so I didn't know things like Mary Poppins was a shapeshifter, not a nanny), but they sound interesting. I resist claiming her as some kind of beginning of Australian fantasy, or Australian YA literature, if only because she so firmly resisted being Australian. It seems disrespectful somehow.

time

2005-12-18T07:48:00.000+08:00

I don't work freelance, really. I have a day job that keeps me busy eight hours a day (from 7am to 3pm), and more if I can do it. I then have a regular/irregular job that keeps me busy another eight hours or so per week. The work from it flows consistently, and on a schedule, so it to is predictable. And then there's the freelance-ish stuff, where it all happens on a schedule that is pretty much entirely up to me. This is the schedule that ensure the clerical stuff associated with working on books is done, that sets out reading time, that covers planning and developing new projects, and so on and so forth. As sometimes happens, it's in this area that I've fallen into a terrible muddle. There's lots to do, but it pops up all over the place, like some kind of weed. There's nothing consistently sitting there as THE thing to do, so I become indecisive. Even though I should be reading up a storm (somehow, given the holiday season, though I don't know when), I find myself indecisively and desultorily drifting from one thing to read to another. The real effect of this is that I end up feeling disinterested in reading anything, I get nothing done, AND I feel stressed about it. Heh.

Book ideas for the holidays

2005-12-16T07:59:00.000+08:00

Lists, lists, lists. This time of the year drives me to lists and listing. Herewith, some gift ideas, small press books you can love and give those that you love. In the US: go buy Magic for Beginners and give it to someone you know who doesn't have enough magic in their lives but who, you've always thought, might secretly love to know what contingency plans you need, should zombies knock on the door. Add chocolate. In the UK: go buy 20th Century Ghosts and give it to someone who likes to stay in on cold, wintry nights, staying up late reading tales that move and horrify. Add single malt scotch. In Australia: it's summer. You're not reading, you're off watching the cricket or going to the beach. Reading is for winter. But, if you must, then it's the earthy, sometimes bittersweet A Tour Guide in Utopia. It may not be in a shop near you, but you can probably get it here. Add a good cabernet.

2005: My favorite books of the year

2005-12-15T13:57:00.000+08:00

And so, my favorite books of the year. Unlike other listings I have done, or need to do, this one is very simple: What books did I enjoy reading the most this year? I considered discussing all sorts of other books - Dan Simmons' Olympos, Joe Hill's very fine 20th Century Ghosts, or even Ian Macleod's The Summer Isles (which has stayed with me as much as any book I've read this year). I also considered the books that are still in my too-read pile that I'll read before doing my write-up for Locus (Robert Charles Wilson's Spin, Paul Park's A Princess of Roumania, and David Marusek's Counting Heads prominent amongst them). But at the end, this was the list. Ten books - eight novels and two collections - that were amongst the brightest spots in my reading year. 1. Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link This was the book I was most looking forward to reading in 2005, and it managed to be better than I'd hoped. Funny, sweet, strange, it collected nine stories, three original to the book. It's impossible to pick a best story here. I think "Stone Animals" is a masterpiece, and like "Magic for Beginners" almost as much, while "The Faery Handbag" enchanted me from the moment I first read it. If we were in Library Stadium, Iron Writer Link would be victorious (!!) with my book of the year. 2. Mister Boots, Carol Emshwiller To be clear about this, even though they changed the cover from one I loved, this is my favorite Carol Emshwiller book ever, and a strong contender for my very favorite book of the year. The story of a horse that turns into a man and saves a family, Mister Boots is the kind of fantasy that doesn't seem overmuch concerned with 'fantasy', and the kind of 'young adult' novel that understands that there's a lot more 'adult' in young adults than we allow. Written beautifully, economically, it addresses love, family, the abuse of power in relationships, personal freedom and other such weighty matters, yet is never weighty, never didactic. If it's not a perfect book (and it might be), it's certainly a perfect Christmas gift. 3. Laughin' Boy, Bradley Denton Dark, disturbing, even a little scary, Bradley Denton's Laughin' Boy the best and blackest black comedy to be published in the field in the past decade. Written before September 11, and possibly unpalatable to American readers afterward, it is a viciously funny dismantling of American media culture set in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. John Clute said it "rubs our ears in the junk noise and anguish of America" and is "one of the funniest novels of the past decade". Magnificent stuff, and one of the novels of the year. 4. Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys is a light-hearted novel that manages to be both enchanting and affecting, while still evoking a belly laugh. Echoing Thorne Smith, but written in Gaiman's wonderfully inviting voice, it's the year's perfect confection. 5. Accelerando, Charles Stross From the opening line of Accelerando, you know you're in bleeding edge SF territory, every page seemingly packed with some eyeball kick or other. Manfred Macx is on the road, making strangers rich, in a world poised on the precipice of a coming Vingean singularity. Accelerando is the story of that singularity and how it affects three generations of Macx's family, possibly told from the viewpoint of his cat. You can read Accelerando here. 6. The Girl in the Glass, Jeffrey Ford The Girl in the Glass is deceptively simple. A con man who conducts fake 'spiritualist' seances in order to separate the rich from their riches encounters what may be a real supernatural event. Along with his young immigrant assistant and muscleman helper Antony Cleopatra, he pursues the unbelievable, all the while laying bare the politics, the racism, the society of the North Eastern US 'round the time of the Great Depression. It's a breathtaking work. 7. Thud!, Terry Pratchett By now it should be straightforward, dull even. After thirty-some other 'Discworld' novels, Pratchett still isn't done with the civilising of his creation, bringing Ank-Morpork and the Discworld itself into modern society, all the while skewering the very thing he discusses. With a name like Thud!, one could expect some heavy-handedness, and there is a little of that, but it's still funny, sharp and brilliant. 8. Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, Cory Doctorow It's simple. A man whose mother was a washing machine and father was a mountain, and whose brothers are respectively dead and a set of Russian nesting dolls, tries to escape his strange origins into normalcy, but becomes involed with a girl who, periodically, cuts off her wings. I don't think it's SF, but it may not be fantasy. It's also not easy or simple or neat and tidy. In fact, like a lot of Doctorow's best work, it's a lot like life, seeped in the stuff of tomorrow. As with Accelerando, you can read it online, but will end up wanting the book. Lovely, weird stuff. 9. Heart of Whitenesse, Howard Waldrop It's not his best collection, but it's Waldrop. Nuff said. 10. Rocket Science, Jay Lake Forget the Campbell Award, forget the hundreds of short stories, forget everything else: Rocket Science is where Jay Lake showed that he could write, and write damn well. Rocket Science is the story of a young man, crippled by polio, who didn't get to serve in World War II. Instead, he worked for Boeing, working as an engineer, helping produce aircraft. That changes when a school friend returns from service in Europe with a UFO discovered by the Nazis, buried under polar ice. Sharp, concise, it's a fine first novel.

Can't wait for these...

2005-12-14T20:55:00.000+08:00

Gwenda recently did a thing on Shaken & Stirred about books she's eagerly looking to see published in 2006. My first thoughts were mixed on the subject. I've already read Charles Stross's Glasshouse and Scott Westerfeld's Blue Noon, while Tim Powers' Three Days to Never, Jeffrey Ford's The Empire of Icecream, Paul Park's The Tourmaline, Jeff VanderMeer's Shriek: An Afterword, and James Morrow's The Last Witchfinder are already sitting on the to-read shelf, so I really had to stop and think about the books I'm excited to see, that I don't already have. Now, there are any number of books I'm interested in, and quite a number that look worthwhile, should be good, and so on, but I'm really looking forward to:

Wintersmith, the third 'Tiffany Aching' novel from Terry Pratchett is due in the US Autumn, and I can't wait for it. I loved The Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky, so I'm expecting this one to be very special;
Visionary in Residence, the fourth short story collection from Bruce Sterling is due in March, and should be great. I've read most of it, and can't wait to get a copy;
don't remember the title, but I think Neil Gaiman's new short story collection will be one of the best books published in 2006. Why, you ask? Well, Neil had well and truly mastered comics before moving into writing novels and short stories. He's published a couple of terrific novels over the past few years (especially Coraline), but I think he's become an even better short story writer. If the new collection has 'Sunbird" in it, one of my very favorite stories from 2005, then it'll be a peach;
I'm on record as loving Margo Lanagan's collection Black Juice. If all goes to plan, her third collection, Red Spikes, will be published this year and if it's just half the book Black Juice was, I'm going to love it;
late in the year, Mary Rickert's first collection, Map of Dreams, is due out. It should have "Cold Fires" in it, which I loved. She's been one of the most interesting writers to emerge in the last few years, and I can't wait to see if the book lives up to that.

Hmm. That's five, enough to be getting on with. I'm surprised there's no real SF in there, though I am looking forward to Stan Robinson's third Capitol Code novel and there's a new Steve Baxter collection due soon. I'm sure I'm missing lots of stuff. Isn't someone supposed to be doing an Ian McDonald collection? And then there's Alan DeNiro's collection from Small Beer (everything they've done has been great), and Tim Pratt's second collection. Hmm. Could be a good year.

Best of 2005 - Pt 2

2005-12-12T10:43:00.000+08:00

There are several longer stories - short novels in the 35,000 to 60,000 word range - that are amongst the year's best short fiction, but are simply too long to fit into any book. For that reason, I've omitted them from the main list for the year. Still, if you have a taste for long stories, then I'd also heartily recommend: Fishin' with Grandma Matchie, Steven Erikson The Cosmology of the Wider World, Jeffrey Ford Voluntary Committal, Joe Hill The Life of Riley, Alexander C. Irvine Burn, James Patrick Kelly

Personal 'Best of 2005'

2005-12-12T06:01:00.000+08:00

There are many practicalities that govern assembling any book, especially something like a year's best annual. I've been reading for three of them again this year and, while it's been rewarding, the final books are always impacted on by all sorts of real world considerations. Realising that, I began to think about what stories I'd put into a year's best, if the only restrictions I had to face were 1) the book was a single volume and 2) the stories were ones I really liked. After a bit of thought, I came up with a list of thirty-five stories that straggled across genres, but might just sneak between a single set of covers. Looking at the list, it occurred to me that I should probably try to sequence them, but this is an idle thought experiment, and I only have so much time. Still, if you're interested in such things, here's my 'Best Stories of 2005'. Oh, and should you wonder, this list was winnowed down from well over 300 stories, a number of which were damn fine. "The Calorie Man", Paolo Bacigalupi "The Language of Moths", Chrisopher Barzak "Two Hearts", Peter S. Beagle "Leviathan", Simon Brown "The Emperor of Gondwanaland", Paul Di Filippo "I, Robot", Cory Doctorow "Boatman's Holiday", Jeffrey Ford "The Road to Recovery", Gregory Frost "Sunbird", Neil Gaiman "Pip and the Fairies", Theodora Goss "The Pirate’s True Love", Seana Graham "Heads Down, Thumbs Up", Gavin J. Grant "Echo", Elizabeth Hand "The Cape", Joe Hill "The Fulcrum", Gwyneth Jones "The Edge of Nowhere", James Patrick Kelly "Intelligent Design", Ellen Klages "Magic for Beginners", Kelly Link "Monsters", Kelly Link "The Policeman's Daughter", Wil McCarthy "The Little Goddess", Ian McDonald "Written in the Stars", Ian McDonald "Little Faces", Vonda McIntyre "The Second Coming of Charles Darwin", James Morrow "The Gypsies in the Wood", Kim Newman "Finished", Robert Reed "Zima Blue", Alastair Reynolds "Anyway", M. Rickert "The Last Ten Years in the Life of Hero Kai", Geoff Ryman "The Blemmye’s Stratagem", Bruce Sterling "Snowball’s Chance", Charles Stross "Girls and Boys, Come Out to Play", Michael Swanwick "Triceratops Summer", Michael Swanwick "The Farmer's Cat", Jeff VanderMeer "The King of Where I Go", Howard Waldrop "A Knot of Toads", Jane Yolen

New Newman

2005-12-11T13:23:00.000+08:00

After a flood of new books in 2000, Kim Newman has been going through something of a drought for the past five years. There's been some reprints of older titles, and a minor collection, but nothing for Newman fans to really sink their teeth into. That ends in June next year when Chris Roberson's MonkeyBrain Books publishes The Man from The Diogenes Club, a collection of Newman's Richard Jeperson stories. The book is very cool, and features an appropriately swinging cover from John Picacio, who has nailed the feel of the stories perfectly (and is clearly familiar with the model for Jeperson). You can get a good feel for the book if you check out "The Serial Murders" over at SciFi.com and, if takes your fancy as much as it did mine, you'll want a copy. I can't wait to see the book when it's done.

Last year, redux

2005-12-10T22:50:00.000+08:00

This time last year, I did one of those quiz things that I found on Tim Pratt's blog. Herewith, an update... 1. What did you do in 2005 that you'd never done before? Bought an iPod. Visited Madison, Wisconsin and avoided being ticketed for exceeding the speed limit by 40mph in Illinois. I met my agent and wore a tuxedo, and then ran through the cold evening rain with said agent in said tuxedo to get to a restaurant. I went down a waterslide, I think for the first time. 2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? No. As I said at this time last year, I said I wanted to get organised and get healthy. I'm still disorganised and suspect I managed to put on more weight (sigh). So, next year's resolutions will remain those two, plus find ways to relax and unwind. 3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Not this time. A few nice folk I don't know very well did, but no-one close. 4. Did anyone close to you die? The world was kinder this year. So far, death has stayed away from the doorsteps of those that matter to me. May it continue to be so. I still think fondly of both Peter McNamara and Alwyn Hyman, who died last year. 5. What countries did you visit? The USA. It was my ninth visit since 1993, and even more exhausting than last year. I went to Oakland to catch up with Charles and then to Madison, Wisconsin for World Fantasy. Hopefully next year's trip, with Marianne and the girls for LA Con, will be even better. 6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005? Last time I said sleep. There was something true about that. I think I'd like to slow down a little, complete a major project that I have been working on for a couple years, and just take some pressure off so I can spend more time with Marianne and the kids. I would still like to have more time to see friends and such - my social life has disintegrated appallingly these past six years. I did get an iPod, though, and I love it. 7. What dates from 2005 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? Last year I said "I could put political stuff here, but the truth is that those things are not that personal to me" and that remains true. So, setting aside World Events, I'll remember Robin and Toula's wedding, picking up Margo's two World Fantasy Awards, little pink drinks with Garth in Madison, Mother's Day at the park with the family, reading the best ever story that's been submitted to me for a project, a late night in Melbourne with the Clut, Sophie's birthday at ToddlerTown, Jess's birthday, and time with the family. Mostly small, personal things. 8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Getting out of it alive? No? Delivering four books, all of which have been published. Selling two more. Winning the McNamara Award. Being invited to be one of the Conjure's guests. Stuff like that. 9. What was your biggest failure? Time management and attitude management. I've been too quick to let myself be negative - something I need to watch. 10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Just the flu and such. 11. What was the best thing you bought? The iPod. It was love. 12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Man, that's a tough one. Sophie, who grew up in a breath. My mum, who continues to help me and my family every day. Marianne, Stephen, Charles, Barb, Bec. How do you pick? 13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Still, no comment. 14. Where did most of your money go? Food and lodging, followed by books and cds. 15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Oh, books and traveling and all of that. 16. What song will always remind you of 2004? "Come on Feel the Illinoise", Sufjan Stevens. 17. Compared to this time last year, you are: I originally wrote sadder, fatter and poorer. I don't know that that's try. Sadly, I am fatter, I suspect. I'm probably cash-poorer, but wealthier overall. And sadness, comes and go. When I add things up, I have a lot to be happy about. 18. What do you wish you'd done more of? Making more of an effort to make occasions special. I think it's very important that you go to the trouble of making special occasions 'special'. Too often, of late, I've made them rote and unexciting. So, a vote for champagne and specialness. 19. What do you wish you'd done less of? Eating and stressing. 20. How will you be spending Christmas? With family and friends at my mother's home. Up in the morning, Christmas with the kids, then over to mum's for lunch. It should be a happy, family kinda day. 22. Did you fall in love in 2005? Several times. I live with them all. 23. How many one-night stands? No. See #22. 24. What was your favorite TV program? Spicks and Specks, a rock quiz show. 25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? Pfeh. Who would answer such a question? 26. What was the best book you read? Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link or Laughin' Boy by Bradley Denton. 27. What was your greatest musical discovery? Sufjan Stevens or The Magic Numbers. 28. What did you want and get? An iPod. 29. What did you want and not get? Peace and quiet, but I did get an iPod. 30. What was your favorite film of this year? Harder to say, this year. I saw Batman Begins the most, but it's not that good. 31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I was 41. I had a small celebration at home. 32.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Being able to give up the day job, or at least feeling in control of my time. 33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2005? Sad, middle-aged git; T-shirts and jeans at home, long-sleeve shirts and pants at work - all mostly black. 34. What kept you sane? What makes you think I'm still sane? 35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Truthfully, still don't care. 36. What political issue stirred you the most? The IR reforms here in Australia, and the growing fear of America. 37. Who did you miss? My dad. 38. Who was the best new person you met? Hmm. Off the top of my head, maybe Amelia at Locus. She's cool fun. 39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005. I can't beat last year's lesson. A hug and kiss from your four-year-old or five-year-old daughter can cure any woe, and their laughter will lift you whenever you hear it.

Saturday night...

2005-12-10T22:46:00.000+08:00

It's December. It's raining outside on a Saturday night, two weeks shy of Christmas. Robert Sheckley just died, and the list of things that I have done lately is so much shorter than the list of things that I have to do, that I'm almost too embarrassed to mention it. Had a lovely chat with Simon, who is coming to Brisbane (aren't you?) I think, if Sean is up for it, we'll induct him into the International Society of the Little Pink Drink, expanding the membership in time for a full meeting of the Society in Saratoga. Tomorrow I'll talk to CHARLES (who, on his occasional appearance here always appears in CAPS), which will be good. In the meantime, I'm reading Sharyn November's Firebirds Rising. It's her second anthology, a follow on from the very fine Firebirds from a couple years back. I've not reached the end of the book yet (through no fault of the book's), but have been struck by a string of very strong stories that sit close to the middle of the book. The best story in the book so far, and the best I've read so far that will be published in 2006, is Ellen Klages' remarkable and lovely story "In the House of the Seven Librarians". It's the story of a library that is closed when a new building is opened on the other side of town, and how seven librarians move into the abandoned, but still functional building. As they settle into it, getting supplies and so on, a young baby is mysteriously left as payment for an overdue book fee. The story of how these women raise the child, the person the child becomes and such is utterly charming, without being sentimental at all. It is the kind of story that is done so well that it stands completely alone, but part of you secretly hopes it's the prologue to an even more wonderful novel. Diana Wynne Jones' "I'll Give You My Word" is not quite as wonderful as Ellen Klages's story, but it's good. Jethro has a brother, Jeremy, who has some kind of language problem, answering questions with strange, complicated, seemingly irrelevant responses. Of course, they're nothing of the kind, and Jeremy's vocabulary proves very hand indeed. And then there's Kelly Link's "The Wizards of Perfil", a story about a young woman sold into servitude by her mother and taken across country to serve one of the enigmatic wizards who live in tall stony towers in the marshes of Perfil, and are assisted only by young children. The wizards refuse to become involved in what's happening in the country around them, but that may not be something that they can keep up in the face of the armies moving around them. There are other good stories in the book by the likes of Tamora Pierce, Sharon Shinn, and Nina Kiriki Hoffman, but these three are worth the price of admission to this book by themselves. In fact, I've got a rather battered looking galley (I've carried it literally half way round the world) and will almost definitely buy a copy of the book when it comes out in a couple months. At the moment, it's a very strong contender for best fantasy anthology of the year. Check it out. And now, back to work on Sophie's book. She's four, and she likes to write books with me. It's sweet.

Bruce, BrisVegas, Book...

2005-12-07T07:08:00.000+08:00

As I've reported here previously, I will be attending Conjure in Queensland next year. I'm pretty confident this will be my only convention appearance in Australia in 2006*, so I hope you'll all buy memberships, and then head to BrisVegas for five days of fun in the Sun. I'm looking forward to seeing old friends, making new ones, and basically having a ball. One of the reasons I'm particularly happy to be heading to BrisVegas is that Bruce Sterling is one of the guests of honor. I don't know how long people have been trying to get Sterling out to Australia, but I know it goes back almost a decade. I've loved Bruce's work ever since I read "Green Days in Brunei" in Asimov's back in 1985, and think Holy Fire is one of the great science fiction novels of all time, so getting to meet him should be a blast. And that leads me to my latest project. I'm delighted to announce that I will be editing Ascendancies: The Best of Bruce Sterling for Bill Shafer at Subterranean Press. The idea is to put together a massive collection (around 150,000 - 200,000 words of fiction) that gathers together the best of Bruce's short work from 1976 - 2006. My guess is it should be somewhere around 500 pages long, in its final form, and will be published in the second half of 2006. I love the books that Bill produces, love 'best ofs' as a form, and love Bruce's fiction, so I'm really excited to be involved. I think it'll be something very special. I'll get more information up here when and as I can. Oh, and if you're a fan of Bruce's fiction and want to make a recommendation about a story that you think must be in the book, feel free to say so in the comments, or drop me an email. * I think Conjure will be the only convention I'll get to in Australia this year. That said, I'd love to go to Continuum in Melbourne, with Charlie, Margo and Shaun, and think Conflux looks great too.

2005-12-06T19:45:00.000+08:00

These are not good times, nor are they good days. Setting aside issues of climatic change, the collapse of democracy in the United States, and now the fear and reaction surrounding the hard line right wingers running our government, things are little better in any other sphere of life. As the 'holiday season' (forgive me if I say Christmas occasionally) approaches, it's hard to feel celebratory.

One Million A.D.

2005-12-06T08:07:00.000+08:00

It seems to me that books published around the end of the year, especially late December or early January, really run the risk of being completely overlooked. And, if those books are published other than in the general trade, the likelihood of being overlooked seems to increase markedly. With that in mind, I thought I'd draw your attention to One Million A.D. , a new science fiction anthology edited by Gardner Dozois. It's to be published by The SF Book Club in January (well, the website says it ships 31 December, so I'm calling it January), and features SF novellas by Greg Egan, Nancy Kress, Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Robert Silverberg, and Charles Stross. While I would be amazed if there wasn't a trade edition of the book at some time, I can't imagine a more convincing argument for making the commitment and joining the Book Club *. And, hey, they'll be publishing my third best novellas anthology soon, and have a cool looking Marvin Kaye antho coming up too. All good stuff. * Note: You can only join the Club if you're in North America. Non-USians might try amazon.com or a similar reseller, who usually end up offering SFBC titles for reasonable prices.

2005-12-05T08:18:00.000+08:00

Sunburnt and sore. Spent two hours swimming like a Mexican walking fish, which my passengers thought was hilarious fun, but left me tired. Sophie had her first ever Ferris Wheel ride, after an hour waiting in line. No work on projects this weekend. sigh. On with it this week, and the holiday 'season' approaches. I won't have any time off, but I'm still looking forward to it. If I owe you an email, all apologies. If you're actually reading this blog in hope I'll post something intelligent, apologies too. There will be something here soon. In the meantime, back to work.

A work interlude

2005-12-01T05:36:00.000+08:00

For all sorts of good reasons, I try to keep this blog completely divorced from my day job. I don't blog from there, and I don't talk about what goes on within it's secretive halls here. Still, today I thought a public acknowledgement was appropriate. I've been failing to find the motivation to update my skills to properly use both div-based layouts and cascading style sheets. This hasn't really been a problem, but my colleague Nick has been a little irritated this past week that, while working together on a big project, some of my coding got a bit too rough around the edges. So, herewith: Nick, who knows and blogs about such things, is right, and I'm wrong. I must learn and use div layouts and .css just as soon as they current crazy times are past. And I will.

Catching up...

2005-11-25T07:17:00.000+08:00

So, I didn't blog about World Fantasy in Madison, where the International Society of the Little Pink Drink was convened, with at least one member in absentia. We'll reconvene in Brisbane at Easter, hopefully with all members present. In the meantime, it occurs to me that there are some of you out there celebrating (hi USAians), some of you I owe manuscripts / proposals / emails / gifts / phone calls / other good stuff. I'm doing what I can, and you will get it soon. In the meantime, I've completed my share of the work on Fantasy: Best of 2005 and Science Fiction: Best of 2005. If all goes as it has in previous years, I'll see nothing more till January, when copies will start to appear. This is the final year I'll be co-editing those books with Karen Haber. It's been fun, and I'll miss sharing opinions with her. I also signed and returned the contracts for Best Short Novels: 2006, the third year's best novellas book. I was interested (I think that's the polite word) to see that the ms. is due on 15 February, so I guess you can all imagine one of the main things I'll be doing in the best six or eight weeks. I'm also a little taken aback to see if we've started the runup to the festive season already. Parties and 'graduations' at the girls' schools, Christmas parties and such. I think it should be calmer this year (fingers crossed), and I'm determined to relax. It should be fun.

The Future of Short Fiction

2005-11-23T07:05:00.000+08:00

I know that I go on and on about things that Coode Street’s faithful readers should check out and maybe buy, but I don't run advertising and I don’t accept any enducements to mention things in this space. Instead, I rabbit on and on about things I am genuinely enthusiastic about, and hope that it proves of interest to you, my readers. The reason I mention this has, peripherally, to do with World Fantasy. As you know, I was in Madison for the annual WFC a couple weeks back. It had been my intention to sit down at the bar with Deb Layne, proprietor of Wheatland Press, but time and circumstance conspired against that happening. Instead, we had a couple of glancing conversations and promised to catch up in email. The one thing Deb did get to do was give me a copy of her latest publishing endeavour, a new Bruce Holland Rogers collection, The Keyhole Opera. Rogers has won the World Fantasy Award for his short fiction, has written some very cool stories over the past few years, and is one of the best of the regular contributors to Shawna McCarthy's Realms of Fantasy magazine. The Keyhole Opera collects a bunch of short-shorts, along with an introduction by Michael Bishop. I've only started dipping into the collection since I've got home, but I think you should check it out. All of which segues into a missive from Bruce that I received this morning. For the past four years now, Rogers has been making his short fiction available in a pretty unique way. For just a tiny amount of money, you can subscribe and receive short-short stories by email. Stories go out three times a month, and range from literary fiction, science fiction, fairy tales, and mysteries, to work that is pretty much unclassifiable. You get thirty-six stories for five dollars, and the stories range in length from 200 to 2,500 words. I don't know if this is the future of short fiction distribution, or not. Right now, I don't think anyone knows the answer to that. I do know, though, if you go to www.shortshortshort.com you can try before you buy, sample a bunch of short stories, and maybe even decide to order his new collection.

Review

2005-11-18T17:03:00.000+08:00

The Best Short Novels: 2005 is reviewed over at Strange Horizons. Just as soon as I've completed work on Fantasy: Best of 2005 and Science Fiction: Best of 2005 (both are a week late, but should be done by Monday), I'll be starting work on Best Short Novels: 2006.

On young adult fiction...

2005-11-17T13:52:00.000+08:00

What is so moving about the Narnia stories is that, though Lewis began with a number of haunted images ... he never wrote down to, or even for, children, except to use them as characters, and to make his sentences one shade simpler than usual. He never tries to engineer an entertainment for kids. He writes, instead, as real writers must, a real book for a circle of readers large and small...
-- Adam Gopnik, 'Prisoner of Narnia', The New Yorker

I've spent a lot of time reading, and some time thinking about, the kind of fiction that is sold as 'young adult fiction' at the moment. The above quote, which comes from a New Yorker article about C.S. Lewis, is as good an explanation about writing 'young adult' fiction that I've heard.

Is the Wayback Machine enough?

2005-11-17T08:21:00.000+08:00

The announcement from SciFi.com that it will close SciFiction at the end of the year has sparked a lot of discussion. One of the many points touched on that is worthy of expansion is mentioned by Locus Online's Mark Kelly. In a post entitled "Into the Aether", Kelly pondered what happens to defunct websites? How do we access the material that was published after the website has been taken down? After all, paper magazines and books have a life long after their publication date. You can usually pick up old issues second hand, or in libraries, and I own any number of books published by now defunct publishers. What do you do if you want to access material from a defunct website? The best answer is to go to The Internet Archive's 'Wayback Machine' (www.archive.org). The IA is a non-profit that was founded to build an ‘Internet library,’ with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. It's Wayback Machine spiders the web making full and partial copies of websites. It currently archives 40 billion web pages (according to its own site information). Although it is a good thing, there are problems with the Wayback Machine. The first is that copies are often partial, or difficult to find. For example, following the announcement that SciFiction was to close, I decided to research what fiction Ellen Datlow had edited for publication online. Looking back at Omni Online I struggled to find a full copy of Omni's short fiction from 1995 to 1998. Some of it was not there, and to get to other pieces I had to navigate through multiple iterations of the old Omni site, often stumbling down blind alleys to no longer extant pages. There was a more complete copy of Event Horizon (1998/1999), but the SciFiction copy was also incomplete, containing a full copy of Suzy McKee Charnas's "Peregrines" (removed from the current SciFi.com site at the request of the author), but missing anything from this year (for example). Some of the omissions are because people have asked for material to be removed, or because web pages are set not to be archived, but in many cases it’s just not possible to archive everything. The question that then follows is, to what extent are works published online ‘lost’ when the originating website goes offline. Well, while the record of the periodical becomes difficult to trace, and its own story may ultimately be lost, but many of the stories published do become widely accessible. For example, stories like Dan Simmons’ “Looking for Kelly Dahl” (Omni Online), Kelly Link’s “The Specialist’s Hat” (Event Horizon”, and Andy Duncan’s “The Pottawottamie Giant” (SciFiction) have all been fairly widely reprinted and access to them was or is unlikely to be affected by the closure of a website. The fate of stories like Michael Bishop’s “Cyril Berganske” (from Omni, and only reprinted once since) or A.R. Morlan’s “Ciné Rimettato” (from SciFiction, and never reprinted), is less sure, though. Is there a solution? Well, supporting The Internet Archive is a good start. Encouraging the print publication of material is better, and even just ensure good bibliographical records is worthwhile. Otherwise, a goodly portion of the current range of short fiction being published will be lost, something the field could ill-afford.

The ED SF Project

2005-11-16T07:19:00.000+08:00

The estimable Dave Schwartz (with worthy assistance from Niall Harrison and Chance) have set up The ED SF Project, a worthy tribute to Ellen Datlow's SciFiction. They've asked a bunch of people to write appreciations for the 300+ stories published on SciFiction. I think it's a wonderful project, and will definitely get involved. I also hope they'll eventually consider expanding it to cover Ellen's online editing at Omni Online and Event Horizon, which also included some amazing stories. NB: This post was edited. That's the way it goes.

Best of Ellen Online

2005-11-15T09:27:00.000+08:00

In attempting to compile the Best of Ellen Online: 1995 - 2005, I was struck by how difficult it is to find solid information on the fiction published by Omni between 1995 and 1998. While Omni debuted online with the Chrysler Neon series of six novellas, I could only find information on maybe a dozen stories published over the three year period. This is almost certainly only a third of what was actually published. This compares with the 23 stories published by Event Horizon, and the 225 stories published by SciFiction. Winnowing these 260 stories down to a 'best' list was nearly impossible, especially given Ellen's taste for some of my favorite writers like Waldrop and Blaylock, who she published repeatedly. Still, here goes: 1. Greetings, Terry Bisson 2. Thirteen Phantasms, James P. Blaylock 3. The War of the Worlds, James P. Blaylock 4. The Pottawatomie Giant, Andy Duncan 5. The Empire of Ice Cream, Jeffrey Ford 6. Chip Crockett's Christmas Carol, Elizabeth Hand 7. At the Mouth of the River of Bees, Kij Johnson 8. It's All True, John Kessel 9. The Specialist's Hat, Kelly Link 10. New Light on the Drake Equation, Ian R. MacLeod 11. Andy Warhol's Dracula, Kim Newman 12. Get a Grip, Paul Park 13. The Dragons of Summer Gulch, Robert Reed 14. The Voluntary State, Christopher Rowe 15. Jailwise, Lucius Shepard 16. Looking for Kelly Dahl, Dan Simmons 17. Mr Goober's Show, Howard Waldrop 18. The Tang Dynasty Underwater Pyramid, Walter Jon Williams There were many, many other fine stories, but I think this handful make a persuasive case for the influence Ellen's had online over the past decade. I can only hope we'll see more of her editorial tastes on or off line soon.

SciFiction again...

2005-11-14T21:14:00.000+08:00

Ellen Datlow has been the greatest editorial advocate of publishing fiction online that the science fiction, fantasy and horror fields have yet seen. Starting in 1995 with the launch of Omni Online through to its demise in 1998, continuing with Event Horizon from September 1998 to December 1999, and then with SciFi.com's SciFiction from May 2000 through to December 2005. During that time she published fiction of an extraordinarily high standard, including Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy and Locus Award winners by some of the biggest, and most exciting names of the modern science fiction era. And, while none of those online publications offered their fiction for sale to the public, two of them (Omni and SciFiction) were either the highest paying or amongst the highest paying markets in the field at the time. One of the things that I think may be being overlooked, in the sad decision to disontinue SciFiction is the extraordinary nature of this achievement, something that continually put art ahead of commerce, and confounded the experts again and again. While I can only mourn the fiction that probably won't now be written or published, I want to celebrate Ellen's achievements and, in many ways, the faith of her employers in continuing with the site as long as they did. I hope, at some point, to assemble a personal 'best of Ellen's online fiction' list, but in the meantime I'd like to exhort some small press to collect all of the SciFiction short fiction between hardcovers. It's been such a marvelous asset to the field, it would be a pity to see it devoured by archive.org and become less freely available.

WFC - Madison

2005-11-12T11:47:00.000+08:00

Memory is already turning it into a haze. Staying up till three in the morning drinking with Garth and Justin. Driving way to fast across the Wisconsin night with CHARLES and Liza. The panels, the parties, the cheese gifts! Madison was a wonderful time. Many thanks to all, especially Garth, who was a wonderful roomie, and to CHARLES, who turned all CAPS during the trip, and who helped make the trip a great success. More soon. And see, Biancotti? No BAMS.

Vale SciFiction

2005-11-12T11:40:00.000+08:00

Just got back from Madison and am slowly preparing to start blogging again. Terrible news from SciFi.com, with the announcement that they'll be cancelling Ellen Datlow's SciFiction. Over the past six years Ellen has developed it into one of the top three science fiction magazines in the world, a reliable source of some of the very best short fiction anywhere. Ellen is far too good an editor to be out of work for long, but it's a real bodyblow for the field. I hope to hear good news about a major new project for her very soon.

A quick update...

2005-10-31T23:17:00.000+08:00

As sometimes happens, the week here in Oakland is flying past in a blur. I spent some time last ThuFrsday catching up with Kirsten, Liza, Karlyn, Carolyn and Amelia, overcoming jetlag and just pottering around the place. I even 'helped' get CHARLES to his gym appointment, and then drove over to Piedmont for a quick look. I hope to get back today or tomorrow, but who knows. That evening CHARLES and I had a fine dinner at an old favorite restaurant, Le Cheval. They do a marvelous green lip mussel dish, and the best spicy orange beef. Friday I had an appointment with Karen. I grabbed breakfast, did a little preparation, and then we headed off to a lovely little place on San Pablo. We caught up, did some year's best planning, and I got to show her pictures of the kids. CHARLES and I then drove over to San Francisco. While the purpose of our visit was a spirited performance of Irving Berlin's Miss Liberty by the 42nd St Moon theatre group, we also had dinner at an odd place called Frisson. CHARLES had made the booking, but had never been inside. When, on a cold, rainy evening we were greeted by a tall, willowy blonde woman wearing nothing but a cap, a bolero jacket, a microkini and some fishnets, we knew we weren't in Kansas any more. It's the only time I've not heard CHARLES complain about mediocre food :). The performance was a fine one, though I found it lagged a little at the beginning. Saturday we'd planned a party. Most of the day was spent in planning, before first Kirsten and Aaron and Teddy, and then Bob, Karen, Lisa, Mark and Marina, Liza, and Jeremy all showed up. A very pleasant time was had, before Jeremy and I headed off for a late pizza dinner, where we spoke of publishing, his company Night Shade, and much else. All in all, a fine day. Sunday CHARLES and I had planned a lazy day shopping. After some party clean-up, we headed into Berkeley on an unsuccessful search for a tie-dyed dress for Sophie. None were to be found, but we did get a nice shirt and tank top, so it wasn't a complete loss. After that, we headed to Concord and Tony Roma's for lunch, and the Tower for cd shopping. We got back late afternoon, and then I headed to Kirsten and Aaron's for a lovely dinner and a pleasant and relaxed evening catching up. So far the time in Oakland has been really enjoyable. I still hope for a quiet coffee in Piedmont, a quick visit to my bank in Montclair, and maybe a chance to get some headphones in Berkeley, but who knows. Today and tomorrow will be spent getting ready for the trip to Madison on Wednesday. World Fantasy beckons.... PS: At Charles's request, he now appears in this blog under the pnome de plume of CHARLES. I know, don't ask :)

2005-10-26T23:14:00.000+08:00

Well, that was one of the most civilised and enjoyable Pacific crossings I can remember. I left early, and to be honest with too little sleep, on Monday morning. Flew across to Sydney on an uneventful flight, and then spent a lovely, relaxed 24 hours with Terry Dowling. We just pottered around a bit, had dinner, and breakfast and took it easy - which was very much what I needed. Terry was a wonderful host, and gave me a great start to the trip. He dropped me off at the Sydney airport's international departures (after I gave him some dodgy traffic advice), and I went to check in. Things immediately began to look good for the trip, when the very helpful Qantas check-in staff not only moved me to an aisle seat with two empty seats, but then blocked those seats off so they wouldn't be assigned. I wondered around the shops and had some lunch at the airport, before boarding. The airconditioning on the 747 was running cold, which suited me, and I got all three seats to myself. I watched Batman Begins for the second time, read my anthology for running order, and slept. Even the food was good. The thirteen hour flight was very gentle, indeed. On arrival, I got fingerprinted and photographed, but they skipped the cavity search, which was good. I realised afterward that I left a half-full bottle of water on the Customs Officer's desk, and I've wondered what chaos that might have caused. I then had my least stressful stopover in LA, yet. Helped a fellow Aussie cope with the terminal swaps, then grabbed a quiet lunch, before getting on the plane to SF. Got here at 2.20pm yesterday, to be greeted by Amelia and Charles, and it's been fun ever since. Got to see Carolyn, Kirsten, Liza, and Karlyn, and began to consider the possibilities of the armagnac smoothie. Mmm. Last night was dinner at Crogan's (yes, M, with the coconut batter beer prawns), a shower and then bed. And now, a new days awaits. PS: The only downside in all this was hearing that Marianne and the girls were sick with a bug they contracted the day after I left. Happily they seem on the mend, but it sounded awful.

In transit

2005-10-25T09:59:00.000+08:00

Typical start...

2005-10-24T03:31:00.000+08:00

Well, just like last year, a poor night's sleep before take-off. For some reason, these early flights always get me. Went to bed at 8.00pm, woke round 12.30am, and tossed and turned till 3.30am, when I gave it away. Maybe a nap on the way to Sydney will leave me reasonably refreshed. I am glad, though, that I'm not heading straight on the the US today. A quiet evening in Sydney should be the ticket.

Travel

2005-10-22T23:46:00.000+08:00

Well, departure is almost nigh. Monday morning I head US-wards, although with some trepidation. It looks like a scary place these days. Here's where I'll be, if you're interested. Monday, Oct 24: Sydney, Australia Tuesday, Oct 25 - Tuesday November 1: Oakland, California Wednesday, November 2 - Monday, November 7: Madison Wisconsin Tuesday, November 8: Oakland, California Thursday, November 10: Perth, Western Australia Hope to see lots of you!

La Gringa's back

2005-10-12T07:06:00.000+08:00

Long time readers of this blog know that I always enjoyed La Gringa's blogging and, after a long break, she's back. You can read all about her adventures over at http://lagringa.blogspot.com.

End of the Year: Part 1

2005-10-10T12:56:00.000+08:00

It seems strange to be writing this but, as far as new short fiction goes, 2005 is almost over. I've read most everything published by the various print magazines, finished all of the anthologies and collections that I've been able to get hold of, and am reading the still-to-be-published online fiction as quickly as I can get my hands on it. If all goes to plan, Karen and I will be turning in the final manuscripts for Science Fiction: Best of 2005 and Fantasy: Best of 2005 the week after I get back from World Fantasy in mid-November. And, with that in mind, pretty much the number one SF priority for the next few weeks is writing notes for the stories we've picked, and doing the introductions for the two books. To add to that 'end of the year' kind of feeling, I have just completed a very rough first pass at the Locus Short Fiction Recommended Reading List, and Rich Horton has started to post his always essential Annual Magazine Summaries on his newsgroup (I don't know if that link will remain stable, so check them out ASAP). With all of that happening, I've been working out what I think of 2005, the year in short fiction. All in all, I think it was another good year. The original anthologies were perhaps, on average, not quite as good as last year. We were lucky to get a good mainstream SF anthology like Peter Crowther's Constellations, but we sorely missed a strong mainstream fantasy book like Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling's The Faery Reel or Al Sarrantonio's Flights.. Were I forced to pick, I'd suggest that the best anthology of 2005 was actually a magazine. With outstanding stories by Paolo Bacigalupi, Peter S. Beagle, Esther M. Friesner, Elizabeth Hand, and Jeffrey Ford (amongst others), the October/November issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction was the best anniversary issue in some years, and as good a gathering of stories as were published anywhere during 2005. I'd also recommend Peter Crowther's Constellations, Marvin Kaye's The Fair Folk, Deb Layne & Jay Lake's Polyphony 5, and Andrew J Wilson & Neil Williamson's Nova Scotia: New Scottish Speculative Fiction. It was an extraordinary year for single author story collections. It seemed like every second book review I read declared this or that collection the 'short story collection of the year'. Given that the most of the collections published were quite different from one another, it was actually very difficult to make that call. Still, if pushed, I couldn't go past these books: Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link; 20th Century Ghosts, Joe Hill; Harrowing the Dragon, Patricia A. McKillip; and In the Palace of Repose, Holly Phillips. I'd also strongly recommend Gene Wolfe's Starwater Strains, Matthew Hughes' The Gist Hunter, Robert Reed's The Cuckoo's Boys, and Maureen McHugh's Mothers and Other Monsters. I was disappointed that, the Robert Reed collection aside, there wasn't a really strong SF collection published this year. The short story is integral to SF, and I hope someone will collect the recent short work from Wil McCarthy, Stephen Baxter, Ian MacDonald, Alastair Reynolds, Charles Stross and others into book form. To grind a personal axe, a collection from McDonald in particular, is long overdue. There were several excellent retrospectives published during the year. The most fascinating (and frustrating) was Centipede Press's Two-Handed Engine, which collected 30-plus stories by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore. Availability was very limited, so we can only hope someone will reprint it in a more accessible edition. While I'd also recommend Robert Sheckley's The Masque of Mañana, my vote for the best retrospective of the year goes to Leigh Brackett's Sea Kings of Mars: And Other Worldly Stories, from the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks Series. Important enough to attract an amazon reader's review from Michael Moorcock, it did everything I think a good retrospective should. It reprinted an important body of work in an intelligently compiled edition that was widely enough available that anyone could get a copy. It was, potentially, a book that could find new readers for Brackett's work, and that is worthwhile indeed.

OZ Conventions...

2005-10-07T08:04:00.000+08:00

I don't go to many Australian SF conventions. Traveling back and forth across the country is just too expensive and time consuming, and it has been pretty easy to not go over the past few years. But...back in July I went to Continuum 3 and had a ridiculously good time. It's now set that I'll be going to Conjure to Brisbane - where I'm guest along with Bruce, Cory, Sean and Kim - which should be wonderful. It looks like Charles will be coming over for it, so I'm pretty excited. Given that I'm planning on going to the LA World Convention I thought that, apart from a possible Swancon appearance, that that would be it for me next year. But, but, but my buddy Mitch is co-chairing Continuum 4, and it looks like enormous fun. Shaun is going to be a guest. So is Charlie and Margo, and I'm pining for that particular fjord. It's at the worst possible time for me - less than three weeks before we go to LA - but I'm trying to find some way that I can be there. Hmmm. Mitch is town this weekend. If I can work out something with him, and get permission to go from Marianne...

Getting together...

2005-10-07T07:57:00.000+08:00

Time continues to race past. Tomorrow is Robin's wedding, which should be enormous fun. Next Friday is little Sophie's fourth birthday, which will be a complete delight. And it's only seventeen days till I fly to Sydney. No time at all. I need to start making some plans for what I'm doing everywhere, so... I'll be in Oakland from Tuesday 25 October until Tuesday 1 November, and again on Tuesday 8 November. If you'd like to get together, drop me an email. As always there's lots and lots to do, but if I can fit it, I'd love to see people. I'll also be in Madison for World Fantasy from November 3 to November 7. I'm co-hosting an open party on the Thursday, but other than that, am pretty much free and would love to see people. Let me know if you'll be there, and if you'd like to get together.

Ticonderoga...

2005-10-07T07:27:00.000+08:00

I've known Russell for quite some years now - ten or something. It was he who named The Coode Street Review of Science Fiction, which inadvertently lead to the name for this blog and a number of other things. Anyway, just yesterday he emailed me and asked if I would blog about the e-publication of the latest issue of Ticonderoga: Online, which I am dutifully doing. It includes all kinds of crunchy goodness, including fiction from Cat Sparks and Shane Jiraiya Cummings, which is cool. While this is a good thing, the project of Russell's that I'm most looking forward to is the re-animation of Ticonderoga Publications and the publication of Troy by Simon Brown. That will be cool.

New Tim Powers novel...

2005-09-29T10:19:00.000+08:00

And the Tim Powers news keeps coming! Bill over at Subterranean Press has just posted information about a limited edition of a new Powers novel, Three Days to Never, that I assume will be published some time in mid-to-late 2006. To whet your appetite, Bill's description of the book from the SubPress site is:

When 12-year-old Daphne Marrity steals a videotape of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure from her grandmother's house, neither she nor her college-professor father, Frank Marrity, have any idea that the theft has drawn the attention of both the Israeli Secret Service and an ancient European organization of occultists -- or that within hours they'll be visited by her long-lost grandfather, who also wants that videotape. And when Daphne's teddy bear is stolen, and a blind assassin nearly kills her father, and a phantom begins to speak to her from a switched-off television set, Daphne and her father find themselves running for their lives through a southern California in which magic and the undead past are dangers as great as the guns of living assassins. From ancient prophesies about Israel to the secret lives of Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein, this breathtaking novel throws a suburban father and daughter into the midst of an ancient supernatural battle.

I'm pretty sure that there'll be a mass market edition of some kind, but Bill does a lovely job with his books, and it is Tim Powers.

Lake and Nestvold's best at SciFi.com

2005-09-29T07:32:00.000+08:00

The latest offering from Ellen Datlow's SciFiction, Jay Lake & Ruth Nestvold's "The Canadian Who Came Almost All the Way Home From the Stars" is a tale that recalls the pastoralist science fiction of the late Clifford Simak. Six years after launching a self-funded starship on a mission for Barnard's Star, a wealthy Canadian astrophysicist 'telephones' his wife to tell her he's on his way home. Soon after, a large depression appears in the middle of a lake in a Canadian national park. It immediately becomes the center of intense investigations by the Canadian and US governments. However, when those investigations provide no real explanation for what has happened, interest wanes and eventually the astrophysicist's beautiful wife and a government agent are left to maintain a long vigil to discover the nature of the anomaly and the fate of the astrophysicist. There's a lot to like in this nicely understated novelette. The characterisation is spot in, the tone is maintained perfectly and all in all it's probably the most accomplished story I've seen from either writer. Well worth checking out.

2005-09-28T07:50:00.000+08:00

Sorry for being away. I half-wrote several posts, but never quite got to finishing them (the story of my last few weeks). Since last we met there has been glorious sunshine, dancing, visits to the zoo, drenching rains, cleaning of houses, and that darn mouse. Along the way, I meant to write to you about how short story collections are a form in themselves (and how surely Bradbury and Le Guin are amongst the finest exponents of that art), how intrigued I am by snatches from the new My Morning Jacket cd Z, my delight at the announcement of the impending re-release of Springsteen's Born to Run, to enthuse even more about Neil's "Sunbird" (which I like more and more), and a bunch of other good things. Most of all, though, this morning I woke up and things didn't seem so bad for the first time in a while. I've got to email some folk about heading out for drinks this weekend, and draft a short speech for one of my very best friend's wedding. And then there's my Sophie's fourth birthday. It's easy to get caught up in the grind of the day-to-day, and to forget how delightful such things are. I can't believe it's been nearly twenty one years since I met Robin (about time he found a nice girl and settled down), nor can I believe it's been four years since Sophie was born. It seems like yesterday. And it's only twenty-six days till I head off for the States. Too much to do, which makes it too easy to overlook how good life is, but life is good.

Mice in the pantry...

2005-09-23T08:19:00.000+08:00

There are mice in the kitchen pantry, and I'm not sleeping well. Two nights running, I've either woken by myself or been awoken by children at around 2.00am, and struggled to get back to sleep. I still have to be up for work at 5.00am, so you could argue I'm a bit jetlagged, and this post may not be as sprightly as it could be. First, books I'm waiting for rather eagerly. In amongst all of the other stuff being talked about, Margo Lanagan has mentioned she's almost finished her novel Little Peach, set in the same world as 'Singing My Sister Down', and I can't wait to see it. Then, I note from Jeff Ford that Small Beer will be publishing Alan DeNiro's collection Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead, next year. Given that Jeff's saying good things about it, and that Gavin and Kelly are publishing it, I'm pretty excited about checking it out. I also see that Bill over at SubPress is publishing a new Tim Powers story, 'The Bible Repairman'. For all sorts of reasons, the only way you'll see this one is in the SubPress chapbook (which will be way cool), so go order it. I did. Second, I wrote and lost a post about anthologies. To quickly synopsise: where are all of the fantasy anthologies this year? I've not seen a really top-flight mainstream fantasy anthology this year, and I'd have expected to by now. That said, I did like Marvin Kaye's The Fair Folk, which has very good stories by Kim Newman and Megan Lindholm. It's only available from the SFBC, so go join. The best SF antho of the year, so far, is Pete Crowther's Constellations. It's from Pete, so it's as good as you'd expect. I have read some good slipstream, mixed, oddball, or whatever anthologies as well. Polyphony 5 stands out, as does Nova Scotia, and I know there are others. More, in detail, when I'm more awake. Third, things are moving on the year's best front. The first contracts for stories for the year's best SF and the year's best fantasy volumes should be winging their way to authors around the globe by now. I'm some time away from announcing any contents, but there's some good stuff around and I think the books will be strong. The only problem will be leaving things out. What else? It’s only four weeks till I leave for World Fantasy. Still have to get an ms. together for the YA book, finalise the year’s bests contents, write story notes for everything, do this crazy Australian SF catalogue, and get started on Locus’s recommended reading. All on top of cool, fun life stuff like a best friend’s wedding and a daughter’s birthday. Busy, busy. Oh, and Clive Barker is now doing weird kids toys....

On Carroll...

2005-09-21T11:58:00.000+08:00

There was a time when I would have told you that I loved pretty much everything that Jonathan Carroll had written. Way back in the day, when the world was young, he produced a remarkable body of work, including novels like The Land of Laughs, Sleeping in Flame, Bones of the Moon, and A Child Across the Sky, all of which I think remarkable, and recommend unhesitatingly. I have, in all frankness, been a little less seduced by the handful of novels he's published in the last four or five years, including those featuring Vincent Ettrich. Still, I note that a new one, Glass Soup, is due shortly, and a website is up. Even when imperfect, Carroll's novels are always worth checking out. Perhaps more to my taste, I also note that Carroll has published his story "Home on the Rain", from Conjunctions, on his website. I may be alone, but I liked it a lot.

Woot!

2005-09-21T11:42:00.000+08:00

I've been meaning to post something about anthologies, but every time I try to something else comes along. In this case the distraction is the welcome news that Night Shade Books will be publishing Tim Pratt's second short story collection, Hart & Boot and Other Stories. This is very cool news. I think 2005 has been a remarkable year for short story collections, but with next year promising new collections from Tim, Theodora Goss, Jeffrey Ford, M. Rickert, Bruce Sterling, and Paul Di Filippo amongst others, it could be just as good. Why is it, when faced with evidence like this, that people still question whether or not these are good times for the short story?

Meme: Which ism is your ism?

2005-09-21T11:32:00.000+08:00

You are a Social Liberal (80% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (20% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist

Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating

I guess this isn't too far off. Hmmm. But, how do you explain the inexhaustible thirst for money? I think I make for a pretty poor socialist. Meme: via Liz Williams.

First lines....

2005-09-20T12:13:00.000+08:00

Well, for those interested, here are the sources of the first lines listed last week:

Dune, Frank Herbert
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
Pattern Recognition, William Gibson
The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut
Green Eyes, Lucius Shepard
The Book of Skulls, Robert Silverberg
The Child Garden, Geoff Ryman
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
The Mote in God's Eye, Niven & Pournelle
The Crow Road, Iain Banks

headphones...

2005-09-19T08:28:00.000+08:00

There have been a number of surprising revelations that have accompanied the move to iPod over the past month. Possibly the strangest thing, though, is that I've discovered that I may have a headphone fetish. Last year, through the good auspices of Kirsten at Locus, I bought a pair of Sennheiser's PXC-250 noise reduction headphones. I love them when I'm travelling. They're light, comfortable, have great sound quality, and are very good at reducing background noise. I also have a pair of Grado SR-80 headphones, which I use for home listening, and which are simply fantastic. Best quality headphones I've ever owned. Now, when I bought the iPod they came with a particularly crappy pair of earbuds. I don't like earbuds. They are uncomfortable, invasive, and I'm pretty sure they kill your hearing. That said, they are convenient. Of late, I've found myself using the Sennheisers in the office, but switching to earbuds when going downstairs or outside. largely because the Sennheisers come with a battery pack that makes them just that little bit unwieldy. Over the past week or so I've begun to think about upgrading. First, at home, I'd love to move to Grado's SR125's, which look fantastic, and I've had recommended to me. They are $Us150.00, though. I'm also sorely tempted by Etymotic Research’s ER-6i Isolator earbud headphones, which cost about the same as the Grado's, and which I don't really need. I'm not moving away from the Sennheiser's at all. I love 'em, but it would be nice to have these too.

Lafferty and the sunbird...

2005-09-17T22:47:00.000+08:00

R.A Lafferty stories are funny, weird, sometimes a little paranoid sounding, often delightfully bizarre, and always very precise. They tell of the secret societies, possessed of arcane knowledge, than run the world. You will find that seven men control our world, that they have four means of doing so, and that they can employ them in precisely six different ways. Further, they can only do so on two occasions in any given year. They belong to the Institute of Impure Science (or some other such organisation), and have colorful and odd names (like Aloysius Shiplap, the seminal genius, orMargaret the Houri, the ageless intergalactic mistress). You can read of them in stories like "Slow Tuesday Night", "Nine Hundred Grandmothers", "Narrow Valley", "Interurban Queen" (which I once saw Howard Waldrop prove to be the perfect short story), or personal favorite "Nor Limestone Islands" and one day, if the world is kind, they will be available to you in a nice big retrospective short story collection. I mention them now, though, to foreshadow a comment on a short story I've recently read. Very shortly indeed, those odd folk at McSweeney's will publish a book of stories and stuff for less-old readers. It will be called A book of noisy outlaws, unfriendly blobs, and some other things that aren't as scary, maybe, depending on how you feel about lost lands, stray cell phones, creatures from the sky, parents who disappear in peru, a man named lars farf, and one other story we couldn't quite finish, so maybe you could help us out, which is a very long title indeed. Within its pages, eager readers will find a short story by Neil Gaiman, called "Sunbird" which is, without any shadow of a doubt, his R.A. Lafferty story. "Sunbird" tells the tale of Augustus Two Feathers McCoy, who is a member of the Epicurean Club, a private and eccentric group who claim, amongst themselves, not only to have attempted to eat everything that is edible (and several things that aren't), but to know how best to prepare and serve each one of those things. The story opens with the observation by McCoy that "We have eaten everything that can be eaten", which is much an announcement as it is a challenge. The rest of the story - and I have no intention of telling you any more of its details, for such pleasures should be yours - covers the response of the club members and one Hollyberry NoFeathers McCoy to that statement. Because Gaiman seems naturally possessed of a voice that makes him a pleasure to read, it is easy to overlook how clever and accomplished he can be, mostly because he does such things while you aren't looking. Much of what happens in "Sunbird" is silly, odd, or preposterous, and sometimes all three. And yet, other than when you're smiling, you don't particularly notice. I have no idea how it will be received by the world at large - though we'll know in a week or three - but for this reader, it was a rare delight indeed.

Call for recommendations

2005-09-17T22:44:00.000+08:00

I believe in truth in advertising. If you advertise something, you should attempt to deliver. I'm in the middle of working on my year's best fantasy and year's best science fiction volumes with Karen Haber and, while the end is in sight, that thought is on my mind. We've read a lot of excellent stuff, and have some very fine stories earmarked for both books, but.... A book called year's best SF or year's best fantasy should contain stories that readers would recognize as SF or fantasy. I'm confident that the SF book is going to do that, but I'm a little worried about the fantasy book. The stories we have slated for it are terrific, top notch, but there's not much in the way of dragons, fairies, elves, or quests. You won't fit much quest into a short story, but dragons, fairies, and elves are definitely within the scope of the project. So, I have a request. If you, as a reader of this blog, have seen a terrific story featuring a traditional fantasy trope, let me know. I may have seen it, but who knows, and it would be really appreciated.

eels

2005-09-17T22:26:00.000+08:00

I have found, by trial and error, that I do not really pick my favorite albums of the year. It seems more like they pick me. The year before last it was The White Stripes Elephant, and last year it was Belle and Sebastian's Dear Catastrophe Waitress. There was a lot to like, and enough not to, with both albums. They both passed a key test, though. When I thought back across the year, it was the sound of those albums that I could best remember amongst all of the thousands of things I'd listened to. This trip around the sun the prize goes to the latest set from Mark E and his various cohorts who form Eels for the odd, double cd extravaganza that is Blinking Lights and Other Revelations. For all that I've loved the Magic Numbers debut, I haven't been able to escape the beautiful, mournful music that fill up these two cds. The refrain from "Suicide Life" - 'I'll go none too bravely, Into the night, I'm so tired of living, The suicide life" - while not very cheery, goes round and round in my head. Superb.

Opening lines...

2005-09-17T08:18:00.000+08:00

Just yesterday, Chris Rowe posted a bunch of opening lines from some short fiction on this blog, and asked people to name the stories. Well, here's just ten opening lines from some SF and F novels. How well do you know this stuff...

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.
Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith.
Five hours' New York jet lag and Cayce Pollard wakes in Camden Town to the dire and ever-circling wolves of disrupted circadian rhythms.
Everyone knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn't always so lucky. Less than a century ago men and women did not have the easy access to the puzzle boxes within them.
I did not see my first "zombie" until my second day at Tulane when Ezawa permitted me to witness an interview.
Coming into New York City from the north, off the New England thruway, Oliver drove as usual. Tireless, relaxed, his window half open, long blond hair whipping in the chilly breeze.
Milena boiled things. She was frightened of disease. She would boil other people's knives and forks before using them. Other people found this insulting.
My name is Robinette Broadhead, in spite of which I am male. My analyst (whom I call Sigfrid von Shrink, although that isn't his name; he hasn't got a name, being a machine) has a lot of electronic fun with this fact.
Throughout the past thousand years of history it has been traditional to regard the Alderson Drive as an unmixed blessing.
It was the day my grandmother exploded.

World Fantasy: Clarification

2005-09-16T14:48:00.000+08:00

A clarification about the World Fantasy booklet. If you would like your book(s) listed in our free booklet, then you need to provide the following information, as requested below: Title: Author: Blurb (inc. quotes, advance review extracts etc.): Jacket Pic: a 150 dpi image in jpeg format ( 75 mm x 105 mm) Extent (no. pages): Publication Date: Publisher(s) and Territories: Agent or rights holder contacts: If you can't provide an image, that's ok, but the information must be provided in this format if it's to be included. Because we intend this to be similar to a catalogue, a simple list of titles won't be sufficient. Also, because of limited time, I'm not able to follow up with someone else for this information. I'll need it sent, ready to use, to jstrahan (at) iinet (dot) net (dot) (au). A sample of what you could send would look like this: Title: Eidolon I Author: Jonathan Strahan & Jeremy G Byrne eds. Blurb (inc. quotes, advance review extracts etc.): An exciting new anthology from Eidolon editors Strahan & Byrne, with classic new stories from Simon Brown, Chris Lawson, and others. Jacket Pic: eidolon.jpg (attached) Extent (no. pages): 420pp Publication Date: November 2005 Publisher(s) and Territories: Eidolon Books (Australia), Prime Books (USA). Other world English language rights available. Agent or rights holder contacts: Contact Jonathan Strahan at jstrahan (at) iinet (dot) net (dot) au. If you have any queries about what you should provide, please don't hesitate to email me. We want this to be a success, and to help promote Australian writers and their work.

Jack's site

2005-09-16T11:46:00.000+08:00

My buddy Jack Dann has a new website over here at www.jackdann.com. Check it out.

The Waldrop Bibliography

2005-09-16T07:27:00.000+08:00

A while back I put together a list of Howard Waldrop's short fiction, along with all of the first publication information. Recently I needed that information again, but couldn't find it elsewhere on the web. With that in mind, I'm adding The Howard Waldrop Bibliography semi-permanently to this blog. I'll do my best to keep it up to date, and will add the info from it to the Waldrop Wikipedia entry, when I get the chance.