The gang at Locus HQ in Oakland have posted the finalists for the 2009 Locus Awards. All sorts of friends and colleagues are shortlisted, and my sincere congratulations to all of them. I also note that Ted Chiang’s story from Eclipse Two, ‘Exhalation’ is in the Best Short Story category, The Starry Rift and Eclipse Two are on the final ‘Anthology’ list, and I’ve made the ‘Best Editor’ list. My congratulations to Ted, whose story just won the BSFA Award and is on the Hugo Ballot this year. I’d sincerely like to thank EVERYONE who nominated ffor the Locus Awards this year, and everyone who thought work I was associated with deserved to be shortlisted. I’d also like to acknowledge that without the extraordinary work from all of the writers involved and without the incredible hard work and diligence from Sharyn November at Viking and Jason Williams (and crew) at Night Shade it would not be happening. So, my sincerest thanks to them! It was a big year. Now I guess I better get on with finishing Eclipse Three and Starry Rift follow-up, Life on Mars.
Monthly Archives: April 2009
2009 Ditmar Awards
The Ditmar nomination period is upon us. Members of the Australian science fiction community can nominate and vote for the awards. But nominations close this weekend Monday, 4 May 2009. I have two books eligible for the awards – Eclipse 2 and The Starry Rift. Each book contains stories that are also eligible so, if you’re eligible to nominate or vote and would like to see the books, email me and I’m happy to let you have an electronic copy of either book. All I ask is that, if you do want a copy, that you don’t share the files.
Comments
I am aware that there is a problem with the comments database and am working to fix it. Apologies for the problem.
Project update
Things are getting busy here, so I thought I’d do a quick project list as much for my own sake as for anyone’s interest. As I said here the other day, I’m editing The Best of Larry Niven, which is very cool. I’m also editing The Best of Joe Haldeman for Subterranean, and the Best of Peter Beagle is back on! I’d love story recommendations for either of these.
I’ve also realised that I’m on the verge of over committing myself. So, in the interests of sanity I’ve recruited Marianne to work in the family business. She’ll mainly be helping with running the office, doing bookkeeping and managing me(!). She also has a lot of editorial experience I’m keep to exploit.
In truth, most of the list below are on my bibliography page, but here’s a lot of what I’ll be working on over the next eighteen months. Once this lot are done I’m keen to cut down on the single author collections and focus on original anthologies, which are what I primarily want to be doing, but I do enjoy working on them so who knows?
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Original anthologies
- Conquering Swords (with Lou Anders) – an original anthology of swords and sorcery stories from HarperCollins Eos. Due in 2010.
- Eclipse Three – an original unthemed SF/F anthology for Night Shade Books. Due in Oct 2009.
- Engineering Infinity – an original hard SF anthology for Solaris Books. Due in 2011.
- Dreamtime: Legends of Australian Fantasy (with Jack Dann) – an original fantasy anthology of novellas by Australian writers. Due in 2010
- Life on Mars: Tales from the New Frontier – an original young adult SF anthology of stories set on Mars. Due in 2011.
Reprint anthologies
- Wings of Fire – a reprint anthology of dragon stories for Night Shade Books. Due in 2010.
- The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 4 – as per title. Due in 2010.
- unspecified 2010 reprint anthology.
Collections
- The Best of Fritz Leiber (edited with Charles Brown) for Night Shade Books. Due in 2010.
- Hard Luck Diggings: The Early Jack Vance for Subterranean Press. Due in 2010.
- The Best of Joe Haldeman for Subterranean Press. Due in 2010.
- The Best of Larry Niven for Subterranean Press. Due in 2010.
- Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle for Subterranean Press. Due in 2010.
- Single author collection for Night Shade Books. Due in 2010.
- ‘Best of’ author collection for Night Shade Books. Due in 2010.
Other Projects
- Special issue of Subterranean Magazine – Due 2009.
A new book…
I started reading science fiction back in the mid-1970s. I was eight or nine years old, and somewhere in there I started reading Larry Niven. I don’t remember when, but it was the short stories that captivated me. So you can only imagine how delighted I am to announce that I’m going to edit The Best of Larry Niven for Subterranean Press. It’ll be a 200,000 word selection of Larry’s very best short stories and should be spectacular. I’m going to be diving into working out the table of contents over the next week or two, so please feel free to drop me any suggestions. This one should be out in 2010.
What I’m up to…
So, you ask, ‘Jonathan, you’re always complaining about being too busy. What are you actually doing?’ Well, good question, dear reader. As long-time readers know, I hold down a day job with a mysterious bureaucratic entity (no, I’m not going to name them because it’s kind of irrelevant here) in Perth, Western Australia where I perform project-managey kind of tasks in the web development area. This is a good thing. Last year I got a promotion, which was nice, and it continues to keep me busy. The $$s also keep the family unit running, which the science fiction stuff helps with, but couldn’t maintain.
Now, how about the editing stuff, you ask? Well, there are three strands to that. Since 1997 I’ve been working in various capacities for what Tim Pratt calls ‘A Certain Magazine‘, but what others seem to see as the evil behemoth of death, that darned magazine, the evil semi-prozine Hugo eater, or sometimes just, Locus. I started as their Australian editor, which really was just cover so I could shack up with my girlfriend and get a visa. I had to sell galleys from the Locus Basement to cover costs, so it was an interesting start. Then I became a book reviewer, which I did on and off between 1997 and about 2003. I proofread the magazine for a bunch of years, and have been Reviews Editor since 2002. This means I allocate books for review (sometimes in consultation with the publisher) and edit the reviews that come in from our reviewers around the globe. It means I’m corresponding a little every day, and then edit the columns in a rush around about now each month.
Then there are the anthologies. I started doing that in the mid-1990s I then co-edited a pair of anthologies with Jeremy Byrne for HarperCollins Australia. I got my big break, though, from Karen and Bob Silverberg, when they brought me in to work on their year’s best SF. I’ve since edited fourteen year’s best volumes of one stripe or another, and am finalising contracts now for the next couple. Working for Locus and doing the year’s bests led collectively to doing The Locus Awards, and some other reprint books I’m doing. My first original anthology was Eidolon 1. I’ve since completed six more, and have four in train. The best way to follow these is to check out the Bibliography page, but coming up are Godlike Machines, The New Space Opera 2 (with Gardner), Eclipse Three, Conquering Swords (with Lou), Dreamtime: Legends of Australian Fantasy (with Jack), Life on Mars, and Engineering Infinity. There are a couple others being discussed, but that’s most of the antho stuff.
The third, and less well known, kind of editing job I do involves assembling single author collections for various publishers. I did the first of these in 2007 when I edited The Jack Vance Treasury with Terry Dowling for Subterranean. Truthfully, this came about because I was trying to get someone else to publish a book like that, and ended up doing it myself. I’ve since edited, or committed to edit, three further Vance books (The Jack Vance Reader, Wild Thyme, Green Magic, and Hard Luck Diggings). I also edited Ascendancies: The Best of Bruce Sterling, which was an amazing experience, and am currently working on a ‘Best of Fritz Leiber’ with Charles Brown, a collection of Walter Jon Williams stories, and am almost certainly doing three other books like this over the next year or two. Oh, I’m also assembling a special issue of Subterranean Online.
So, that’s what’s keeping me busy. That and having a young family who like to see me occasionally too.
Books I’m looking forward to…Part 4. April 2009
Hmm. I guess this something about my state of mind, or about the vagaries of publishing schedules, but I find that this month I’m not looking forward to any new release titles. There are some cool ones poised just over the horizon in May, but that’s next month. This month, time to work through the ‘To Read’ pile and enjoy what I have.
Maybe if you have something you’re looking forward to that is being published in April you could mention it in the comments to this post.
Books I’m looking forward to…Part 4. April 2009
Hmm. I guess this something about my state of mind, or about the vagaries of publishing schedules, but I find that this month I’m not looking forward to any new release titles. There are some cool ones poised just over the horizon in May, but that’s next month. This month, time to work through the ‘To Read’ pile and enjoy what I have.
Maybe if you have something you’re looking forward to that is being published in April you could mention it in the comments to this post.
Coode Street 