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Y'know I don't actually read that many book reviews. I used to, but as the years have rolled past, I find myself reading less and less of them. I still read a few such as the ones contained in

lobelet's regular column, but that is at least as much if not more about reading the personal anecdotes than the reviews. But for the most part, the motivation has gone. So why is that.

Well, the first reason is easy - I don't need to read reviews to find books to read, I have more than I can handle as it is. In any case, I find the buzz about good new authors reaches me anyway. I don't need to read reviews to find out how the genre scene is moving at the moment. There are plenty of people around who will tell me that stuff directly - that goes for the previous point too. In fact, that may well be the key - I have enough sources of personal recommendation that I don't need to seek out other ones. I don't need to seek out validation of my opinions either. There was a time where I would read reviews of books that I had read to see if the reviewer agreed with me or not. Now I don't care - I'm happy to have my own opinions, knowing that others have theirs and that they differ and I can accept that.

So, I don't read so many reviews, yet I still write about what I read. The distinction is that I'm not going out to write something that is a review as such. I'm just writing a blog here about (part of) my life which happens to include books and the opinions that arise from that. It is a much looser and freer form of expression I think and often lets me concentrate on one little element of a work rather than the whole thing. It works for me anyway.

So what brought that on? Well, it is by way of a kind of apology to a number of people on my flist as this constitutes my blog entry for ASIM #32.

I haven't updated in a while. You could put that down to smoking poppy. Meaning, of course, Smoking Poppy by Graham Joyce. The author was a guest as the last Conflux and since he seemed like a nice fellow, I thought I'd buy some of his work from the dealers room to see if he could write as well. Bill sold me this book. Turns out it was one of only a very few Joyce books sold at the con. Due to a cock up on the catering front, the dealers couldn't get hold of his work. I feel very privileged.

The book is written with a wonderful rich "literate" prose style. That is great except that the main character does not really match that set of descriptions. This rough sullen introspective conservative fellow needs a different voice. It wouldn't be an issue at all if the book was in the third person but in the first person, the words do not match the character. I'm not saying that the dialogue needs to spout out of his mouth in an exact rendition of the character's supposed idiom, but the tone needs to be tweaked. It is put even more into relief when the odd bit of slang does come out - it just seems out of place.

Its a funny thing this matching of voice to writing style. I don't think there are rules about it and other writers with a "literate" style have been able to capture different character expression without seeming forced. It just seems a bit askew in this case. It isn't helped that the character is very conservative and narrow in outlook and yet is supposed to be widely read and a science fiction fan. Those things don't go together in my mind.

Of course it could be that I'm peeved because an interesting relationship setup was made at the beginning of the book which is never played out later. It is just left hanging. Still, beautiful language guv'nor.

A while back I was speculating about pageturnability. That quality of books that keeps you reading on and on even when there is nothing else that is obviously of merit. You could break it down into story structure, pacing, crisis cycles, language usages and so forth. However, in the end, it is a "know it when you see it" kind of thing.

In the past I would probably have said that Kage Baker had a lot more going her work. But The Machine's Child is pretty much devoid of the usual qualities from earlier "Company" books and there are a rather large number of those by now. But it sure has pageturnability. The story may not really go anywhere - it is more setup than story and the most commonly focussed on characters may be the least sympathetic (i.e irritating) of the "Company" set. Despite that I pretty much read it in one go - one page at a time. One turn after another.

So things are getting bad in TV land boys and girls. The strike is biting and shows are being chopped off half way through their seasons. But what can the dedicated videophile watch. One episode of Torchwood a week isn't going to satisfy us, and don't even get me started about Flash Gordon still continuing while others are ending. So casting the net wide, what is there to trial in the new year:
( Enter at your peril )

"Burn this book" - that is what the inscription from the author reads. The author in question was running a hucksters table at a con and we were discussing what I could buy. We went through many possible options before he pulled out a copy of the book in question from below a stack of other titles. There were no other books that he had actually written on display. This one was written more than 10 years ago - the stories which make it up even older. Are you getting the picture? It is surprising he even had a copy at all.

So when an author has obviously grown beyond his work and is perhaps a little ashamed of it, why should I want to read it. You see I had every reason to believe that it would be something I would enjoy. The book is a collection of stories by Bill Congreve called Epiphanies of Blood. You see knowing Bill, knowing the type of work being written a lot 10 or so years ago and looking at the subtitle "Tales of desperation and thirst", I could see that it was going to be a collection of dark stories characterised by detailed mental landscapes and filled with strong emotions. These stories would be crafted to be as deep and meaningful as they possibly could - i.e. pretentious. Of course the flip side is that the other elements of storytelling are missing or shambolic - i.e. raw. But, you know, sometimes I'm just in the mood for pretentious and raw - I'm strange like that. This afternoon was such a time and this book did its job nicely.

So at what point should you stop reading a book you aren't enjoying? Over the years, like many people, I got pretty stubborn reading books and tried to read all my way through once I have started. But in recent times I have been telling myself to stop if I'm not enjoying a book. Its that whole "life is too short" argument. On the other hand, you have got to give a book a fair go. Even if you don't like the first few pages, that does not mean the book won't develop and become something really good. So to rephrase the question - how much leeway do you give a bad book to come right? Is there a minimum page count? Perhaps there is a minimum percentage you should read.

There are complicating factors to this question. Is the book highly recommended by your friends or reviewers etc? Is it supposed to be a classic? Do you have some sort of review obligation? Then there is the reason that it isn't good for you. If it is highly offensive then you are likely to stop much more quickly than if it is just dull. Or perhaps not - offensive but well written can still be compelling.

These thoughts were triggered by The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko. I had it quite strongly recommended to me by several people. Yet, 40 pages in I was ready to give it away. It wasn't that it was bad, it was just too blandly generic. It seemed to be just another vampire/magician hunting thing with nothing about the writing that added depth to the setting - no humour, no sense of setting, no depth of character. Not badly written, just nothing to engage with.

I thought I'd give it a few more pages. At the 70 page mark I put it down again thinking again that I had had enough. Then in a moment of extreme laziness I figured that I couldn't be bothered walking through to another room to get another book so why don't I give this another go - after all 100 pages seemed to be a good round number to say that I had given the book a fair go. Next time I noticed I was on page 140 and engaged. So I finished the book.

It didn't turn into a great work. The setting and characters developed just enough to hold my interest. As a work it has too much of the dance to a mysterious hidden plan style to really satisfy me. The point is that it did prove readable. So re-asking the original question - at what point should you stop reading a book you aren't enjoying?

It has been quite hot recently. Well hot by local standards - you Perth folk would be wrapping up and complaining of the cold but it is hot for us. The upshot is that I haven't been watching much television. By which obviously I don't mean what is being broadcast locally but stuff like the bundle of DVDs of '80s British TV that has arrived over the last few days from Amazon as well as other sources of watchable material. Usually I don't have much trouble keeping on top of my video "to watch" list, but things are backing up now. Torchwood restarted today too, so it does not get any better.

It is reading weather though. Find a cool spot and a book becomes your friend. My latest pal was one of CSFG's earlier anthologies - Machinations edited by Chris Andrews. As was expected, it was a bit variable, but there were plenty of good stories by that talented Canberra crowd. Although for some reason, the stories I liked the best were mostly in the second half of the book. One tip that was reinforced with collection though was that if you are a writing group putting together a collection of your work, it really helps to have a Les Petersen on board to do the illustrations. It really gives things a lift when the book is so visually attractive.

Stephen Baxter's Xeelee sequence. So many books and so many short stories and obviously so much world building. Quite a few books back, the "final" book in the sequence was published. Then there was a whole new series set in the same sequence. Now there is the one I have just read - Resplendent. Really a collection of all the short stories written in the sequence since that "final" volume. By stringing them together in the right order(1) and providing bridging pieces it provides a sort of overview of the sequence. It is pretty good too although possibly better if I hadn't read so many of the stories before when they were published in the magazines.

There is a bit of fatigue setting in. I'm not sure that I really need to read any more stories in this sequence. On the other hand, it may well be Baxter's best work. Some of his other stuff is noticeably weaker. Perhaps a break is called for before any more in this world view. Actually, I guess I mean universe as Baxter does not consider even mere galaxies to be a bound for his canvas.

(1) And thus blowing a hole in my reading order theories from a couple of weeks back.

From time to time, I mention the fine folks at Dymocks here. I'm referring to the team at Dymocks on Lambton quay who have been good friends to SF over the years and who both dispense good information and listen to suggestions. However there is also a Dymocks in Queensgate, Lower Hutt. Darren, the owner, is also an SF fan and despite the restricted shop area he has to work with has worked hard to ensure that there is a good SF section. We have had a few good chats about the genre too. But I don't think his tastes align that well with mine to take much notice of his personal recommendations at least as far as the science fiction side of things goes. I'm more prepared to listen to his fantasy opinions though. So it was that I read The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch.

It is one of those clever thief stories. You know the ones, where the main character is an orphan who lives by their wits in the big city as a thief. Sometimes, as in this case, they have a small band of helpers who each possess special skills. I guess the story goes back at least as far as Robin Hood if not further. For a big chunk of the book, it is pretty much formula - engagingly well told formula, but still formula. It seems to be pitched fairly young. The general tone is quite young and then there is the use of lavish food scenes which is quite often a characteristic of work aimed at a younger audience. Then suddenly it turns nasty and brutal. Over the course of a couple of dozen pages it gets graphically violent complete with the ultimate consequences. The it drops back to a lighter caper level again although now tinged with a darker thread and another shorter nasty episode. Actually, the book needed the darker elements to break away from the formula. I thought it was a better and more "real" read for it.

In fact, as I think about it, it isn't hard to find lots of examples where a violent interlude is used to pick up the pace through the middle of a work. What is surprising is just how violent this book becomes compared to what went before. It is the size of the gap, not the absolute amount that stands out. In the end, I think the only consequence is that it is something to keep in mind when recommending it to somebody.

capnoblivious posted a link to a Tazer combined with an MP3 player.

My first though was that I'm not surprised at all by this. I can see a trend developing with MP3 players where manufacturers are trying to build this capacity into everything - now it is phones, watches etc. Anything portable - handbags, clothes, wallets, earrings, cars, bikes you name it. I see it a bit like LCD digital watches a while back where in a few years they went form exclusive item to being so common that they were even being built into disposable pens. In that scenario, eventually, the novelty will wear off and the market will decide where it really wants these devices.

But then I had an attack of the Cory Doctorows. What if this heralds the next stage in smart devices. A lot of the chat around smart devices is that they provide supposedly useful info that they can share by wireless links. Useful in that it is about their primary function. So devices in stores can transmit stock level info or possibly sales or technical info to potential buyers. Appliances can indicate status - too hot, too cold, needing servicing, on fire and about to explode - that sort of thing. It is all available to you by your wireless link (whatever the next standard for that turns out to be).

But to be honest, this stuff may give the technology pundits thrills but as a concept it has not really grabbed the public imagination all that much. It is a bit boring actually - who cares about status reports and tech specs. But the market finds its own level. What if smart appliacances are delivering entertainment content. Any device that you interact with can have its own music or video storage that you can interact with via your personal wireless connection - to earphones or specs. Now when you go to the refrigerator, you can tap into your favourite snacking music background. When you go into a shop you can tap into a whole range of music that matches the products on display rather than having one choice broadcast at you. You car has your driving music set up waiting. Now for the personal stuff, perhaps it isn't a big deal because you could just select a setting on your normal player but it does open the potential for the situation soundtrack being available if you want to opt in. The one striking image I have in mind is that you go to the park and the park benches have an mp3 archive in them that you can access to get the birdsong that you want to hear or some other relaxing soundtracks selected as park appropriate.

Or not. What the hell do I know anyway. As the saying goes "live by the crystal ball and learn to eat ground glass".

So it looks like Blu-ray is winning the HD format wars. You know what? I don't care. When people start giving HD disks away with cereal and the next format is being pushed - then I will care because I won't be able to use anything else. Well that might be an exaggeration. I am a bit interested because it really means my collection of old VHS tapes is becoming remarkably redundant. I can't even lend them to people because "oh we don't have our VCR plugged in any more". To be honest, I never watch them anyway either. Nor can I ever see them having the kind of retro chic that vinyl records have (I still have mine).

So it is time to do another pruning of my collection. Last time I did it, about 3 years ago, I got rid of a hundred or so tapes and had no trouble finding people who would take them off my hands. Now I'm not so sure. Does anybody want a bunch of old VHS tapes?

Actually there might not be so many this time. You see I'm having a problem sorting out what to throw out. They all have stuff on them. Last time it was easy - just get rid of all the old Star Trek & B5 tapes. But now it comes down to a case by case deal. Now there are easy ones where I have the piece of video in another format or I know that I'll never want to see it again. At the other end are things that I know I want to see again and can't get anywhere else - these I'll keep for conversion and even watch a few while I'm doing this exercise. But then, in the middle, there are a whole bunch of "I might want to watch these again". That is by far the biggest pile. I need more resolve because I sure need the shelf space.

Gosh, a genre book launch in Wellington. I don't remember the last time that happened. Newtons Sleep is being launched on 12th January. More info including time and place over on the Phoenix Blog.

There was a mention of "refreshments" if that helps get you along.

There must be some proper term for it. Over the years I have thought that there is a quantity in novel writing that should be measured alongside plot, character, pacing, setting etc. For want of a better term (there must be one) I call it pageturnability - that quality which makes the reader just want to read the next page to see what is going to happen. Some authors seem to have only the ability to produce this characteristic and none of the others - you often find them on the best seller lists. Of course some top selling authors have the other factors as well - it is just one factor in the big picture. I.e. quality and pageturnability are not mutually exclusive - just independent variables. There really really must be a term for this.

This came to mind as I was reading Dead Famous by Ben Elton at a very late hour. It certainly has pageturnability. It is supposed to have humour but never raised a chuckle. It is supposed to have satire, but trying to be satirical about reality shows is really quite self defeating - it is difficult to be more ridiculous that the real thing. It is supposed to have mystery, but the murderer was so predictable that they were obvious as soon as they were introduced. That is all pretty harsh I suppose as it was pleasant enough and if there were no actual laughs it has a few wryly amusing moments. But still it had more pageturnability than anything else.

There really really really must be a proper term for it. I suppose whoever has the proper term also has identified the elements that make it up - ones that come to mind easily are simple language, lots of small rolling crisis points, cliffhanger changes in focus. I wonder if the people who run writing courses teach this stuff?

It seems an appropriate time to remind people that nominations for the New Zealand Science Fiction and Fantasy awards (Sir Julius Vogel Awards) are currently open. Appropriate because the elgibibility time period (2007 calendar year) is just over and the nominations close on the 26th of January which isn't far away.

Note that anybody can be a nominator - you don't have to be a member of SFFANZ or even a New Zealander to put somebody forward. The actual nominees have to be a NZ resident OR a NZ citizen. The latter meaning that any Kiwi living anywhere in the world is eligible.

So come on all you editors and publishers. I know some of you have published Kiwi authors - get their names forward. For those of you who are eligible, I should point out that there is no rule against nominating yourself.

Details of the process on the SFFANZ web site.

Question for today. Can a collection of short stories be considered a YA collection just because all the story protagonists are teenagers? The question comes up because Waifs and Strays by Charles De Lint is just such a collection. Taken from his writing across his career, this anthology very deliberately specifies that it is a collection about teenagers. Which raises the question as to whether there is any distinction. Are there any themes that shouldn't appear in books aimed at the older end of the YA grouping? But then so much fantasy can be easily put into that YA category anyway. It is all very fuzzy. Most of this excellent De Lint collection would raise no issues in terms of themes. However would you want your 15yo to read a story about under-age runaways being abducted by prostitution rings so that their virginity can be sold to their more particular clients. Perhaps that is exactly the type of story you want them to read. I guess it depends on the individual reader (and parent). Which is fine, but how do you tell without reading the book first.

That aside, it is a good book, although I think I prefer De Lint's longer work. Not because the writing is any better but only because his character and setting heavy style suits works where situations can be explored in depth.

Dymocks managed to score a whole pile of very cheap Chronicles of Narnia omnibus editions - ones with all seven books in one volume. I guess somebody overestimated the appeal of the books when the film came out and now they are trying to unload the surplus. Anyway, I bought one and had a read of these works again - apart from The Magician's Nephew, it was the first time I had read them for a long time.

There isn't much to say about these books that hasn't been said many many times before. One thing did interest me however - the order of the books in the volume. They have been put into a sequence corresponding to the internal chronology of Narnia. This is not the order in which these books were written or published. I don't think this is the right order to read these books. Contents of the books written later, but set earlier, are informed by the earlier books. To read The Magician's Nephew without having first read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is to lose something. I think the same general rule can be applied to other series - would you read all the Dune prelude books before reading Dune. Likewise, would you read Asimov's Foundation books in internal chronological order or in the order written? I can think of similar examples on TV - the B5 movie In the Beginning, only works if you have seen the series. So I would say that you shouldn't read prequels before reading the original work. Or is it just me?

I was going to do a little photo essay of the journey down to visit my cousin for what was a very enjoyable family occasion. I thought I'd play on the cliché of not appreciating the worth of something until you lose it. I could go on about how I never properly appreciated the scenery that was virtually at my back door when I was growing up. But then I got caught my an even more negative cliché - the one that goes along the lines that you just cannot properly capture the essence of something in a mere photo. Well not with my photographic skills and not something built on the scale of the Mackenzie country.
( Example below cut )

So I did the holiday season thing and went away. Some of the time was spent at my cousin's new place on lake Dunstan in central Otago. Actually it was quite isolated - no Internet, no television. But that was more to do with the newness of the house rather than the isolation per se.

I'll post a few more photos from the trip soon, but I thought y'all might be interested in a couple of these shots. Especially you Aussies.
( go on, you know you want to look )

Trouble getting back into the reading groove? What type of book do you read? How about the sequel to one you were not very impressed by. A sequel that, in fact, you regretted buying. Well yes, it seems obvious really. As long as the book in question is fairly light and being forearmed about the annoying aspects of it, you can be mentally prepared. Thus I was able to read Stephen Baxter's Conqueror quickly and without pain. Sure, my opinion stands that others have done it better, but it did the job of getting me back in the reading groove. A practice book if you like - one to be thrown away before the real reading starts.

Two events at the opposite end of the probability continuum
A - somebody actually asking for the recipe for some food that I prepared.
B - I finish reading a book.

In the last few weeks, A has actually happened more than B. That means practically no reading at all. Just what is it with these reading droughts. Actually, today, both of these events happened - a first in my lifetime.

The book was not to blame for the slowness. It was the first of Robert Hood and Robin Pen's Daikaiju collections. There is no bad with giant monster collections. Impossibly big monsters and the cities they stomp - what a combination.

I have a few days off work now, time to read a bit more before I head back to cover everybody else's jobs because they all have more accumulated leave than me.

Another attempt at putting some questions from the recent Phoenix end of year quiz up on my Facebook account using a different quiz engine. They may well be here. Given the difficulty getting it all set up, I have very little confidence that it will work.

Does anybody have a better suggestion for an online quiz engine to use - I've seen quite a few but I have no idea which ones are any good.

Robbie Deans is the new coach of the Wallabies. It is getting a lot of news coverage - more than Graham Henry's reappointment to the All Black role. What is interesting is the number of Canterbury folk now coming out and saying that they will support the Wallabies now. Coming from that part of the world, I'm not surprised that they are saying it. Loyalty to your own folk is a big thing in the South - more than most North Islanders appreciate. Especially if the name is Deans.

Still, I suspect that when it comes down to it, any attempt to cheer on Australia is going to result in a lot of constricted throats as the words fail to make their way out.

Interesting then that I have been mentioned in the latest Aussie Specfic Carnival. Go take a look.

The Phoenix quiz is over for another year. Because I occasionally get asked about it, I have put a small selection of questions into a couple of mini-quizzes on my Facebook account.

Why Facebook - because it was easy. What more reason do I need.

I changed the CDs in my car today. It has a 6 disk changer (no MP3 playing capability, no external player port) and I haven't changed the contents of that changer for at least 6 months. Since I always listen to the music from those disks when I drive, you can see that I have been listening to the same songs over and over again. The previous set of disks was in the changer for pretty much as long. OK, the disks in question are assembled from a broader range of albums in my possession so they reflect more than just 6 artists, but it does mean that my music tastes have almost completely ossified. I'm not sure when it happened because it came on so slowly. At some point, I went from embracing the new to being very resistant to it. Much more so than my tastes in other areas. I know it happens to most people as they grow older but I don't really want to be like that.

Note the "almost" back there. Every so often, something sneaks through my taste barriers and gets added to my mental playlist. You would have to assume that anything that does get through is pretty damn good. But what happens when a cover version gets through? As far as I can tell the vast majority of people are firmly imprinted on the first version of a song that they hear. Whenever they hear another artist perform a favoured song, they find it difficult to accept it. Sometimes this can work around the "wrong" way where the person hears the cover before the original - they still become attached to the first one they hear - i.e. the cover.

I offer these thoughts because before changing the music in the car today, I put together a collection of covers that I like. Some I had heard before the original, and some are not as good (to me) as the original, but I was pleasantly surprised that over recent years there have been a few versions that have supplanted the originals in my affections. The trigger for all this musing was because of Across the Universe by Fiona Apple. Although Letters to Cleo's I want you to want me and My Way by Sid Vicious contributed in no small way to the thoughts as well.

I wonder if it is significant that a high proportion of these usurpers come from movie soundtracks.

Getting a conceptual tool into your attention can be a bit like having a song stuck in your head. I'm having trouble getting Chronotopicality out of my brain. Well if not getting it out, then letting it go back to its place as just one of the many ways that fiction can be examined.

It really hasn't helped that I just read Odyssey by Jack McDevitt. There is no mistaking that the times are affecting McDevitt's themes. No more does his regular hero Priscilla Hutchins just fly around the universe chasing after the aliens. Now she is in a desk job dealing with senators who want to cut the science budget. Yes there is some flying around and some rescuing to be done, but the balance has changed to favour political themes which can be read from today's papers. In McDevitt's previous book Seeker, there was more politics than there had ever been in earlier work but I thought that the balance between message and story was pretty well maintained. That time, the political message was important to the story but didn't overwhelm it. This time, there is a lot of talking and a lot of message strung around a rather more predictable than usual plot. By the authors usual high paced standards this one is treacle. Standards are relative of course - McDevitt is a very competent storyteller and so does not make it so dull as to be unreadable or even close to that. It still rolls along pretty well really all things considered but it never reaches any great heights.

I was recently asked to recommend some classic style SF adventure writing and McDevitt was pretty much at the top of the list. But now I have to add a conditional "look to the earlier stuff", because I won't be recommending this to anybody but the established fans of his work.

I was at the optometrist today when I noticed something strange. I've been getting regular annual checkups at this optometrist for the last 9 years. When you get your eyes checked you read letters off an eye chart. I realised today that I have always read the letters on the chart from right to left. Any other time, like the rest of you, I read left to right.

The optometrist never comments on it. From that I suspect it happens fairly quite frequently.

Puzzled?

I was, until I realised something. The eye chart is reflected in a big mirror. It is a way to increase the effective distance from the eye to the chart in a fairly small room. Subconsciously I'm aware of the mirror and trying to make a reading adjustment even though all the letters have a vertical mirror symmetry (i.e. A, W, Y, T, V, X, O, H, U, I M only). That means that deep in my brain, something is attempting to adjust for a symmetry transform. It is interesting that it is so deep. Humans have really only had reliable mirrors since Roman times I think - far too short a time for an evolutionary adjustment to have come from that source. Even bronze age mirrors still make it a very short time in evolutionary biology terms but I can't see that they are good enough anyway to trigger the need and anyway, there wasn't a lot of writing about then. Therefore it must be something else - a conditioned reflex perhaps. Or perhaps it is just me. I did spend a big chunk of my life looking at symmetry transforms after all

The word for the day is Chronotopicality - the notion that writing reflects the time and place it is composed regardless of where it is set. I'm paraphrasing here. David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer refer to this concept in the introduction to their Year's Best SF 12 compilation. They seem to be using it as justification for including a lot of stories dealing with catastrophic events or times. Luckily a few of the treatments are light hearted or it would be a very depressing volume. It is still pretty downbeat.

bluetyson has commented recently about how downbeat other recent collections and the scene generally have been and on the evidence of this volume I'd have to agree. It really is a sign of the mood of the times.

Leaving that aside though, I found this collection a very satisfying read. There are a lot of good stories here. What is more, perhaps because of the prevalent catastrophe themes, it flows very well as a total volume. Making a collection work as a connected work has always been a particular strength of Hartwell's and this is a very fine example of that. Just look at the choice of Charlie Rosenkrantz's Preemption to finish the collection with. It touches on many of the elements in earlier stories and manages to cover both the seriousness and the humour shown in the preceding stories. Yet it finishes on an open and optimistic note for the future. It isn't necessarily the strongest story in the collection but it works as an end piece and the editors could see that. It is this type of judgement that makes the Hartwell & Kramer my personal best of the "best of" collections. It may not be as comprehensive as the Dozois one but every year, for me at least, it manages to produce the most readable and enjoyable product.

Its a song by Altered Images. Oh yes it is. An Insane Journal sent me an email about it. They even said they would read any reply. Lets hear it for a 'bot free zone.

I spent a bit of time talking to a bookseller today about how hard it is to sell short stories. He reckoned that he could name all the people who could be counted on to come into his store and buy a short story collection. It is a very short list of names. I imagine therefore that this is closely related to the reason why an author who sells as well as Sean Williams does ends up having his short fiction published by a small press. Light Bodies Falling is published by Altair Australia Books (AAB) and I'm guessing does not have a very large print run. That is a pity because more people should see just how good Sean is at the shorter form. But the virtues of short stories and authors who do better at that form is an old argument and apart from the dedicated few who might pick up this book anyway, I'm not sure it will gain any more traction this time around either. So if you do like short stories, go pick up a copy - it isn't Sean's best short work but still pretty damn good and worth supporting AAB in their efforts to get it out there.

There is an old joke about Hollywood. Basically it says that their philosophy is to find a good idea and then overdo it. This came to mind as I was watching the last episode of season 3 of Weeds. It is superb. It wraps up the whole show and brings the whole story to a very satisfactory ending - ambiguous yes, but that is appropriate too. If this was a British show there is a good chance that that would be that. It would have had three good seasons and gone out on a high point. Sadly no - a fourth season will be made. If ratings keep up, then a fifth and a sixth will follow - each worse than the previous. As much as I like this show, I want it to end now. I could stop watching - I wonder if I'm strong enough to do that.