Good evening, and welcome to 2008. Illness and travel have interfered with my posting the past few weeks. I do abase myselves (all mumblety-mumble of them) in the general direction of my fellow Brainiacs. *coff!* *coff!*

Part of it is that I don’t have much to post about. I have a major project at work, but it’s not something I can talk about just yet, as it will be sometime before we roll out the trumpets and red carpets and cast rose petals all about… Though I do have a bit of news, on the writing front: my editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, has made plans to visit NM soon, and as part of that will be providing feedback on The Work in Progress (a/k/a Feral Sapiens, the first in a series of novels I have planned set a few hundred years in the future). It’s currently scheduled for release in early 2009. Whee! I’ve been picking away at a couple of shorter stories set in the same universe, which I hope to complete and get out there soon. More updates as they occur.

Patrick is coming to New Mexico in part to help promote the launch of a new era in George RR Martin’s Wild Cards series: Inside Straight.

I managed to snag an early copy of the manuscript, and I must say, it is a compelling read: exciting adventure, chills — thrills — great characters. It’s a collection of stories that examines what heroism really means. The individual stories are integrated to the point that it reads more like a novel than a collection of short stories. It’s been my experience with earlier Wild Cards works that Martin has a deft hand as editor, and he delivers here. And his skills are well complemented by his sometime-co-editor, Melinda Snodgrass, who also has a story in this anthology. Daniel Abraham does an excellent job of weaving all the story elements together with the interstitial material, from the point of view of a pervy guy named Jonathan Hive. And as mentioned earlier, our own Caroline Spector has a kickass story in it. Highly recommended.

Meanwhile, I want my flying car. Dammit.