Colin Harvey – author

This morning a friend of mine sent me a link to a review at Diabolical Plots.  They reviewed the stories posted on Daily Science Fiction‘s website throughout the magazine’s first month, last September.

Amazingly, he picked my story Chameleon as the best of the month. I’m staggered because as I said in an earlier post, the story virtually wrote itself, and I don’t feel that anything that easy to write could be that good. Which just goes to show the discontinuity between what’s in my head, and what’s in a typical reader’s.

And secondly, he damns with faint praise Mary Robinette Kowal’s brilliant American Changeling, which was not only my favourite story in September, but in any month.

Nonetheless, it’s interesting to compare opinions, and to get the insight that many review sites won’t review DSF because ‘there’s too much to review.’ Hopefully Diablical Plots doesn’t feel that way, and will produce a review of October and subsequent month’s contents, because an awful lot of new, upcoming and talented writers are publishing new there — and it’s free to read.

You can read the full article here. If you’re familiar with the magazine, you might like to compare your picks with Frank’s. If you’re not, go and see for yourself.

It’s that time of year again when people start to look back, peaking around about December 30th when it’s hard to find a TV programme that isn’t a retrospective (which is a good reason to watch DVDs, or better still to turn the box off).

SF is no exceptions to this, and a couple of sites have already started, running their ‘best of/ the following are eligable for’ lists, while the ToC for Rich Horton’s Years Best has already popped up at SFSignal, which also carries Jonathan Strahan’s ToC. Interesting that they have at least two overlaps, Peter Watts and Elizabeth Hand, while Neil Gaiman has different entries in the two collections.

I already have a heavy reading list, and adding in the reading I’ve already done for the Nebula means that I’m almost ready to cry mercy. I’ve already read a lot of the contenders due to reviewing Asimovs and F & SF for Suite101, but there are a lot of other worthy works and authors out there.

At some point by the 30th, I shall endeavour to post my own list, but meanwhile, what do you think are the best stories and novels of the year?

As I noted over at Suite 101, The Speculative Literature Foundation has announced that its seventh annual Older Writers Grant is to be awarded to Mario Milosevic, for his ‘Untied States of America’ which appeared in Interzone 228. It’s particularly interesting for three reasons:

First, this is the first time since 2007 that I’m familiar with the winning entry, and for all my reservations, it’s a worthy winner.

Secondly, I judge the awards myself in 2007, and it was a tough call then to pick just one winner, so I understand perfectly Malon Edwards comments of  “Honorable Mentions for the Older Writers Grant go to Michele Cashmore, April Grey, Lynne MacLean, Ada Milenkovic Brown, and J.A. Huets for their entertaining submissions, which made the selection of the winner a difficult but enjoyable process.”

Yep, not much has changed there, then.  Come the deadline, there’s usually much tearing of hair. 🙂

Lastly, and most selfishly, in five months time I’ll be eligible for the award myself. Not that I think that I have a prayer of winning it, but I have to have a go…it’s nice to see what benchmark’s been set.

This morning’s blog is a straight list of the 2009 Nebula Award finalists. However, I couldn’t resist posting links to the stories I trumpeted when they first came out, which makes me look profoundly perspicacious. Of course, that ignores the finalists I initially rubbished, as well as all the other stories I backed which never made the final… 🙂

I think that the title says it all.

This week I’ve cast my evil eye over Polluto, the journal of anti-pop culture, whose issue 4 is sub-titled "Queer and Loathing In Wonderland." Not much rock ‘n’ roll, but lots of sex and drugs. The review is here.

As well as writing short stories and novels, I also review several of the major magazines such as Asimov’s and Interzone for Suite101.  I’ve just posted a review of the April-May issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The link is here – feel free to stop by and take a look.

More later.

Colin