Catch-ups
- Further to my original post, some further tributes to Charles Brown can be found around the web. A couple that particularly caught my eye: John Crowley, Neil Gaiman, Cheryl Morgan, as well as Locus‘s own Mark Kelly and Jonathan Strahan (1, 2, 3).
- As Liza said a while ago, comments on this blog are moderated, but we’re all conscious of the need for the conversation to be as close to in-real-time as possible. So I’m now a comment moderator, in addition to the folk at Locus HQ. Given that we’re in very different time zones, this should mean that comments get approved quickly wherever you are.
- Emphatically not a review, since I haven’t finished reading it, but: so far, Greer Gilman’s Cloud and Ashes is absolutely stunning. It’s her second book (the first being Moonwise (1991), recently reissued by Wildside). Cloud and Ashes comprises two previously published stories, “Jack Daw’s Paw” (2000), and “A Crowd of Bone” (2003) plus a new novel-length piece, “Unleaving”. I keep wanting to engage in slack reviewerly hyperbole and say “no-one writes like Greer Gilman” or something. At the very least, I can’t think of any other writer in the fantastic who has such an interesting and full relationship with the roots of the language she uses: every word has its bones exposed. Her work is dense (and so, I guess, “difficult”, meaning that it requires the reader to do some work), but rewarding in proportion to the effort you put in. See also Faren’s review here.
- I and many other Locus people will be at the Worldcon in Montreal in early August. We’ll be on various panels (English program available here, French here) and, no doubt, hanging out in the bar(s). So, y’know, do say hello. (While renewing your subscription to the magazine, of course…)
Tad and I are in New York – unfortunate timing. But we are thinking about everyone up there in the hills. It's good to read the memorials – thank you from Tad Williams & Deborah Beale —