Yesterday was supposedly a day off (Whit Monday) but I felt the pressure of work so went into the office anyway.

Big mistake.

It was quite a cool day outside, but we are on the 24th (top) floor, and as it was a public holiday the airconditioning was off. My office catches the full glare of the sun in early afternoon, and I was actually glad when a PhD student interrupted my lack of progress for a chat about the process of state collapse. Though in the end my thoughts were so mazy from heat and carbon dioxide poisoning that all I could do was give her two contacts who knew more about the subject than me.

I made two important management decisions but did none of the writing I had planned for myself, went home at 4 pm and slept for three hours, followed by the usual disturbed night. I’m working from home this morning.

A few weeks ago I grazed an elderly couple’s car as I came out of a side road too soon – entirely my fault, nobody hurt, very little damage to my massive Renault Espace (rented as part of my package deal from work), big dents in their smaller vehicle. I assumed it would be painful but that insurance would cover most of it. Got summoned by management yesterday to hear that the insurance policy won’t cover the first €1000 of repairs! Management were pretty outraged on my behalf (particularly since they have an identical deal and are worried it could happen to them) and promised to try and negotiate me a better outcome. But still, Ow.

We watched the 6th season finale of Buffy on BBC2 on Thrusday night. Excellent. I wonder what it says about us that a few years ago the programme we had to watch together was Friends and now it’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer? (Probably it says that Buffy is much better but wasn’t around when Friends started.)

My latest package from Amazon arrived including Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and Paul Di Filippo’s A Year in the Linear City. I’d already got hold of the latter free from Fictionwise and read it on my Palm Pilot earlier this week (mostly while stuck in traffic jams), but it’s always nicer to have it on paper. I read Coraline last night. This means that for the first time ever I have read all the Hugo nominees for fiction (having bought all the novels and got hold of all the short fiction on-line except the two that arrived today).

Well, I plan to do a full web-page on my site on this as I did last year. In brief, though:

Best Novel: Four good books here (and one bad one, Hominids by Robert Sawyer). I think that Bones of the Earth by Michael Swanwick had a slightly shaky structure – the plot seemed to only get going halfway through, though the setting of course was very well done. Kiln People by David Brin was very enjoyable as well. But I think it’s between the richly realised landscapes of The Scar by China Miéville and The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. Am rereading the latter to decide whether I like it more than the Miéville.

Best Novella: “Breathmoss” by Ian R. MacLeod – I couldn’t work out what was happening, maybe I should read it again when I’m not trying to go to sleep. “In Spirit” by Pat Forde – an almost successful attempt to write a good sf story about 9/11. “The Political Officer” by Charles Coleman Finlay – interesting setting but I couldn’t quite work up enthusiasm for it. Coraline by Neil Gaiman – Diana Wynne Jones predicts this book will displace Alice in Wonderland – come on, it’s good but not quite that good! “Bronte’s Egg” by Richard Chwedyk – lovely lovely story, already won the Nebula. But right now I think it must be A Year in the Linear City by Paul Di Filippo – Brian Aldiss’ The Malacia Tapestry meets Christopher Priest’s Inverted World – as with Bones of the Earth I felt the plot took a while to get going but I was prepared to wait around for it.

Best Novelette: None of these made a huge impression on me (not to the extent of The Scar, The Years of Rice and Salt or A Year in the Linear City). “Presence” by Maureen F. McHugh is yet another cure-for-Alzheimer’s story. All the other nominees dealt with spirituality and religion in some way. “Slow Life” by Michael Swanwick had an excellent human/alien encounter but was rather spoiled by the rather silly human/human encounters. “The Madonna of the Maquiladora” by Gregory Frost – richly realised setting but didn’t quite grab me; only got onto the shortlist because Ted Chiang withdrew his story “Liking What You See”. “Halo” by Charlie Stross – like “Slow Life, an outer planets (well, asteroids) setting; generally good but I thought the ending a little rushed. “The Wild Girls” by Ursula Le Guin – not her best but I think the best of this lot.

Best Short Story: “Hello, Said the Stick” by Michael Swanwick – Oh, come on, this is just silly. The others are all good though. “The Little Cat Laughed to See Such Sport” by Michael Swanwick – also fun, and would have been a sure winner in a less impressive year (as was the first story in this series last year). “Lambing Season” by Molly Gloss – got on the ballot when another story was disqualified – a thoughtful and understated little gem. “Creation” by Jeffrey Ford – again a lovely inversion of the Frankenstein story. In the end I think my tip is for “Falling Onto Mars” – Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles updated for the horrid realities of our 21st century, and as a lapsed historian I very much liked the story’s motto, History is not necessarily what we’d like it to be….

There was a Top 100 sf and fantasy books meme going around last week which though well distributed didn’t actually have 100 books on it! It was more of “100 sf and fantasy classics” list, though, while Tristrom Cooke’s Top 100 list is much more of a live list, revised every few weeks, including many books I haven’t read, based on the votes of random readers. It actually means that classics tend to do less well – if you read a less well-known book and didn’t like it, you probably don’t bother voting it down, but if you really hated, say, Dune then a list like this is one more chance to get your revenge on Frank Herbert for wasting your time. Tristrom also sometimes lists series, sometimes anthologies, and sometimes single volumes, and has a modifier designed to mark down books with fewer voters. The list seems biased towards fantasy and Poles, but I guess that reflects the voters…

Having said all that, Tristrom’s current top 100 list is:

1. A Song of Ice and Fire (series) by George R. Martin – a fantastic series, can’t wait for the next volume.
2. Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien – rather a shock to find this slipping behind Martin, but I think it reflects the inherent bias against classics I noted above
3. The Vorkosigan Series, by Lois McMaster Bujold – again, quite superb.
4. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card – I had slightly more mixed feelings about this one.
5. The Wiedzmin Stories, by A. Sapkowski – never heard of this series, which seems perhaps to have benefited from a write-in vote…
6. Dune, by Frank Herbert – good start to a series which I became less excited by.
7. The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett – what, only in seventh place?
8. Roadside Picnic, by A & B Strugatski – I found it gripping, the contemptuously absent aliens having monstrous effects on human society
9. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons – actually have only read the first two as I have heard the second two are much less good.
10. Hard to be a God, by A & B Strugatski
11. The Lions of Al-Rassan, by Guy Gavriel Kay – I bought this one because it was on this list, and was enthralled.
12. Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay – by the same token I will probably enjoy this one if I ever read it
13. Beetle in the Anthill, by A & B Strugatski – haven’ even heard of this one
14. A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge – Vinge has a fanatical following; I didn’t like the sequel at all but found this one pretty good.
15. Palindor, by D.R. Evans – listing refers only to first book in series, an author I do not know.
16. Armor, by John Steakley
17. Deathbird Stories, by Harlan Ellison
18. The Dragon Never Sleeps, by Glen Cook
19. Replay, by Ken Grimwood
20. Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes – subject of the most visited page on my website; a masterpiece.
21. The Stars my Destination, by Alfred Bester – to my shame, one I haven’t read
22. Bridge of Birds, by Barry Hughart – I bought this one because the book recommender at Alexlit said I would like it, and I did – lovely fantasy tale of a China that never was
23. The Nine Billion Names of God, by Arthur C. Clarke – the listing technically refers to the collection with this title rather than the short story, but I’m sure I’ve read and enjoyed most of the stories in the collection, including of course the title one.
24. Tales of the Continuing Time, by Daniel Keys Moran
25. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert A. Heinlein – Heinlein’s last good book, though it’s a bit surprising not to see some of his earlier ones listed above it.
26. The Deed of Paksennarion, by Elizabeth Moon – series I haven’t read though I greatly enjoyed here recent novel The Speed of Dark
27. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien – only 27th?
28. Fiasco, by Stanislaw Lem
29. Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny – a favourite book of mine by a favourite author
30. By the Sword, by Mercedes Lackey
31. The Coldfire Trilogy, by C.S. Friedman
32. The Blue Sword, by Robin McKinley
33. The Best of Cordwainer Smith (collection), by Cordwainer Smith
34. The Once and Future King, by T.H. White – brutal, but for my money still the best retelling of the Arthurian legend
35. The Annals of the Black Company (series), by Glen Cook
36. The Hero and the Crown, by Robin McKinley
37. The First Chronicles of Amber, by Roger Zelazny – rollicking stuff, without the annoying inconsistencies and arbitrary twists of the second five books. I found the whole lot in one volume for a jolly good price in Belgrade last time I was there.
38. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb – lots of people rave about this author but I haven’ yet been tempted
39. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson – Still Stephenson’s best, adn I think also the best cyberpunk novel.
40. Doors of his Face, Lamps of his Mouth, by Roger Zelazny – the listing refers to the collection, which of course is great.
41. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
42. 1984, by George Orwell – again, probably this low on the list because of the classic effect.
43. Watership Down, by Richard Adams – rather cute to see this here.
44. The Cyberiad, by Stanislaw Lem – supposedly hilarious in the original Polish, raises the odd wry smile in English
45. The Invincible, by Stanislaw Lem
46. Persistence of Vision, by John Varley – OK I admit that I have probably only read the title story of this collection but it is pretty memorable.
47. Quarantine, by Greg Egan – some rave about Egan; I found this book OK but am not rushing to buy more.
48. The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories, by Gene Wolfe
49. The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester
50. True Names, by Vernor Vinge
51. Soldier of the Mist, by Gene Wolfe
52. Legend, by David Gemmell
53. Memory, Sorrow and Thorn (series), by Tad Williams
54. God Stalk, by P.C. Hodgell
55. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov – haven’t rereas these for years, and am somewhat hesitant to do so as I find I have grown out of Asimov’s style
56. Norstrilia, by Cordwainer Smith
57. Green Hills of Earth, by Robert A. Heinlein – from Heinlein’s heyday
58. Vlad the Assassin Series, by Steven Brust
59. Player of Games, by Iain M. Banks – Agreed; my favourite of Banks’ sf books.
60. The Book of the New Sun (series), by Gene Wolfe – actually I’ve only read the first and third of these and found them intriguing, if slow going.
61. The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers – a great debut which Powers hasn’t really matched since, though I’ve enjoyed all his other books.
62. The Honor Harrington Series, by David Weber
63. Stone of Tears, by Terry Goodkind
64. Raising the Stones, by Sheri S. Tepper – certainly Tepper’s best, hitting on all her themes – feminism, religion, sex, violence – but not in too strident a way
65. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis – surprised not to see a series listing for Narnia, but perhaps this is the best of them
66. Tea with the Black Dragon, by R.A. MacAvoy
67. A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge – as said above, I found this unsatisfactory, though the Hugo voters did not.
68. The Last Unicorn, by Peter Beagle
69. The Chung Kuo Series, by David Wingrove – actually I only read the first two and as the sex got more vicious and the characters less attractive I have given up for now.
70. Startide Rising, by David Brin – Probably the best of Brin’s Uplift sequence of books, though I have faithfully bought each of the others and only been slightly disappointed.
71. A Song for Arbonne, by Guy G. Kay
72. A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula Le Guin – now, not having this above the Hobbit is a disgrace!
73. Way Station, by Clifford Simak
74. The Tactics of Mistake, by Gordon Dickson – have a feeling I may have read this in my teens but it left no impression.
75. A Night in the Lonesome October, by Roger Zelazny – Zelazny’s last good book, Cthulhoid horrors almost meet Frankenstein and Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper. I think. It’s difficult to be sure but worth the ride.
76. The Madness Season, by C.S. Friedman
77. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
78. The Fionavar Tapestry (series), by Guy G. Kay
79. Ubik, by Philip K. Dick – an surprising result for Best Dick Novel – surely Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep or even more so A Scanner Darkly are better?
80. On Stranger Tides, by Tim Powers – it all meshed together very satisfactorily in this one too.
81. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams – of course.
82. Last Call, by Tim Powers
83. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart – Like TH White, a superb retelling of the Arthurian legends from Merlin’s point of view. This book, the first and best of the series, deals with the youth of Merlin.
84. Something Wicked this Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
85. A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller – superb, religion and far future, and surprisingly humorous.
86. Futurological Congress, by Stanislaw Lem
87. Against a Dark Background, by Iain M. Banks – oh, yes. *shiver*
88. More than Human, by Theodore Sturgeon – rather surprising, I don’t think this one has weathered the test of time so well.
89. Crystal Express, by Bruce Sterling
90. Neutron Star, by Larry Niven – early Niven collection, from when he was young and hungry and still a good writer.
91. Sojourn, by R.A. Salvatore
92. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut – tremendous satire on nuclear weapons, religion, colonialism.
93. Dying Inside, by Robert Silverberg – gloomy novel of telepath losing his powers
94. The Shadow Rising, by Robert Jordan – fourth book of the Wheel of Time – actually I think this was the point where I lost interest in the series.
95. Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll – suffers from being a classic.
96. Tides of Light, by Gregory Benford
97. Magic’s Pawn, by Mercedes Lackey
98. The Sparrow, by Mary D. Russell – excellent, if you can ignore the incorrect physics and disappointing sequel.
99. City, by Clifford Simak
100. The Door into Summer, by Robert A. Heinlein

Heavy day, mostly spent getting our new report on Brcko published. I had to redraw the map of Bosnia by hand to get the Brcko District boundaries right as there doesn’t seem to be an up-to-date map of the country on the internet apart from a couple of rather basic ones on the OHR website. And the Brcko Final Award was in March 1999!

Then an excellent conversation in Sean O’Casey’s with Graham Andrews and his wife Agnes. Apart from being long-term sf fans, they live just around the corner from where we used to in Rhode-St-Génèse. I had quoted Graham’s encomia of James White on my Irish sf page but never met him before. Much conversation about life in Belfast in the 1970s, Northern Ireland politics, and so on. Our first meeting but I hope not our last.

Well, in the literal sense. I just set up a mailing list on Yahoo! for the Northern Ireland elections site, sent out 450 invites, and in the last couple of hours over twenty people have already joined. Rather affirming.

Also rather affirming is that the boss like our new Bosnia report and we should be able to get it out tomorrow. Will require me to pull all the stops out but worth it.

Just finished a new page for the elections site about the boundary commission at http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/gboun03.htm – full of risky predictions which no doubt will be proved wrong…

Very tired baby on my knee yelling her head off as I write. Hopefuly she will succumb to fatigue soon. It was 33° today, probably the hottest day of her life.

Up with Bridget in the middle of the night, as sometimes happens. Very hot and sticky day yesterday.

She seems to be subsiding at last after an hour or so awake. In which case I shall go back to bed.

Giles: “I’d like to test that theory.”

Fantastic.

Very hot day off, went for long bike ride with F via Korbeek-Dijle, Neerijse (stop for icecream) and St-Joris-Weert. Tired now.

Copied from :

last cigarette: February 1998
last kiss: This evening
last good cry: last February
last library book checked out: book on melatonin from local library, over a year ago
last movie seen: in cinema – Harry Potter I; on TV – American Pie
last book read: Guilty of Literature (essays about Terry Pratchett); just rereading American Gods.
last cuss word uttered: Bother!
last beverage drank: glass of red wine
last food consumed: Trout with almond and cream sauce – not what I had ordered! followed by ice cream at home
last crush: Anne
last phone call: To my head of office in Kosovo
last tv show watched: Friends, The One Where Monica Sings
last time showered: This morning
last shoes worn: Bought in a shop in Rome last year
last cd played: Hildegard of Bingen
last item bought: Meal out with Anne
last downloaded: Opera 7
last annoyance: arguing with the waitress at De Troubadour
last disappointment: Dinner out this evening
last soda drank: Mineral water
last thing written: previous journal entry
last word spoken: Cup of tea?
last sleep: from 2150 last night to 0650 this morning
last im: never done it
last weird encounter: President of a small Balkan country greeting me with a warm embrace when I bumped into him at a conference on Saturday without stopping for conversation
last ice cream eaten: Nice chocolate, strawberry and vanilla to console us when we got home after a disappointing dinner out
last time amused: My boss telling our IT bloke not to extend his tenous knowledge of physics to gynaecology, pregnancy and childbirth this afternoon
last time wanting to die: equivalent to last hangover
last time in love: Now
last time hugged: This evening after ice cream and episode of Angel
last time scolded: The day Zoran Djindjic was shot
last chair sat in: the one in front of the computer.
last lipstick used: Not since my Rocky Horror days
last underwear worn: practical Y-fronts
last bra worn: a lacy black affair, in my Rocky Horror days
last shirt worn: Marks and Spencers white shirt
last time dancing: with Anne to some music that came on the TV
last poster looked at: “freedom of speech” poster advertising mobile phones
last show attended: A truly awful mute theatrical presentation of the Oresteia in Prijedor the week before Bridget was born, in 1997.
last webpage visited: LiveJournal.

Anne and I tried dinner at De Troubadour. They brought us both the wrong main courses, and due to linguistic confusion (theirs) we couldn’t explain. The fact that both the meals they brought were more expensive than what we had ordered (and paid for) didn’t help.

Tomorrow is a day off in this great Catlick country. Looking forward to a lie in…

Saw my first episode of Friends last night in years, The One Where Monica Sings. One of the running jokes is that Ross and Rachel are having difficulty Moving On from their past. That goes for the whole show. An extraordinary subplot – not even particularly funny – about Chandler plucking Joey’s eyebrows.

Lousy night’s sleep. But did my bit on the Kosovo report.

Also got a friendly note from a Northern Ireland MP about my website. Not that he’s someone I would ever vote for, but positive feedback is nice!

One of those Kosovo days.

Can’t finish the editing today, will have to do it tomorrow early.

David Bilek, on rec.arts.sf.written, asked if Robert Sawyer (who Bilek doesn’t like much) holds the record for the largest number of unsuccessful Hugo nominations for Best Novel.

Sawyer’s five unsuccessful nominations so far are The Terminal Experiment aka Hobson’s Choice (1996), Starplex (1997), Frameshift (1998), Factoring Humanity (1999) and Calculating God (2001). I’ve only read the last of these and was not impressed. Having read all of this year’s nominees I have to say it’s likely that Hominids will add to this total rather than lifting him off the list!

Curently level with Sawyer is Greg Bear, for Blood Music (novel version, 1986, as opposed to the novella), The Forge of God (1988), Queen of Angels (1991), Moving Mars (1994), and the execrable Nebula winner Darwin’s Radio (2000). Bear has of course won two Hugos for short fiction (both of which also won Nebulas).

His father in law Poul Anderson was nominated seven times for the Best Novel award and never got it, though he won four for his short fiction; the novels were The Enemy Stars (1959), The High Crusade (1961), Tau Zero (1971), the excellent There Will Be Time (1973), The People of the Wind (1974), Fire Time (1975), and The Boat of a Million Years (1990).

But surprisingly the real answer to the question is Robert Silverberg, who has won three Hugos for shorter fiction, but missed out on Best Novel no fewer than nine (possible ten) times. The Silverberg novels which were nominated but missed out were Thorns (1968), Up the Line (1970), Tower of Glass (1971), A Time of Changes (1972), tower-block novel The World Inside (withdrawn from the 1972 ballot so not sure if it counts), The Book of Skulls (1973), the excellent Dying Inside (also 1973), The Stochastic Man (1976), Shadrach in the Furnace (1977), and Lord Valentine’s Castle (1981).

Been in Athens since Thursday at a World Economic Forum conference. I had to speak as “challenger” at the first lunch session yesterday, and managed to provoke a tetchy response from a senior official present. Then in the late afternoon I was chairing a session on organised crime and corruption, with three very good speakers which made it much easier. People seemed to like it.

After the conference finished at lunchtime I was able to look around the Parthenon, Acropolis, and the Agora. Athens is a bit of a mess right now but survivable. The Agora and the Acropolis do look pretty devastated though. Loads of tourists, but my guidebook was a bit impenetrable as to what all these ruined buildings had been, and much more detailed on the history of the restoration efforts (most of which seemed to date from the Venizelos regime).

Home tomorrow.

No idea where got this from, but it’s a good list:

SF books (45/58)
(with links to reviews on my site)

Dune, Frank Herbert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr – utterly fantastic
Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
Hyperion, Dan Simmons
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
Neuromancer, William Gibson
Startide Rising, David Brin
The Time Machine, H.G. Wells
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Downbelow Station, C.J. Cherryh
Ringworld, Larry Niven
2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Mote in God’s Eye, Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
Way Station, Clifford D. Simak
Star Maker, Olaf Stapledon
Dying Inside, Robert Silverberg
The City and the Stars, Arthur C. Clarke
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement – actually reading it for the first time this weekend
City, Clifford D. Simak
Cyteen, C.J. Cherryh
Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes
Double Star, Robert A. Heinlein – have it with me on my palm pilot but haven’t got into it yet.
Earth Abides, George R. Stewart
The Door Into Summer, Robert A. Heinlein
Last and First Men, Olaf Stapledon
Ubik, Philip K. Dick
Norstrilia, Cordwainer Smith
The Witches of Karres, James H. Schmitz
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Have Space Suit Will Travel, Robert A.Heinlein
Time Enough for Love, Robert A. Heinlein
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
The Gods Themselves, Isaac Asimov
“Riverworld” series, Philip Jose Farmer

and ‘s five extra:

The Player of Games – Iain M Banks
The Chrysalids – John Wyndham
Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Dead Romance – Lawrence Miles

Fantasy novels (24/41):

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
“Earthsea” series, Ursula K. Le Guin
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
“Gormenghast” series, Mervyn Peake
The Once and Future King, T.H. White
Little, Big, John Crowley
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Stephen R. Donaldson
Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
“The Belgariad”, David Eddings
The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
“The Dying Earth” series, Jack Vance
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
Dracula, Bram Stoker
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Stand, Stephen King
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia A. McKillip
The Worm Ouroboros, E.R. Eddison
Glory Road, Robert A. Heinlein
Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock
“Alvin Maker” series, Orson Scott Card
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle
Witch World, Andre Norton
The Fionavar Tapestry, Guy Gavriel Kay
Deryni Rising, Katherine Kurtz
Discworld series, Terry Pratchett
“Elric” series, Michael Moorcock
Replay, Ken Grimwood
Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
Fafhrd & Gray Mouser series, Fritz Leiber
The Incomplete Enchanter, Fletcher Pratt & L. Sprague de Camp

and ‘s five extra:

Elidor – Alan Garner
Boating for Beginners – Jeanette Winterson
American Gods – Neil Gaiman
The Nargun and the Stars – Patricia Wrightson
The Just So Stories – Rudyard Kipling

I put a bunch of code from AddFreeStats on my website on Sunday, and have been rather stunned by the results so far. Much the most popular page is my review of “Flowers for Algernon“, not so very surprising as I understand that the short story is on every high school reading list in America. But a reasonably strong second is my fairly recent page on the Book of the Prophet Amos. There must surely be loads of other sources on Amos out there, and I can’t pretend that my analysis is particularly scholarly or even devout.

And today for some reason my review of “Bloodchild” has overtaken the Prohet Amos. It must have suddenly come up on some university course, I suppose, or maybe there was a programme about Octavia Butler last night.

Also the Curse of the Presidents seems to be a steady performer.

Yesterday rocked. I managed to slip out of work mid-afternoon to the Tropisme bookshop in Galerie des Princes where Neil Gaiman was signing books. Unfortunately I was in such a rush in the morning that I couldn’t find my copy of American Gods, but I did have both Neverwhere and Don’t Panic! to hand. The author graciously signed both, commenting that I had the rather rare first editions, with covers by Dave McKean.

Then it was off to meet Zoran Zivkovic. Not the charming, short, bearded, English-speaking science fiction writer, but the firm, tall, cleanshaven Prime Minister of Serbia, courtesy of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. He gave a damn good speech, though the translation was a bit dodgy, and gave me a direct answer when I challenged him on the interview in Der Spiegel (English) – basically that he had been misquoted. (I went to the lengths of buying Der Spiegel this morning, and found he was right.)

Lousy night’s sleep unfortunately, but luckily today has been mostly meetings, including some rather tired young politicians from Serbia and Montenegro this afternoon. Off to Greece tomorrow, back Sunday.

Djindjic assassinated. Macedonia trip cancelled.

It’s really awful.

I last met Djindjic at a conference we were both speaking at in Brussels in October last year. By some quirk of the organisers we were put sitting next to each other, and I remember joking with him about the boring speeches made by the Eurocrats present, and speculating about how much Coca-Cola is drunk in the Balkans (Coca-Cola had sponsored the conference). He was a funny, smart, devious guy and Serbia has suffered a huge loss.

I had just been editing a report on the internal situation in Serbia when the news came through. It is no joy that the draft basically predicted that there would be more assassination attempts on Djindjic from the combined forces of the Yugoslav military, organised crime and indicted war criminals (there had already been an attempt at the end of last month). I’d much rather it was wrong and Djindjic still alive.

Oooh, almost finished the current round of travelling; Berlin 12-14 Feb, US 23 Feb – 2 Mar, London 4 Mar, Paris 6-7 Mar, Geneva 10-11 Mar and Macedonia next weekend. Can’t wait.

Two fun things happened yesterday. I had been picking up vibes from the Balkans that the chain of command issue was still hampering the deployment of the EU’s first ever military mission in Macedonia. My Brussels sources, on the other hand, were confident this had been resolved. So I went off to the European Parliament to hear MEPs grilling Admiral Feist, the commander of the mission, about it, with the intention of planting a question with one of my parliamentarian friends.

And as we were sitting in the smoky tea-room on the third floor, Admiral Feist himself and a couple of aides appeared and took the next table! So I was able to ask him straight out, and he basically confirmed the Brussels rather than Balkan end of the story.

Then later on, one of my colleagues was feeling a bit miffed that he had not been invited to CEPS‘ big meeting at the end of the week. So I sent a quick email to my former colleagues there, and they both phoned me back asking if he could not only attend but also speak on one of the panels!

And then the new Bulgarian au pair arrived. And with her help we got the kids to school this morning.

This morning I tried to attend the European Parliament debate on the military mission in Macedonia. It nearly worked, except they did it at 0900 rather than 1130 as we had expected. It seems they passed all the amendments by my friends Lagendijk and Wiersma, and also a couple by Morillon, and rejected all but one of the Van Orden amendments. Groan.

But it looks like we may have a person to run our office in Georgia.

I just did a search on my name in Cyrillic – Николас Вајт – and founda nice reference from an interview I’d completely forgotten doing in late 2001, referring to me as водечкиот бриселски експерт – “something Brussels expert”, I thought, but I suppose it must be “the leading Brussels expert” which is very nice.

Just finishing up after two days in Berlin. Took the overnight train here from Brussels on Tuesday night and found myself sharing a carriage with young Indian film maker Heeraz Marfatia and friend. Train was delayed so got here only in time to change clothes in my colleague’s hotel room before an exhausting series of meetings. Saw an old friend in the German Foreign Ministry, now doing bilateral German-US relations which of course are at a very low point right now. Quizzed my colleague in great depth about Mormonism over dinner, and finished Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s “Pashazade” – and I was not disappointed.

Today we went to the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie. The transformation of the surrounding area into a business district is quite amazing. Thirteen years on, however, the museum is still adapting to the change. The propaganda against the DDR (justifiable, of course, for the most part) shows some signs of becoming a bit more reflexive and reflective. I was not quite convinced by the exhibition on non-violent protest and passive resistance which included the Romanian revolution, which last time I checked had involved a certain amount of violence. But what was described as the most valuable exhibit was the actual strip of tarmac on which the white line indicating the border had been painted. Quite unimaginable the first time I came here in 1986.

The Nebula shortlist is out at last. For the novels, a far better selection than last year. Hugo-winner American Gods, by Neil Gaiman; the well-reviewed Bones of the Earth, by Michael Swanwick, and The Other Wind, by Ursula Le Guin which should be waiting for me when I get home; the excellent Perdido Street Station, by China Miéville; and two I haven’t heard of, Picoverse, by Robert A. Metzger and Solitaire, by Kelley Eskridge. I know that Eskridge is the partner of Nicola Griffith, whose Slow River won a Nebula some years back. Five overlaps with last year’s Hugo shortlist in the short fiction categories, including the winners of Novelette and Short Story, Chiang’s superb “Hell is the Absence of God” and Swanwick’s amusing “The Dog Said Bow-Wow”. There may be hope for the Nebulas yet, but we will see who wins…

Awful night’s sleep last night.

But yesterday I made my first ever joke in Russian. We were having a coffee break at the Ethnobarometer brainstorming session, and one of the other participants emerged wearing a massive Moscow-style hat. “У вас есть шапка”, I commented, and people laughed.

That minor triumph was then overshadowed by bashing into an elderly couple’s car while I was shopping. Their left hand side was badly dented, but the Renault Espace was barely scraped. It will be expensive though.

Alastair Cooke had a sensible reflection on how far the space programme has come since John Glenn was feared lost on his first re-entry. Not on-line yet.

More debate on Columbia from Gary Westfahl and his critics at Locus Online. Meanwhile I have signed the online petition at http://www.nyx.net/columbia. “The exploration of space is one of the human race’s oldest ambitions, one that has been reflected in our literature long before we developed the technological capability to venture forth into the cosmos.”

David Owen (a New York journalist) argues in Slate that the Space Shuttle is pretty useless. Mickey Kaus, also on Slate, notes that Richard Feynman’s 1986 estimate of mission failures on the order of a percent was about right. Hmm.

Further reform of the House of Lords seems very unlikely in the short term after the House of Commons rejected
all reform options. John Alderdice had predicted this outcome to me the
other day, though I was getting a bit sceptical; Robin Cook appeared to
have built up a bandwagon behind the concept of a completely elected
upper house, and it all began to look like Tony Blair facing defeat
over this issue which would have strengthened Cook in the event of Iraq
going wrong.

But John was right. The Commons voted against
100% election by 289 to 272; very narrowly against an 80% elected
option by 284 to 281, more heavily against 60% (316 to 253) and finally
against Blair’s preferred option of 100% appointment (323 to 245).
Meanwhile the House of Lords voted for 100% appointment by 335 to 110.

I
can see a logic in Blair’s (and John Alderdice’s) position. Why should
the Commons want to give more electoral legitimacy to the Lords? Who,
after all, will be bothered to vote? Do the democratic credentials of a
secondary chamber really matter all that much? And, how easy will it be
for me to get in to an appointed as compared to an elected house? Not
that the last of these questions bothers many people of course…

Gary Westfahl’s essay on the malign influence of science fiction causing the Columbia crash has drawn a predictably vitrolic set of responses from readers of Locus Online. I thought it was not such an offensive piece, but a little silly and even presumputuous in suggesting that the creators and consumers of sf as a genre bear some kind of collective guilt for the Columbia disaster. I see the normally sensible Anna Feruglio Dal Dan declaring that Westfahl put her off subscribing to Interzone. That’s a bit harsh – I’d choose Evelyn Lewes as my preferred reason for unsubscribing!

The famous blonde-haired Deirdre Clancy was arrested yesterday for vandalising an American plane refueling at Shannon airport.

I found her statement of purpose entertaining: “She regards war as part of [sic] parcel of the system which demeans women; legalizes corruption of many different forms; discriminates against, locks up and labels the so-called ‘mentally ill’, without questioning the sanity of the military-industrial system in which we are all complicit.”

However there’s a serious purpose. If you are an individual citizen opposed to the Iraq war, in a country whose military forces are not going to participate, there’s not much you can do except bash American targets.

The BSFA and Arthur C. Clarke awards shortlists are both now out. As usual there is a large overlap with four novels in common on two lists of six. The four are The Scar by China Miéville, Light by M. John Harrison, The Separation by Christopher Priest, and The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. I bought the last of these in June and it completely blew me away; and now I am re-reading his Mars trilogy after someone emailed me last week to ask if I would put a review of them on my website. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by M. John Harrison but this might tempt me to try; I’ve enjoyed both Miéville and Priest before and will add those to my wish list too.

The two which made the Arthur C. Clarke award list but not the BSFA were Kil’n People by David Brin and Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon. Brin is rather hit and miss and I have found his Uplift series decreasingly, er, uplifting. I haven’t read anything by Moon but as with Harrison could now be tempted. The two other BSFA nominees are Effendi by Jon Courtenay Grimwood and Castles Made of Sand by Gwyneth Jones, both sequels to books I have read in the last couple of months. I just bought the Grimwood last week and hope to get to it in the next few days. Not overwhelmed by Jones’ Bold as Love but I might give in to temptation if I see it in a shop.