Various and Sundry

Ann and I are going to spend the day going to the movies, as a break from all of the editing and writing work. Besides, this is like the first day in a week where I haven't felt like a coughing, sneezing wreck with a head full of cotton.Anyway, in other news, I didn't realize that I get to do the Amazon Top 10 SF/F Novels of the year as their SF/F book blogger, so I'm working on that. Very difficult in that there are a lot of very different things I liked this year. When it gets posted, I'll talk about that process and list a few books bubbling just below the top 10. Always a very subjective thing, of course. And, interestingly enough, my opinion has changed on a couple of books since I first reviewed them.Jay Lake has a couple of very interesting posts about my supposedly controversial piece on competence here and here. I'm done talking about it. I said everything I wanted to say in the initial piece and here, and if I had one wish it was that I hadn't commented on a couple of blogs, because it's just a waste of time. If people are going to ascribe base motives to you automatically, there's really nothing you can do about that. (Have fun with my piece "Language of the Defeated" on Clarkesworld next month...) Oh, yeah, and in a more limited context, this piece by Kelly Link that mentions competence as well.Going forward, I'll be posting more interviews with the bookful and bookless, and in general promoting writers I like. And you should do the same. On your blog.And in other news, just got off the phone with Mary Gentle, who has been very nice in allowing us to reprint a story for the Steampunk antho, so that one's just about put to bed.Jeff