Black Clock #9, and More Catching Up Before Diving Back In...

Here ya go: news you didn't know you needed. Please use the comments to tell me your news!- Black Clock #9, the political issue, is now out, with fiction by yours truly, and other contributors that include Rick Moody, Brian Evenson, Jonathan Lethem, Steve Erickson, Janet Sarbanes, etc. I'm very excited about this one. My story shows John McCain, George W Bush, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton in a series of alternate universes. Something terrible comes out of McCain's head...- Will Hindmarch will join the parade of guest-bloggers here at Ecstatic Days, taking a week around mid-October.- Ann and I just finished editing, with John Davey, a best-of collection of Michael Moorcock's non-Elric stories, to be published by Tachyon in May 2009.- I just turned in my final line-edits on the Predator novel to Dark Horse, and the book is set for publication in late September. I'm very happy with the novel, especially because it gets stranger as it goes along. (Just remember, dear readers, this is a Predator novel--the first person who tries to compare/contrast it to Veniss or City is going to get a book thrown a them. A big book.)- Congrats to Jeremy Thorpe and his fiancee on getting married. I was very flattered that Shriek played a role: "I got married on July 26th. I mention this because one of our readings was from Shriek--the bit that ends with, 'Each could feel the other's presence in their separate spaces as powerfully as in their shared space.' When I first read that, I showed it to my then-fiancee Kendra, saying, 'This! Look! Us!' And, a year later, there was your name in the program, and it was far too late to back out then. Jed Hartman (of Strange Horizons) did the reading."- Work on Finch continues apace. I'm incredibly psyched about the novel. It has grown and grown in depth (if not length) as my notes for two more Ambergris novels are devoured by this novel. Which basically means this is probably the last Ambergris novel. All will be revealed...that should be revealed. I'll be interested to see how people interpret the three books as a whole, because they're really all one long mosaic novel. Shriek in particular becomes reinvented by Finch. And certain parts of City of Saints, when re-read in light of Finch, should cause the hairs on one's neck to rise and stay that way...- Last Drink Bird Head is now scheduled for September of 2009 and the Clarion charity antho is scheduled for March 2009. This was necessary because of the glut of projects coming out the end of this year.- The debate about whether dragons exist rages on in the comments thread of my Amazon post from several months ago: "if you wactch avatar youll get lucky enough to have a dream about the spirit world. Then try to get to Ordona's forest and talk with her. she will give you an egg to watch in the spirit world. AND if you get really lucky youll get your dream dargon..."; "i just got the drakon dragon and it's a boy. he is so cute. has very hard scalesthat are is orangeis-yellowis,has 3 rows of teeth and has a 3 forked tounge. he's a miniature and he ate his egg when he was born. his egg was golden and shiny."- The Weather Channel's blog posted a piece by Jonathan Bender on Steampunk, which includes parts of an interview with me and Ann.- John Coulthart created a lovely moleskin-fitting steampunk design around my Steampunk Equation, which may appear in a commercial context soon (more info when I have it):- io9 ran our latest art column, on Bob Eggleton.- My first political fiction column for the Huffington Post should go live sometime next week, with a review of the new Stephenson novel scheduled for B&N Review in September.- Ann and I leave for Europe August 20. First, we're two of the guests of honor at Parcon in Pilsen (highlight: a beer bath) and also there to support the launch of the Czech version of The New Weird. Then it's off to Romania to support the launch of The New Weird and my Predator novel. Followed by some R&R back in Prague, including our continued hunt for Svankmajer. Not to mention, we'll be doing a short piece on Prague for Realms of Fantasy.- LATE UPDATE: Dark Knight was awesome, and not too long. Also, after $25,000-worth of tests to figure out why one of the arteries leading to my heart is oversized, it turns out, hey, it was probably always that way, because I'm in perfect health, with great cholesterol levels and great blood pressure. And, luckily, my insurance kicks ass, so it only cost me $300.This is the last time I poke my head up out of the novel writing for awhile...