1. News from Novacon: Convoy is dead; long live Contemplation.
2. Is there a backlash against Year’s Best books? See recent reviews by Dan Hartland and Paul Kincaid. In the meantime, Jonathan Strahan has announced the table of contents for the book I’ve been waiting for, his Nightshade Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy:
1. “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” by Neil Gaiman
2. “El Regalo” by Peter S. Beagle
3. “I, Row-Boat” by Cory Doctorow
4. “In the House of the Seven Librarians” by Ellen Klages
5. “Another Word for Map is Faith” by Christopher Rowe*
6. “Under Hell, Over Heaven” by Margo Lanagan
7. “Incarnation Day” by Walter Jon Williams
8. “The Night Whiskey” by Jeffrey Ford
9. “A Siege of Cranes” by Benjamin Rosenbaum*
10. “Halfway House” by Frances Hardinge
11. “The Bible Repairman” by Tim Powers
12. “Yellow Card Man” by Paolo Bacigalupi*
13. “Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter” (Fantasy) by Geoff Ryman*
14. “The American Dead” by Jay Lake*
15. “The Cartesian Theater” by Robert Charles Wilson
16. “Journey into the Kingdom” by M. Rickert*
17. “Eight Episodes” by Robert Reed*
18. “The Wizards of Perfil” by Kelly Link
19. “The Saffron Gatherers” by Elizabeth Hand
20. “D.A.” by Connie Willis
21. “Femaville 29” by Paul di Filippo
22. “Sob in the Silence” by Gene Wolfe
23. “The House Beyond Your Sky” by Benjamin Rosenbaum*
24. “The Djinn’s Wife” by Ian McDonald*
I haven’t really read enough short fiction this year to have an opinion about this list. I’ve marked the stories I’ve read, all nine of them, with asterisks; some I would definitely have picked (“The Djinn’s Wife” is probably the best of Ian McDonald’s three River of Gods-related stories; “Yellow Card Man” is probably the best story Paolo Bacigalupi has published so far, full stop), some I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t (including, and I recognise I’m in a small minority here, “Journey Into the Kingdom”, which seemed quite a bit below M. Rickert’s best to me; ditto “The American Dead”). But it’s long past time we had an all-under-one-roof Year’s Best book, so I’m still eager to get my hands on this.
3. Miscellaneous links: John Clute reviews Nova Swing, M. John Harrison’s latest novel (in the Guardian!); a very disturbing video for any Calvin and Hobbes fans; the history of SFBC original anthologies; an interview with Catherynne M. Valente; I Read A Short Story Today; Charlie Brooker on UK SF TV (and BBC4’s SF season in particular); Abigail Nussbaum on Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett.
4. The Prestige. I saw this on Friday and have been processing it since. It’s a good film, very neatly put together, with good performances from Christian Bale and Rebecca Hall, and it does, I think, a remarkably good job of translating Christopher Priest’s novel to the screen. Given that I had some reservations about the book, this means I also have some reservations about the film, such as the fact that when you get down to it the whole thing is a Star Trek “transporter malfunction” episode in fancy dress. Of course, Nolan’s cut out the present-day frame. The replacement frame, and the nesting of other frames within that, works well, but necessitates some changes in emphasis that I think, on balance, makes the film’s portrayal of magic less sophisticated than the novel’s. Some elements that are quite obvious from early on in the book are obscured in the film. Arguably, Nolan actually does a better job than Priest of handling the inevitability of the prestige, the fact that you know you’re going to be tricked — in fact, you know what the trick is going to be: the girl is going to get out of the locked box — and remain impressed when it happens anyway. But the way he does so is somewhat at the expense of the analysis and critique of storytelling that I liked in the book. And not everyone gets it. Here’s Peter Bradshaw, for instance, missing the point entirely:
“Prestige”, a magicians’ technical term invented by author Christopher Priest for his original 1995 novel, means the crowning moment of a trick. It’s the gasp-inducing climactic flourish, the moment whose devastating impact has to be guarded as closely as possible before detonation. So it is odd that the prestige of this film, the trick ending, is gradually given away over the final 40 or so minutes in a series of extended takes and giveaway closeups. Why? Because the director figured we were going to guess anyway?
If you’ve already read the book and seen the film, see Gary Westfahl’s review at Locus Online for a more thorough and interesting take.
vector-bsfa.com 
”The Djinn’s Wife” is probably the best of Ian McDonald’s three River of Gods-related stories
“The Djinn’s Wife,” “The Little Goddess,” and?
“Kyle Meets the River”, in Forbidden Planets edited by Pete Crowther. (Which is still pretty good, and takes a different perspective to the other two.) I gather there are one or two more either written or planned, but those are the three I’ve seen.
Is there a backlash against Year’s Best books?
The only real answer we can get to that is by all coming back in five years’ time and seeing how many of the current expansion in numbers of series has been sustained. I’m never sure how much reviews – even from people as thoughtful as Paul and Dan – really influence things. One straw in the wind, though: I thought the Nielsen Hayden/Yolen Year’s Best YA was an excellent book, with an all-star lineup and a big publisher’s muscle behind it. I was very surprised it was let go after one year. Clearly a publisher like Prime or Tachyon doesn’t need sales as big as Tor to break even, but at some point the library market will decide it doesn’t need to buy every one of the dozen YBs…
Actually, a thought: maybe, Niall, you should do one of your epic list posts showing all the YBs planned to cover 2006 and linking to contents lists where available?
maybe, Niall, you should do one of your epic list posts showing all the YBs planned to cover 2006 and linking to contents lists where available?
Good plan, but I think I’ll wait until a few more of those contents lists are actually available!
Regarding Contemplation, are you thinking of going? We could try to get a panel discussion together on the role of reviewing, and try to browbeat readers into giving us their views on what they actually want from reviews …
… or do you think it’ll be a damp squib? Maybe it’s the con n00b in me, but I really fancy going just for the opportunity for a weekend of like-minded company.
I honestly haven’t decided yet. I wasn’t a member of Convoy, but that was nothing to do with the venue or the guests — it was just that, on the one hand, as brilliant as Concussion was afterwards I felt pretty drained, and ready to take a year off from Eastercon; and on the other hand, I know I’m going to Wiscon, and I would like to do the Foundation course in the summer, and I don’t have infinite resources.
On yet another hand, Contemplation is a different proposition to Convoy, in theory, and just for once minimal programming does sound quite attractive (I’m usually a programme-junkie), at least if a critical mass of people I know can also be persuaded to go. But much as I hope the con succeeds, I’m going to hold off joining until I know what venue they’ve got.
in fact, you know what the trick is going to be: the girl is going to get out of the locked box
Actually, you’re shown the exact same trick that Angiers eventually pulls off right at the start of the film (the trick with the canary), and you’re shown exactly how it works too. There’s the inevitability: you’ve already been explicitly told how it works and you still get fooled.
Yes, absolutely — there are a whole pile of hints and parallels that make more sense if you know what the relevant secrets are, from the opening shot of the top hats to the trick you mention to Borden’s reticence about which knot he tied. And I’m sure there are things I didn’t spot; I’m looking forward to rewatching it at some point.