Vector 271: the London issue, along with the latest guest-edited Focus, has shipped! The last issue of 2012 (technically) is an exciting one, even if it is arriving in your post boxes nearly half a year after its originally-intended completion date. How exciting is it? Well, read the table of contents for yourself.

 
Features
FantasticLondon.co.uk – Edward James
The Shapes of London – Paul Cornell
Memories of Future London – Philip Reeve
London is Fractal – Sophia McDougall
The future of London is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed: A user’s guide to William Gibson’s London – Tom Hunter
Danie Ware Interview – Tom Hunter

Columns
Foundation Favourites: Proud Man – Andy Sawyer
Kincaid in Short: The Cold Equations – Paul Kincaid
Picture This: No Marvel or DC – Terry Martin
Resonances: Where exactly is Zoe Heriot’s Wheel in Space? – Stephen Baxter

Plus, of course, The BSFA Review, edited by Martin Petto (né Lewis).

My very great thanks to Ben Jeapes who finished getting this issue laid out, as well as to all the generous readers of Torque Control back in May and June who enabled the images in this issue. As well as (of course!) the writers who contributed the features, columns, and reviews. This issue really was even more of a group effort than usual.

This issue was originally suggested by James Bacon, in support of the UK in 2014 Worldcon bid, and now in support of the very real Loncon3. (Only 558 days to go, says its website!)

There are still Vectors forthcoming!  When, I am not currently certain, as our third layout volunteer has succumbed to a bad case of Life, with the current issue mostly done.

A large part of the complication is that the role currently includes image-wrangling, which is not what our layout volunteers had thought they were volunteering for. (And quite rightly, what with image-wrangling not being layout.)

Still, Martin Lewis, reviews editor, and I are continuing to work on content for future issues, so if all goes well, there may be a cluster of magazines winging their way to mailboxes soon. But I won’t count our publications before they’re printed at this point. Not even Focus, which is looking on target to go out with the first mailing of 2013, with a guest editor.

Trees have been falling in the BSFA’s metaphorical forest, but I haven’t had the capacity this summer to keep Torque Control updated to tell you about them; so I am particularly grateful to Tony Keen who has been doing so.
As BSFA members will know, the summer Vector didn’t happen; life intervened in a variety of ways which collectively waylaid the issue for both me and those involved in laying out the issue. I’m delighted, therefore, that the London & SF issue of Vector is due to come out in October, at long last, in the BSFA’s fourth mailing of the year. I already have much of the material in-hand for January’s issue as well, for that matter.

My much more finite-than-usual time in particular was the result of having offspring. Little Grouting-in-the-Fields (as we’re calling her online) has been inadvertently teaching me a great deal about time management: nap whenever possible time comes in small, valuable units, and without prioritization and seizing those moments, I won’t get anything done. I never quite appreciated that routine, generic advice to the degree I have recently. Vector won out over Torque Control. I couldn’t previously have told you they were even in contention with each other.

Ian Whates has generously arranged for a series of posts to be hosted here, beginning with one on the Kitchies.  I’ll be posting them, and, if necessary, passing on comments back to him. If I’m really organised, I’ll be posting more regularly in my own right too.