Various Miscellany, UPDATED

(photo from Flickr user roadsidepoctures)

UDPATE Jeff VanderMeer has information on his blog on how to get in touch with Kage Baker or otherwise lend your support.

Here's a bunch of different things that have happened recently that I thought I should make note of. First, the Crawford Awards (for best first fantasy novel) have been announced, and Jedediah Berry's Manual of Detection won! I enjoyed this book quite a bit. I was surprised to learn recently that I actually met Mr. Berry one time when visiting Gavin Grant in MA.

Over at SF Signal, they do this thing called a Mind Meld at least once a week. They ask a bunch of science fiction pros the same question and then post their answers online. This week it's "Who should be the next SFWA Grand Master?" and I took part.

This Recording has a list of the Top 100 Science Fiction Books of All Time. I've haven't gone over the list in detail, but it looks pretty good. I'm sure I haven't read everything, and I think I'll make a separate post about the list in the next day or two.

Finally, I am very sad to say that Kage Baker's battle with cancer has not gone well. While she is still with is, they feel she only has a few weeks left. Kage is one of my favorite writers and an extremely nice person. Kage answered the questions to the Electric Velocipede Blindfold Taste Test in issue #13*, and I wish I had more chances to work with her. More importantly, I got to enjoy her as a reader and I wish there was more work coming. This news makes me very sad, to say the least. I hope other people take the chance to discover her work and see how amazing she was.

* Her taste test is not online, but perhaps I'll take this opportunity to put it up.