Life is really busy here at the moment, but after my last post I thought I had better update to say that the rain has finally stopped... long enough for my contractors to put on the first layer of my wonderful new pitched roof, at least. So with any luck when the rain returns it will remain outside, where we need it, instead of pouring down into my living room.

This is not to say that all my construction woes are done, however. I have several more months of fun and expense to look forward to. Most recently the plumber has been in, ripping down walls and installing my new plumbing. It turns out that none of my old plumbing was actually up to code. The developer who built my house in 1979 cut a few corners, it would seem. The scamp.

I don't know what to think about all these comments. The last time I was here, I happened to look at my friend Daniel Abraham's blog, and I noticed people commenting on his posts. That seemed like a nice feature. "I wonder if I could do that too?" I thought, so I dug around a bit and found the comment switch and turned it on. Now I'm frightened. Daniel gets like ten comments. I had forty within a few hours, and now it seems I have a hundred, just on my latest post. And there are comments on the older posts too, including some people who want to argue politics. Sigh. I hate to leave some of their statements unanswered, but I really don't have time for extended political discussions. I don't know. I am starting to wonder if turning on the comments was such a good idea...

On other fronts, well, lots is happening, but not much that I can talk about. I have a big conference call tomorrow about one project that cannot yet be announced, I have started some preliminary discussions with my partners on a second project that cannot be announced, I am waiting patiently for the company involved with the third project that cannot be announced to tell me that time has come for an official announcement, and... well, like that. Watch my news page, that's all that I can say.

Oh, but I can tell you that we have officially started work on the first volume of the new WILD CARDS triad, which will be titled INSIDE STRAIGHT. Eight stories, featuring a cast of great new characters, and a terrific lineup of veteran Wild Card writers and talented young newcomers. Look for it some time in 2007... and if you haven't tried a Wild Cards book before, you might want to pick up a few of the old volumes from Amazon or ABE to give yourself a taste,

I can also mention that I've signed a deal with Fantasy Flight Games to put together an official SONG OF ICE AND FIRE calendar. We're a little too late in the year to have a 2007 calendar ready on time, so our first year will be 2008. Still in the early stages on that one, but when we know more I'll post a story on my news page.

I did finish and deliver a short introduction / appreciation for the forthcoming JACK VANCE TREASURY today. This a big new book from the good folks at Subterranean Press, a career-spanning collection of the short fiction of Jack Vance, our greatest living SF and fantasy writer. It should be a gorgeous book, comparable to my own RRETROSPECTIVE collection from Subterranean (if not quite as big, Bill Schafer having regained his sanity).

Parris is returning to Ireland next week, and I am off to the San Diego Comicon. I am looking forward to that, although my schedule looks to be a killer. If I seem pale and dazed as I stagger past you in San Diego, please forgive me. I attended the San Diego Comicon a few times back in the early 80s, when it was about the size of worldcon. Now it's TWENTY TIMES the size of worldcon. The mind boggles. A hundred thousand people all in one room.

(I attended the very first comicon ever held, incidentally. It was all in one room too, in a Greenwich Village hotel in 1963. Steve Ditko, Fabulous Flo Steinberg, and twenty or thirty high school kids, myself among them. If we only knew where it would lead... )