Views from Medina Road

Wow--Blogger recognized me for some reason; I didn't have to re-enter my username and password. Is it finally working as advertised?

Sitting home alone on a Friday night updating the site and catching up on email. That's what we dedicated fen do. What do people do on Friday nights who don't have websites to update? Sometimes I wonder. (This is an old CNB joke.)

--Actually, my partner Yeong has flown off to China, to the city of Qingdao (aka Tsing Tao, like the beer), for two weeks to visit his father, cousins, and siblings. During which time I'll catch up on this and that--the website, reading, and my ongoing project to expand the Awards Index and database to include all the Canonical tallies and chronological profiles I've been planning for, well, years now. An ultimate guide to the top 100 novels, novellas, novelettes, short stories; the best in each category in every year. Soon; any year now. On CD ROM.

Cheryl Morgan has already blogged about the peculiar results of the Wooden Rocket Awards, though she didn't note the result that struck me -- Best Print Publisher to Tor Books. Tor may be the best SF publisher, but its site is notably lacking in detail and currency. I note this as someone who compiles descriptions of Notable New Books regularly (every week now) for the Locus Online website, looking for links to excerpts and descriptions; for my time, Baen's is by far the best publisher site, with descriptions and generous excerpts for every single new title. Eos is a fair second place; Warner and Bantam are in the running. But Tor... Now that I check it, they do have content for a couple current titles, but.. but... (And I really should notify them that they have a long obsolete link to the Locus Poll index.)

Which raises the question of how valid any awards results are. A question which, as a compiler of awards results, I am careful not to probe. And as a recipient of a Wooden Rocket Award (they sent me a certificate last year), I would be foolish to dispute.