I’m as happy as a dog with two cocks.

Why?

I’ve got ‘Iron Sunrise’ by Charles Stross waiting for me upstairs. I started it last night and its wonderfully-paced plot made me miss a lot of sleep. I love that feeling of having a book waiting: you know it’s sitting there, plump with marvels that are going to melt your brain. And you’re going to devour it, like a secret yummy cream cake.

It seems there’s a flowering of SF at the moment. There are loads of new / newish authors like Stross, Tony Ballantyne, Richard Morgan, Justina Robson, Neal Asher, Alastair Reynolds, all producing brilliant, scintillating work. Along with them, more established favourites like Iain M. Banks, Nancy Kress, Rudy Rucker, Ken MacLeod, Tricia Sullivan, Stephen Baxter, Peter F. Hamilton et al. keep on coming up with the goods.

This all makes me a very happy, if rather underslept, boy.

Aren’t books brilliant!?