Dear Alan Keyes:

Hey, remember when you were criticizing Hilary Clinton a couple of years back, and you said, "I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton's willingness to go into a state she doesn't even live in and pretend to represent people there, so I certainly wouldn't imitate it?"

Yeah, that was funny.

Good luck in Illinois. Try to remember that their football team is The Bears, not the Ravens.

World Fantasy noms

http://www.worldfantasy2004.org/wfcawards.html has all the noms for this year. Congrats to kijjohnson for her nomination for Best Novel! Guilty admission -- I've only read her first novel, the superb The Fox Woman, but if Fudoki is as good as I've heard, it's a well deserved nomination).

It's also nice to see one of my favorite short stories from last year -- Alex Irvine's "Gus Dreams of Biting the Mailman" -- on the list, along with Charles de Lint's story in book form A Circle of Cats (no co-nomination for Vess? Are folks still bitter over "A Midsummer Night's Dream?"). Yes, a dog story and a cat story on the same shortlist!

It's also nice to see props given to the small presses, which seem to have racked up way more nods than usual. And how the fuck am I supposed to pick a favorite in a category like "Best Collection," when we've got both More Tomorrow and Other Stories and GRRM: A Retrospective?

The only down side, of course, is seeing the worst novella I've ever read nominated. I have no idea why Greer Gilman's name appears on the shortlist. I'm still assuming it's a typo until I hear otherwise.

August: A less slutty month than usual

The latest issue of Bookslut is up, and I'm taking a month off from Fear Factor, so no column this time, but I've got two reviews. You can find my take on Adam Roberts's first short story collection, Swiftly, and my review of an upcoming debut novel, Gilad Elbom's Scream Queens of the Dead Sea.

As always, the rest of the issue is chock full of fun stuff. lizlet once again presents her Comic-Con diary. hangingfire sums up Free Comic Book Day. And more! Really, you should just work your way down the list of columns each month.