So I didn't win.

I can only retreat to infantile behavior, thus:


see more crazy cat pics

If you are interested in some good reading in these last days of 2007, allow me to recommend that you acquire Bill Shunn's excellent novelette, "Not of This Fold," and his short story, "Objective Impermeability in a Closed System," both original stories from his recent chapbook, An Alternate History of the 21st Century. Although you should feel at liberty to actually purchase this chapbook, I believe if you are a SFWA member you can e-mail him at shunn [at] livejournal [dot] com for a free pdf.

Another engrossing read is Scott Edelman's story "“Almost The Last Story By Almost The Last Man” in Postscripts #12 Postscripts # 12.

And finally, I very much like Walter Jon Williams' work. He is a writer who is really powerful at the novella length. His "Womb of Every World" (Alien Crimes, edited by Mike Resnick, SFBC, June 2007) will certainly take your mind off the inadequate legroom available on your holiday flight.

Through an oversight which I'm sure the authors will strive to correct in future work, none of these fictions feature cats as point of view characters, although there is a nod to felinity in Walter Jon's, if I remember correctly.

I have tried to make up for the failings of less feline-positive authors in my story "Pride," published in Lou Anders' wonderful Fast Forward 1, February 2007, although come to think of it, the cat isn't a point of view character, since who would presume to know what is going on in the feline mind? I am willing to supply a copy of this story to any who need to fantasize a cat on the lap as a method of getting through the tribulations of airline snacks and big dude ahead of you who insists on reclining his seat into your lap. It might help.