Big deal New York publishing insider types apparently get the New York Times Book Review way earlier than those of us out here in the middle. One big deal insider in particular (Cheers!) sent along word that David Itzkoff gives the entirety of his Across the Universe column in the upcoming issue over to a review of the Nebula Awards Showcase 2006 anthology edited by Gardner Dozois.
Here's the opening:
The Nebula Awards, bestowed annually by a literary society called the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, don't have a special prize for the speculative work possessing the year's most striking literary imagery. So I hereby invent the category myself, and declare its first winner to be Christopher Rowe for his story "The Voluntary State..."
And then he actually goes on to discuss the story in complimentary terms for the opening two paragraphs of his full page review. At the other end of the piece, Itzkoff gives great big ups to UnCommonwealth fellow traveler Ben Rosenbaum for his story, "Embracing-the-New", which could mean that me and Ben are the beginning and end of contemporary science fiction, except that that reading is supported neither by the text nor by reality.
Anyway, thanks New York Times Book Review. Salut, even.