Because I just had to make this list for my own purposes, and I know you're all incredibly confused about exactly WHAT I am writing and when, here's the list of my recent and forthcoming work this year, for your collective convenience.

January: Dust, from Bantam Spectra: a gothic novel. With posthumans and AI angels. In spaaaaaaaaaaaaaace.

In the February Realms of Fantasy: "Hobnoblin Blues," being a not-a-rock-star-elf story in nontrad format.

In Nature for 31 January: "Annie Webber*," a very short story about a Boston coffee shop and its strange assortment of regulars.

In the March Asimov's: "Shoggoths in Bloom*," being an ironical post-Lovecraftian exegesis that explores the adventures following on a black college professor's research into wild shoggoths off the coast of Maine, on the eve of the Second World War.

Published just this week: "Knock On Coffins," which is Shadow Unit episode 2. Available as guiltware on your Internets, which means that you can read it, and also episode 1--Emma Bull's "Breathe"--absolutely without risk and free of charge, and then decide afterwards if you want to cast us a few paltry pennies dollars for our hard and painstaking work, so that we can afford to keep doing it.

Seriously, if you haven't read these two stories, I don't know why, except for maybe in that you hate my stuff, or Emma's stuff, in which case I have no idea why you're reading this journal. This is all about the five of us (Sarah Monette, Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, Amanda Downum, and myself) doing some of our absolutely best work within an innovative storytelling framework. In the end, the season will work out to something of an episodic novel, sort of like (we hope) the best of series television. You guys know I am not big into shouting from rooftops how exceptional my work is. But I really think this is something extra-special.

April 13-14: Shadow Unit  episode 5, "Ballistic," which is a massive collaboration involving Emma, Amanda, Sarah, and me. Will hasn't gotten stuck with any of the work yet because he was clever enough to be too busy, but that still may change. (The alert will notice that there are two episodes between "Knock On Coffins" and this one: one is Sarah's "Dexterity" and the other is Will's "A Handful of Dust."

April 29: "Sonny Liston Takes the Fall," in ellen_datlow-edited The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, being a short story in the Promethean Age universe, starring the Genius of Las Vegas and a retired heavyweight champion of the world.

Sometime in April, though the formal release date is May 1: The long-awaited (okay, a year) trade paperback edition of New Amsterdam*, being a mosaic novel concerning the adventures of a forensic sorcerer and a Great Detective at the dawn of the 20th century, in a world somewhat different from our own.

If you want that one, you'll probably want to order it from Sub Press or your local independent bookseller, as Amazon will sit on copies until the official release date.

*despite involving vampires and New York, this book bears no relationship to the TV series of the same name, and the stories predate the TV show by rather a little.

May 11-12 (Mother's Day, an irony that will become plain when you read the piece in question): Shadow Unit episode 7, "Overkill." (The alert will notice that there's an episode between "Ballistic" and this one: It's Emma's "Endgames."

Sometime in Spring: "Your Collar," in Subterranean Magazine. Being another story set in the "Orm the Beautiful" 'verse, this one a little more Victorian in tone, and involving not so much dragons, but more Elgin Marbles and minotaurs.

Sometime in last week of May: The Shadow Unit season finale, which is, no lie, a novel, cowritten by Emma and myself, entitled Refining Fire. I am so excited about this book, you have no idea.

June 3: The mass-market paperback release of Blood & Iron from Roc, the first novel of the Promethean Age cycle. Don't worry. It stands alone. How can you say no to a book about Faerie without a single good guy in it? Also: bonus sociopathic kelpie!

July 1: The trade paperback original release of Ink & Steel from Roc, The Stratford Man Part 1, being the third novel in the Promethean Age cycle. (Book #2, Whiskey & Water, is still available in trade, and as far as I know, there will likely be a MMPB release sometime in 2009.)

The Stratford Man is a massive, enormous, gigantic, obsessively-researched two-volume duology concerning the court of Queen Elizabeth, a trio of somewhat down at the heels poets, Faerie, magic, torture, politics, swordfights, sex, skullduggery, and an angel who was once most dearly lov'd of God.

(You could complete the perfecta and also try out Marie Brennan's Midnight Never Come. It's a Volcano Movie Summer! Only with Elizabethan Fairies!)

August 1: Mass-market paperback re-release of A Companion to Wolves from Tor, the not-your-daddy's-companion-animal-fantasy novel I wrote with Sarah Monette.

August 5: The trade paperback original release of Hell & Earth from Roc, The Stratford Man Part 2. Yep, that's right. Both halves of the duology, a month apart.

September: "Boojum" in the co-VanderMeerian anthology Fast Ships, Black Sails, being a semiLovecraftian deep-space pirate story which I wrote with Sarah Monette.

October 28: Hardcover original release of All the Windwracked Stars from Tor, being the first book in the Edda of Burdens, Norse periapocalyptic noir steampunk cyberfantasy WITH A GIANT TELEPATHIC METAL HORSE! Ahem.