There's a review of Hart & Boot & Other Stories at Strange Horizons, by Karen Burnham. Overall it's very positive! Nicest line: "When you consider the consistently high quality of the collection, and the fact that these thirteen stories represent the creative output of only four years (the stories were published from 2003 to 2007, with two being original to this collection), there can be no doubting Pratt's talent for the fantastic." Not all the stories worked for her, of course, but in this collection I was aiming for stylistic and narrative variety within a certain thematic range, so a lack of uniform praise doesn't bother me. (Though I should mention that only one of the stories, "Komodo", was actually original to the collection... when the book got delayed from summer '06 to early '07, I managed to sell a story that would have been original...)

The trip to Santa Cruz was awesome. The weather was a bit crap on Saturday, but Sunday was nicer. We ate Hawaiian food, and cheese fries, and a big brunch on Sunday, and had beer and booze and Mimosas and milkshakes and other assorted deliciousness. We played about a thousand hands of cards (a bit of our usual favorite, Oh Hell, but also many games of Hearts). We chatted and chilled and cheered and toasted our myriad successes, and all was well. The weekend ended far too quickly, and I managed to leave my glasses down there -- fortunately, they're going to mail them to me, and I can survive with my old spare pair for a few days.

I got my computer back last night, and it's working fine, so overall, life is good. It's not even raining today.