NYTBR science fiction columnist Dave Itzkoff wasn't pleased when he checked GalleyCat this morning and saw my questions about the "best fiction" survey, specifically these: "If the Review is going to ask poetry columnist David Orr his opinion, why not check in with Marilyn Stasio and Dave Itzkoff? (Come to think of it, what's happened to Itzkoff's science fiction column, anyway? It's been over two months: Should we start worrying?)"

"Had you actually taken a look at the May 21st edition of the NYTBR," Itzkoff emails, "you'd surely see I have another piece in that edition." While admiring his use of the subjunctive tense, I'd question how he expects people to look at the 5/21 edition before the advance copies are sent out. (In fact, we just received our copy of the 5/14 edition yesterday afternoon.) As he no doubt well knows, our reactions to the "best fiction" survey were based on seeing it published on the Times website, which makes no mention of anything by him after March 6.

UPDATE 5/22: Turns out that Itzkoff wasn't being entirely truthful to us. While he does in fact have "another piece" in the May 21 edition of the NYTBR, it's not the latest installment of his science fiction column, merely a page's worth of posturing over Douglas Coupland's JPod, including the classic reviewing cliché that we big dumb Americans "desperately need a Canadian to make sense of our lives for us." So, the wait for Itzkoff to resume review science fiction for the Times continues, but at this point, we've stopped worrying...or even, for that matter, caring.