Last month, Michael Chabon became the second author nominated for an Edgar and a Nebula for the same novel (following Jeffrey Ford's The Girl in the Glass), which goes to show that the Mystery Writers of America and Science Fiction Writers of America know a good thing when they see it. But now The Yiddish Policemen's Union has become the first novel nominated for the Nebula, the Edgar, and the Hugo, science fiction's other major prize. So if you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for?

Well, okay, fine, if you're waiting for the trade paperback in May, that's understandable. After that, though, you have no excuses.

I'm also thrilled to see my friend John Scalzi on the shortlist for his powerful The Last Colony, and Charles Stross's Halting State is an amazing near-future thriller, and now I have a perfect excuse to stop what I'm doing and finish Ian McDonald's Brasyl. All I need now is Robert J. Sawyer's Rollback, and I'll have read the entire Hugo shortlist for the first time since...actually, this'll the first time I ever managed that, I think, since I always had to wait for stuff to come out in paperback when I was in my peak SF years.