I turn my back for 5 minutes…

Ok, I’ve been away for a week, sunning myself on the sunny Greek island of Zakynthos. Typically, for a parent I spent far too much time ensuring the kids were fine, and far too little time remembering to reapply my own suncream. Still – it was a good way to point out to my 5-year-old (who hates having the stuff applied) what you’ll look like if you don’t let Mummy or Daddy put your suncream on. The screams under the lukewarm shower at the end of the day were partly to underline the message, you understand.

Anyway, a week away, and it appears that not only have the worlds of SF and publishing managed perfectly well without me, they’ve actually gone and done interesting things while I was away – almost as if they were waiting for confirmation of my flight having left before coming out of hiding and making announcements.

First of all, news that Amazon are about to launch an “international” versionof their Kindle for $279.99. You still have to buy it from the US store at the moment (which means with import duty and carriage, it’s closer to $350) and the somewhat unusual news that all Kindle titles purchased from countries other than the US will have a $1.99 premium added to them. We’ll hear more of that in the coming weeks, no doubt, but hoorah for the announcement (you can pre-order now and shipping begins on19th October).

What next? Well, sticking with the eBook theme, Angry Robot’s first few titles have finally made it into eBook format. They can currently be ordered from just one outlet (the impressive Waterstones.co.uk), but this will change over the coming months. I’ll write a fuller post about this, shortly, but now you can own an Angry Robot book for just £3! (about US$5) That’s gotta be good news!

The old "could be any old show if you change the wording" logo

And finally, that logo! Doctor Who has changed it’s imagery for the new series starring Matt Smith.

The new "definitely Who" logo