Everyone else seems to be doing Year In Review posts, so I guess I should make like a sheep.

Actually, however, the thing you are likely to be interested in is books. You can find that article over on the Aqueduct Press blog. I don’t have much to add to that beyond the two books I’m reading right now, though I do have a huge pile I want to make time for.

Making time is, of course, much more difficult when you don’t have deadlines looming over you. Without Emerald City keeping me under pressure I have read a lot fewer books than in previous years. On the other hand, I have been able to do other things with my life. In particular I’m now getting reasonably regular exercise and am probably a lot fitter than this time last year, if not any less fat. The latter is probably because I’ve also been spending more time cooking.

The highlight of 2007 has to be being a Guest of Honour at Finncon. As I’ve said many times before, the Finns run great conventions, and I doubt that I’ll ever get a GoH gig again, so that was something very special. Huge thanks to all of my Finnish friends, and to my fellow GoHs.

I very much wish I could have gone to Yokohama, and indeed to Chengdu, but the expense and the annoying circumstances of my private life put an end to my plans for a Far East tour. It was something of a relief not to be a Hugo nominee, because it meant an absence of rants about how wrong it was that I should be one, but obviously I miss it too.

My new SF-related project, Science Fiction Awards Watch, has started slowly, in part due to my not devoting as much time to it as I did to Emerald City, but it is doing OK. I’m also delighted at the success of the new Hugo Awards web site, which I built. It was wonderful to see all of the links coming in after the results came out, especially the huge number of Spanish language sites talking about Pan’s Labyrinth.

Probably the best aspect of my greater amount of free time is that I’ve been able to devote more of it to my business, with the result that I’ve not actually had to worry about money nearly as much. Not that my income is high enough or stable enough for me to be able to afford a home of my own (or be approved to rent one), but at least I can afford to buy books now that I am not getting them for free. I can also help Kevin a lot more. And I have exceeded my own pretty high standards in finding fabulous clothes at ridiculously low prices.

It has been a busy year sport-wise. The Cricket World Cup dragged on a bit and was fairly predictable, but the Twenty20 World Cup was a roaring success that bodes well for the future of the game. The Rugby World Cup was a disaster for Wales and also too long, but proved far more competitive than anyone expected. Somerset had a stellar season thanks in a large part to the wonderful Justin Langer. Barry Bonds has beaten the home run record, retired and been indicted, resulting in the largest amount of hypocritical nonsense I have ever seen from sports writers. The Sharks bottled in the playoffs. The less said about the 49ers the better.

On the music front my main discoveries are Amy Winehouse and Bat for Lashes. Yes, I know I should have caught up with Winehouse last year. Finally getting to see Bruce live was another obvious highlight of the year.

Politics has been generally depressing. It was good to see the back of Tony Blair at last, but the ongoing nonsense in Congress about the hate crimes bill and ENDA has not been happy watching.

And finally, I got to be officially old. That proved to be the occasion for a wonderful weekend in Monterey with Kevin. I am so very lucky to have met him, and it is no exaggeration to say that hardly anything that I have achieved over the past 12 would have been possible without his support.

So, here we go, another year coming up. Doubtless more entertainment and surprises will ensue. I hope that they are generally good for you.