"Knowledge is the action of the soul," according to Ben Johnson (1573-1637) and Christmas Cracker Quote #19.

He should have finished the thought: "And imagination is its action movie." But I suppose they didn't have action movies at the turn of the seventeenth century.*

Anyway, here are a few things I learned this morning:

The Force Unleashed has been pushed back to June 24, ahead of an August release of the game.

Earth Ascendant is now being published in the US in May, and hopefully in the UK and Australia the same month.**

An interview on SCI-FI WIRE on the subject of Saturn Returns has just gone live.

And Weight Watchers Drinking Chocolate just doesn't stack up to Jarrah Choc O'Lait.

There you have it. Now you too are ready to face the day.***

* Since when did Christmas crackers stop giving out really crap jokes? I feel like I actually learned something this year, which isn't what I was after at all.

** This means my three-new-books-from-three-different-publishers situation in March is now off. To be honest, that comes as something of a relief. The launch parties could've killed me. The Changeling is still on schedule, though, and more on that front soon.

*** "Although there is no word for chocolate in original Latin, modern translation programs use the rules of word construction and archaic Italian to approximate one."

Every month, one of the board-members of the SA Writers' Centre writes a piece for publication in our monthly newsletter. It was recently my turn, and the text (for those of a non-South Australian bent) is below the cut.

Reading over it again brings home to me the not unrelated facts that (1) Christmas cheer is just not my thing, and (2) I'm getting grouchy (or at least more political) in my dotage.

( Board's Eye View, December 2007 )

(With thanks to Tim Powers for allowing me the quote from his Writers of the Future/Clarion notes.)

Polemics aside, all the very best of the season to you and yours. I hope 2008 brings an improvement on whatever lifted you up or got you down this year. This my first Christmas ever with a family in a home we call our own, and the first in a very long while with a Prime Minister I can respect, so I'm feeling pretty optimistic. Here's to good times for us all!