The ‘complete archives’ of science fiction grand master Robert Heinlein will be available online, San Jose Mercury News reports (requires free signup):

Via Futurismic.

Poet Paul Muldoon has been appointed the new poetry editor of the New Yorker, taking over from Alice Quinn, who’s held the post for 20 years.  The Guardian writes:

He has no immediate plans to bring a sharp change of direction to one of the jobs that makes the poetical weather in the US, and hopes to remain open to the unexpected. But poets from across the pond should make sure that the New Yorker’s email for poetry submissions is in their address book.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few more British and Irish poets in the pages,” suggested Muldoon, “as well as more poetry in translation.”

“I sincerely hope that every poem I publish there will have it in it to make a profound change in the reader,” he said. “That’s certainly my aim.”

Excellent sci-fi news and fiction site Futurismic has launched a weekly roundup of free and legal science fiction and fantasy reading on the internet.  Their latest Friday Free Fiction post features Karl Schroeder, Rudy Rucker, Cory Doctorow and other great authors.

Link

Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing writes:

Award-winning sf writer Karl Schroeder has just released his debut novel, Ventus under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial- NoDerivs license, meaning that you can download it, share it and copy it as much as you like. Karl’s one of my favorite writers in the field, and has been a pal of mine since I was a teenager — he’s always seemed to be one step ahead of everyone else (he was the first person to use the word “fractal” in conversation with me). It’s an indication of just how far ahead he is that this seven-year-old book still feels like it’s on the cutting edge, with its object-oriented sapient planet, bizarre copyright wars, and assorted grace-notes. Link

From the Dragonmount website:

It is with great sadness that I tell you that the Dragon is gone. RJ left us today at 2:45 PM. He fought a valiant fight against this most horrid disease. In the end, he left peacefully and in no pain.

George R. R. Martin put up a blog post on the topic:

Although he had been fighting amyloidosis for several years, the news of his death still came as a shock to many, including me. He was so optimistic and determined that you had to think that if anyone could beat the disease, it would be him.

So what happens to A Memory of Light, the unpublished final book in the Wheel of Time series? According to wotmania:

[Jason] said that Jordan has been dictating outlines and plot lines and everything else related to the final book. He used the phrase “army of writers” to talk about the people that were converting those tapes into written form.

It would appear that the final book will still be published, I’m sure details regarding that will work themselves out.

James Frey, the author of A Million Little Pieces - which you’ve probably heard of, but here’s the Wikipedia link if not - is working on a novel now:

The publisher of Harper Collins told The Associated Press that the novel, "Bright Shiny Morning," was a "kaleidoscopic" portrait of modern Los Angeles.

The book is set to come out in summer 2008. View the full story here.