1) The number of books I’ve owned?

Egad. Who could possibly know such a thing? I’d love to know how many I have now, but I’m not anal enough to do an inventory. Plus, that wouldn’t account for the books I bought then traded in at used bookstores. I certainly have enough that I shouldn’t be buying more, especially considering I get quite a few freebies from F&SF, but…

2) The last book I bought?

Natural History by Justina Robson and Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, with the latter being a blog-related purchase (go blogiral marketing!). I was nearly put off purchasing it when Scalzi mentioned that he decided to write a military SF novel solely because that’s what was selling, but in the end I decided that I still wanted to read it for myself, and figured that he should at least get points for being honest about the genesis of the novel. The Robson was just something that had been on my wish list for a while, and I needed to add about ten bucks to my Amazon order to get free shipping.

3) The last book I read?

The Prodigal Troll by Charles Coleman Finlay. Good stuff! Go order a copy immediately!

4) Five books that mean a lot to me: (in no particular order)

1. The F&SF anthologies — One Lamp, In Lands That Never Were, and Fourth Planet From the Sun, because they are the first books I worked on, and one of them is one-third dedicated to me.

2. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, because it’s my favorite novel, and was the first SF novel I read to blow my mind.

3. The Road to Science Fiction, Vol. 3: From Heinlein to Here edited by James Gunn, because it was the anthology that made me learn to love short fiction.

4. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, because it convinced me to give science fiction a try. (I’d read fantasy as a youngster, but no SF.)

5. The Prodigal Troll by Charles Coleman Finlay, because he’s my dawg, and it’s his first novel, and I got to work on it a bit officially (on the sections we published at F&SF) and unofficially (as Charlie noted in the acknolwedgements, “[I] read new additions critically at the very end.”).