New Scientist Best Books of 2008

I found out yesterday that this morning The White Road and Other Stories was going to be reviewed in New Scientist's Christmas Books Special: Best of 2008. The print edition is in the shops today, it is also online. This is the whole review:

THE title story in this book is everything fiction should be: inspiring, moving, comical, provocative and heartbreaking - and all that in just seven and a half pages. The rest of the stories in this collection are similarly remarkable. Some are also remarkably short: Go Away is, essentially, a well-told joke (and laugh-out-loud funny). Hershman's economy with words cloaks her subtlety and power, though: a second reading uncovers hidden moments in each story. Inspired by scientific progress and science journalism, including articles in New Scientist, and driven by an author dripping with talent, this is as good as modern reading gets.

Those are my italics at the end. I won't rant on here, but this is for me the dream upon the dream coming true. First the book is published, then New Scientist, whose articles inspired half the stories, likes it and decides to reprint the title story. And now... they include it in their Best of 2008! And the reviewer, Michael Brooks, says crazy things like this is as good as modern reading gets.

I don't know what to say.

It is hard to accept that he is talking about my stories. But I will try hard to accept it. Or maybe I shouldn't. As a wise reviewer said to me, read the review, smile, let it go. Because otherwise I might just go wobbly. And how can I hold my (metaphoric) pen and write if I am wobbling??