It's been a hard weekend for us here, given our many connections to Japan. If you follow our Twitter feed, you'll see that we used it over the last few days to stay in contact with our authors. We're happy to say that all of our authors, and the translators who live in Japan, are fine. Tow Ubukata, author of Mardock Scramble, does live close to the most heavily damaged area, but his power is back on already and he and all his relatives are safe.

We're pleased with all the support the people of Japan have been receiving from the US. In Sakyo Kamatsu's classic SF novel Japan Sinks, the entire archipelago goes down thanks to massive earthquakes. The quake in the book was a metaphor for all the pressures of Japan in the early 1970s, and highlighted the belief that Japanese society would need to evolve in order to "keep afloat." And Japanese society has evolved in the decades since. Just a few weeks ago, James Fallows refuted the myth of Japan's stagnant economy, and Japan is more open than ever to international cooperation and cultural exchange. (We're just a tiny example of that!) While the quake, of course, will have massive negative economic impact to accompany the human costs, the people are already working hard to halt the damage, stabilize the cities, and then rebuild.

And you can help. In addition to the Red Cros and Doctors Without Borders, the Japan Society is raising funds, and also lists several people-finder resources created by Japanese mobile phone service providers. We'll have more information soon about the sort of help we hope to be able to provide with your assistance. We're convinced that the future is still Japanese.