My short story “Golden Lilies” is up at Fantasy Magazine.

It was the smell which woke me up, insinuating itself between the planks of my coffin: cooked meat mingling with the sweet odour of aromatic rice, and the tangy hint of fruit and spices — a powerful summoning if there ever was one.

Read more.

For those of you who prefer their fiction in audio form, it’s also available as a podcast read by the talented M.K. Hobson (who does a truly awesome job).

Interview of me on Bibliophile Stalker. Thanks to Marshall for all the time-consuming labour, and to Charles for giving it a good home!

The con was great: met lots of new people and had lots of fun. Sunday was spent, as envisioned, on sheer adrenaline, going through two panels and a reading with a mounting heartrate, before rushing back to the hotel room to change into my evening dress for the Hugos.

And the Hugo Awards…

Well, it’s a good thing that they started out with the Campbell, which saved us nominees a lot of freaking out. David Anthony Durham won and made this awesome and very touching speech about community acceptance.

I subsequently was surprised to find out that though David led in all rounds of voting, by the end he had 161 votes to my 158, and that three-vote difference was all that separated me from actually having to improvise a speech up there…

Ah well. Such is life. I’m not complaining: I did take second place, and overall it’s been a really awesome year for me. Even though I didn’t win, I’m honoured to have just been nominated and to have stood in such good company. And I’ll make sure to keep an eye on all my fellow nominees, as I’m sure they’re off to great things.

Thanks a lot to everyone who voted for me; and special extra thanks to the Codex/Liberty Hall voting block, T.L. Morganfield, and Chris Kastensmidt for clapping and screaming so loud when my name was announced as part of the list of nominees. You guys totally made my night.

A couple of wins that had me really thrilled: Electric Velocipede took Best Fanzine–huge congrats to John Klima, who I’m sure would have loved to be there to collect his award.
Congrats to Elizabeth Bear for taking the Hugo for Best Novelette (she totally rocks), and to Ann Vandermeer and Stephen Seagal from Weird Tales for Best Semiprozine Hugo. My ROF illustrator Frank Wu took Best Fan Artist (and nearly broke something while running up the stage).

And I took a peek at the nomination ballot for the Campbell and saw familiar names: Chris Kastensmidt, Sara Genge, J. K. Cheney, fellow WOTFer Stephen Kotowych, and fellow Angry Robot author Colin Harvey. Huge congrats to all!

There will be a more detailed post when we come back from Canada and offload the camera’s pictures. In the meantime, here’s a picture of me in my Hugo outfit, courtesy of Cheryl Morgan:

So, remember last year, when I went to World Fantasy and got stuck in a dingy hotel because my flight had been cancelled?

Well, it turns out some clouds definitely have big silver linings, because among the people stuck with me in the hotel were John Berlyne and Marc Gascoigne. We started talking; nine months later, one of them is my agent, and one of them has offered me a deal for three books, starting with Servant of the Underworld, and going on to two sequels.

http://angryrobotbooks.com/2009/08/angry-robot-signs-aliette-de-bodard-lavie-tidhar/
http://angryrobotbooks.com/2009/08/an-author-a-publisher-and-an-agent-walk-into-a-bar/

Publication date is Spring 2010 by new HarperCollins imprint Angry Robot. The books are a mix of murder mystery and fantasy, set in Aztec times, featuring death-priest-cum-investigator Acatl (and fun stuff like ghostly jaguars, bloodthirsty gods, and fingernail-eating monsters). They’re in the same world as “Obsidian Shards”, “Beneath the Mask”, and “Safe, Child, Safe”, forthcoming in Talebones.

It’s been brewing for a while, so I’ve already exhausted most of my screaming and squeeing, but still… Wow, wow and wow.

My many many thanks to everyone who took a look at the manuscript and kicked it into shape (and it goes without saying, but thanks to Marc for the offer and to John for the negotiation).

I’d be off for a liedown except that I really, really have to pack.

PS1: there’ll be a more detailed thank-you post later. I want to make sure I don’t forget anyone who’s looked at it, and this probably means waiting after Worldcon when my head is back on my shoulders
PS2: you can also drop by fellow Zeno Agency authorLavie Tidhar’s blog and congratulate him on the sale to Angry Robot of what sounds like a fun series
PS3: maybe I should send British Airways a thank-you note

I’ve sold my Chinese alternate-history “In the Time of Transcendence” to Asimov’s (the title is going to change as soon as I can work out a decent one…). Featuring a space centre in a monastery, Daoist philosophy, and forbidden love.

Many thanks to those OWWers who took a look at it: Christine Lucas, Tom Crosshill, Ilan Leman and Owen Kerr; and to Chris Kastensmidt for his comments.

EDIT: the new title is now “The Wind-Blown Man”.

That sound you hear? It’s me hyperventilating. I’ve been dreaming of breaking into Asimov’s for a while, and I don’t think it quite feels real yet. I think I’ll go back for a liedown…