Two novels by friends have recently come out:

• the first is Ken Scholes‘s Canticle, sequel to his awesome Lamentation. It’s already received rave reviews in many places, and I’m not surprised (I was lucky enough to read a draft of this, and it was already amazing at this early stage). Ken merges political and religious intrigues in a setting reminiscent of a Canticle for Leibowitz, where the order of the Androfrancines painstakingly gathers the knowledge that was lost during the Age of Laughing Madness…

  

  Come back to the Named Lands in this compelling sequel to Ken Scholes amazing novel Lamentation.

  It is nine months after the end of the previous book. Many noble allies have come to the Ninefold Forest for a Feast in honor of General Rudolfo’s first-born child. Jin Li Tam, his wife and mother of his heir, lies in childbed.

  As the feast begins, the doors of the hall fly open and invisible assassins begin attacking. All of Rudolfo’s noble guests are slain, including Hanric, the Marsh Queen’s Shadow. And on the Keeper’s Gate, which guards the Named Lands from the Churning Waste, a strange figure appears, with a message for Petronus, the Hidden Pope.

  Thus begins the second movement of The Psalms of Isaak, Canticle.

• Second up is John Brown‘s Servant of a Dark God, which boasts splendid cover art. The book has a fascinating concept: what if the days of your life could be harvested, and used by someone else?

  

  Young Talen lives in a world where the days of a person’s life can be harvested, bought, and stolen. Only the great Divines, who rule every land, and the human soul-eaters, dark ones who steal from man and beast and become twisted by their polluted draws, know the secrets of this power. This land’s Divine has gone missing and soul-eaters are found among Talen’s people.

  The Clans muster a massive hunt, and Talen finds himself a target. Thinking his struggle is against both soul-eaters and their hunters, Talen actually has far larger problems. A being of awesome power has arisen, one whose diet consists of the days of man. Her Mothers once ranched human subjects like cattle. She has emerged to take back what is rightfully hers. Trapped in a web of lies and ancient secrets, Talen must struggle to identify his true enemy before the Mother finds the one whom she will transform into the lord of the human harvest.

Now go forth and read. I know I will

I’ll be attending my first ever Utopiales in Nantes: the BF and I need a break (he defends his thesis tomorrow, and we both could use a bit of rest after the wringing the PhD has put us through). No programming, though: just enjoying the con, and seeing some friends.

(I’m attempting to get a professional pass by virtue of being an author; we’ll see how it goes )

Er, yes, there will be a Villa Diodati report. That, however, would require full use of my brain, which is still lost somewhere in the boonies…

Instead, I’ll leave you with Lavie Tidhar’s editorial for the World SF blog, which does a tremendous job of articulating how I feel about the quality of stories, and in a much better way than anything I could write.

(courtesy of Thalys wifi link)

Graph of SF themes in TV, over time. Fascinating stuff.

Via Karen Meisner: Fantastical Wildife, the Child Empress of Mars. Amazingly detailed figure, which will be donated to the Interstitial Arts Foundation’s upcoming auction.

How not to hijack a ship: Somalian pirates mistake French flagship for cargo vessel. Uh-uh, not a good idea…

12 stories do not a collection make: Marty Halpern reflects on putting together an Alastair Reynolds collection.

Time for Villa Diodati again: starting from tomorrow, I will be sharing a house with Sara Genge, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Stephen Gaskell, Ruth Nestvold, Jeff Spock, and Deanna Carlyle
(and Floris Kleijne, albeit briefly, as Floris is currently awaiting the birth of his first child and can’t make the whole weekend). As usual, we will eat like princes, share gossip and learn from each other.

However, the house does not come with an internet connection, so expect to see very little of me on the web until Monday (there might be a brief interval of connectivity while I’m in the Thalys, as they have wifi). Blog’s going dark again.

Meanwhile, if you happen to be anywhere near London on Saturday, my publisher Angry Robot is having their UK launch party at Forbidden Planet from 12:30 onwards. Authors like Colin Harvey, Dan Abnett and Andy Remic will be there to sign books and answer questions (the AR crew will be there too, as well).

(I only found out about this after VD was already booked, otherwise I would have had to think long and hard which of the two events I was going to…)

We’ve had this brewing for a while, and now it’s gone live: Dario Cirielllo (who, in addition to being a good friend, is also the founder of my writing group Written in Blood and the editor and owner of Panverse Publishing) has interviewed me at IROSF. Check it out:

Ghosts and Demons: an interview with Aliette de Bodard

Hum, it would seem to be plug day…
Check out the trailer of Stephanie Burgis‘s upcoming A Most Improper Magic:

Stephanie is holding a competition with a Regency pack as the main prize (and “Everything’s better with highwaymen!” buttons). Check the rules here!

You know that feeling you have when you’ve finally figured out what the %% was wrong with your reasoning and things seem to come together, all of a sudden?

That’s when I remember why I like being an engineer. Today I finally figured our why something wasn’t working in my algorithms, and finally got to see results, and they were shiiinnyyyy…
(of course, it’s only a matter of time until some other problem comes along, but the rush of adrenaline when you solve stuff is kind of addictive)

Big congratulations to Written in Blood crit buddy Janice Hardy, whose middle-grade novel The Shifter has been released today!

Nya is an orphan struggling for survival in a city crippled by war. She is also a Taker—with her touch, she can heal injuries, pulling pain from another person into her own body. But unlike her sister, Tali, and the other Takers who become Healers’ League apprentices, Nya’s skill is flawed: She can’t push that pain into pynvium, the enchanted metal used to store it. All she can do is shift it into another person, a dangerous skill that she must keep hidden from forces occupying her city. If discovered, she’d be used as a human weapon against her own people.

Rumors of another war make Nya’s life harder, forcing her to take desperate risks just to find work and food. She pushes her luck too far and exposes her secret to a pain merchant eager to use her shifting ability for his own sinister purposes. At first Nya refuses, but when Tali and other League Healers mysteriously disappear, she’s faced with some difficult choices. As her father used to say, principles are a bargain at any price; but how many will Nya have to sell to get Tali back alive?

The book is also featured over at John Scalzi’s blog at The Big Idea, where she talks about the genesis of the novel and of how to salvage bad ideas. Go check it out (and buy your copy if you’re lucky enough to be in the US. Me, I’ll have to wait until amazon ships mine…)

You can go over to Janice’s series blog if you want more information; or to her writing blog, where she has regular posts about writing, rewriting, editing and the publishing process.

The fried spring rolls I made Saturday afternoon are still sitting in the fridge (I always forget that the recipe I have makes for 30-35 pieces, ie enough for at least 3 meals…). ’tis a good thing, for I’m feeling pretty lazy tonight.

Well, “lazy” is relative, of course. I have something to prepare for:

It’s a little blurry, but this farmhouse in Putten is where we’re going to be spending the Fifth Villa Diodati workshop this weekend (see a larger version here). As usual, much writing, discussing and cooking will be done.
Now I’m off to read stories for the workshop