And to start off 2010:
-you can read “In the Age of Iron and Ashes” in the newest issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, along with a story by B. Gordon

They ran the girl down, in the grey light of dawn: a ring of copper-mailed horsemen, racing after her until her exhaustion finally felled her.
Yudhyana sat on his horse, shivering in the cold morning air, and thought of home—of the narrow, spice-filled streets of Rasamuri, and of his daughters shrieking with delight as he raced them in the courtyard. Anything to prevent him from focusing on what was happening.
Read more

-the French website Elbakin has launched its new web design, which is very clean and very handy to navigate. Among their latest stuff is an interview of Chris Evans, author of the Iron Elves series. (it’s also available in English for the non-bilingually oriented). They’re a portal for everything fantasy, but I really do love the fact that the new design makes the reviews very handy to read (I’m always interested in their take on things, and it’s quite informative to see how things come across in the French community–which I’m not really part of, with the whole writing-in-English thing).
-on that topic, I’m glad to see that Pyr has snapped up the US rights for Pierre Pevel’s The Cardinal’s Blades (swashbuckling à la Dumas, with dragons, translated by Bragelonne’s Tom Clegg). It’ll be interesting to see the reaction to that one.

So, we saw off 2009 in style, with a nice party, games (Citadels, Bang), and plenty of good food and drinks. Now it’s hangover time :=)

Still have to test out Korsar/Loot, which the BF gave me for my Christmas, which is apparently hilarious with a lot of people around the table (in case you’re wondering, I got him the Citadels and the Bang game. We apparently decided we needed more party games out of a common agreement).

Blog service is still minimum–will resume after Monday, when everything starts up again. I’m beefing up on the novel writing/WII playing (got the new Super Mario Bros and am slowly getting addicted to Harvest Moon, in spite of the %% loading times). And looking forward to some novel reading (including one I have to crit, and one for the Norton Award Jury).

Looming up in the coming week: the UK release of Servant of the Underworld (January 7th, way sooner than I’m ready for). I’m awaiting my copies with trepidation.

In the meantime, may you all have a great 2010, filled with awesomeness.