So… the results of my cooking experiments, aka, Filipino puto (more or less this recipe, dividing the quantities by 4, switching the amounts of milk and water around, and replacing the margarine by oil). Basically, a simple process: instead of steaming in a steamer, put the mixture in the rice cooker and bake it there… It went mostly well, except for the slight snafu, which had me folding the baking powder into the beaten egg and causing the expanding reaction to be wasted on, er, a beaten egg… Hence the slightly flat look of the thing: it was meant to rise much higher [1]. Also, it’s missing toppings–apparently, grated coconut is nice on it, but the H doesn’t like coconut… But it’s fairly nice all the same.

I do have to add that cooking a cake in the rice cooker is not for the faint of heart: after beating all the ingredients together, you put them into the rice cooker, set it on “cake”, press the button, and trust that the cooker is smart enough to work out the optimal baking time… (yes, I know I’m trusting it to cook perfect rice. Yes, it’s perfectly irrational).

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[1] We discussed this on facebook, but I’m not quite sold on the explanation that the thing didn’t rise because of the low temperature and non-stick coating in the cooker–many blogs mention baking cakes in rice cookers with no trouble, and now that I’ve had time to reflect on the whole non-stick thing, I’ve baked cakes in non-stick molds before, and they rose all right… Any pointers welcome, but I’m inclined to suspect my bad timing with the baking powder…

I realised I forgot to post this:

(yes, my shiny BSFA award on my desk. It came back from the UK in two pieces, but fortunately the H is a dab hand with the glue…)

So, finally… (apologies for the tardiness of this, I was very, very busy throughout last week, and when I finally had some time, I couldn’t get hold of the pictures Matthieu had taken).

Imaginales is a French con dedicated to fantasy (its “sister” con, Utopiales in Nantes, is more focused on SF). I’d never been before, but Stéphanie Nicot very kindly invited me, and so gave me the opportunity to discover Epinal.

Imaginales is pretty much the event of the weekend in May: you arrive at the train station and face the first of many billboards advertising the festival, listing all the authors. Unlike Anglophone cons, which are often put together and run by dedicated fans, Imaginales has the support of the town hall (and area council, …), and they put on quite an amazing show. They have strong ties to the restaurants, hotels and high schools of the area (teachers organise visits; authors drop by for chats, and every year artists paint a fresco which is later donated to a high school); and entrance to the event is free for everyone, which insures a very steady flow of local people curious to see the wares. There’s even a special Imaginales vintage (repackaged wine probably, but still cool).

Pretty much the centrepiece is the book tent, which is a ginormous space with a looooong set of tables, where each author has a spot: you sit there behind your books and sign stuff for whoever feels like buying. It helps if you think of it as a cross between a book fair (a Salon du Livre, if you’ve ever been) and an Anglophone con: there are a few events on programming (2-3 tracks), a gaming tent, and a café area, but the heart of the show is the book tent.

Two views of the book tent with authors signing (and yes, if you look closely at the first pic, I’m the second author on the right, behind the man in the orange T-shirt)

As an opportunity to meet readers, chat and peddle books, it’s pretty much invaluable; though I did feel it was a bit less convivial for meeting other authors, since you do end up sitting behind your table most of the time, and the café area is small and mostly used for restful moments rather than for impromptu meetings (unlike Utopiales, where everyone ends up in the bar). Might just be me; especially since I have close to zero experience of French cons, and don’t know many people in the French publishing industry either. And because of…

The small café space to the left of the book tent

The magic mirror (aka the space for panels)

Well, to put it bluntly, it was also a very bad idea to do the Nebulas and Imaginales back-to-back, since I arrived pretty much knackered from the Nebulas, and not in a mood for socialising (I’m not the world’s most social butterfly, and two weekends of constantly reaching out to people does take its toll, especially if you factor in jet-lag).

In spite of all of this, it was an amazing event: I had a very cool panel on “Rewriting History” with Eric Holstein, Johann Heliot and Pierre Bordage, where we discussed alternate histories; and a nice, well-attended interview with Stéphanie Nicot on “Being French and writing in English”. There was also great food in the many nice restaurants of Epinal–we had awesome couscous, flammekueche(s), cakes, … And, of course, I saw old friends, met new people (including a couple of Anglophones invited by the festival), and generally had a great time.

We also acquired a ton of books–the H is currently engrossed in Pierre Bordage’s latest space opera pentalogy, “La Fraternité du Panca” (The Panca Brotherhood); and I have the complete set of Elisabeth Vonarburg’s “Reine de Mémoire” (Queen of Memory), an amazing alternate history of France and its Indochinese colonies. Promises many sleepless nights…

So, awesome con; just that next year, I will make sure not to do two events back-to-back…

-“Dom Jaguara pogrążony w cieniu” (“The Jaguar House, in Shadow” in Polish), courtesy of polter.pl. With nifty illustrations, and a complementary author interview! Courtesy of Bartek, Izabela ‘Isabell’ Mazur, Bartłomiej ‘baczko’ Łopatka, and Artur ‘mr_mond’ Nowrot
-בונת הספינות (“The Shipmaker” in Hebrew) at sf-f.org.il. Courtesy of Ehud Maimon, and Ibar Inbar Grinstein (not entirely sure I got the names right, as this is the one page I cannot make head or tail of all fixed now!)
-“Constructorul de nave” (“The Shipmaker” in Romanian) at srsff.ro, courtesy of Cristian Tamas, and Antuza Genescu.
-“Casa Jaguarului, în umbră” (“The Jaguar House, in Shadow” in Romanian) at srsff.ro. Same culprits as above
-D’Obsidienne et de Sang, of course, the French translation of Servant of the Underworld, courtesy of Eclipse. My awesome pretty pretty softcover edition
-and a forthcoming French translation of “Jaguar House” (“Quand l’ombre se répand sur la Maison Jaguar”) in Galaxies, courtesy of Pierre Gévart and Camille Thérion, which I’m currently rereading…

Still holding out for a Spanish translation, which would amuse me (because of the Mexico connection, and also because I speak the language…) But pretty darn happy with all of these.

So… the humongous rice cooker has among its many functions a “cake” setting, and I’m intrigued… Any good recipes for rice cooker cakes? Are we talking about regular cake baking, or steam baking, or something in between? (I ask because I’ve got a bunch of recipes for steamed cakes, and was wondering whether they’d work)

Inquiring minds want to know (well, OK, the H said he didn’t want to know, but I reckon it’s worth a try)

Hmm, what can I say about X-men? First, that clearly the recruiting pitch of the bad guys is way superior than that of the good guys. In no particular order:

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To Stéphanie Nicot (organiser of the French con Imaginales among many other activities), and her companion Elise, for tying the knot yesterday at the town hall of Nancy!

(you can actually see them both here, via big French daily Le Figaro, which covered this because of the–somewhat crazy–legal situation: homosexual weddings are still not allowed in France, but since they didn’t allow Stéphanie to change gender on the records, I guess it sort of worked out. Sort of…
ETA: don’t look at the comments on the article if you don’t want to get depressed at the general state of human tolerance and intelligence…)

Following excellent posts by Nicola Griffith and Cheryl Morgan on Women’s invisibility (if you missed the twitter storm, this started off as a Guardian article asking people to name their favorite SF–which mentioned more than 500 books in the comments, out of which only 18 women…), it’s high time I play my part in redressing the balance…

Part of the problem, as Cheryl and Nicola both point out, is that best-of lists tend to be made by men, and that it’s been proved that while women will read men and women equally, men tend to read and remember men (and women tend not to volunteer for voting or for making such lists in the first place). So it’s a vicious circle in which men continue to predominate on awards lists, and to be enshrined in history while women mostly slip by the wayside.

Accordingly, I’m making my list of favorite novels written by women. Pretty much no criteria (I’m no good at Golden Age SF, since the only authors in that batch I read were Asimov and Zelazny; and I came very late to fantasy): only that I read and enjoyed the book. Here you go, my recs:

SF
Dust, Chill and Grail, Elizabeth Bear
Moxyland, Lauren Beukes
Miles Vorkosigan series, Lois McMaster Bujold
Golden Witchbreed, Mary Gentle
The Dispossessed, Ursula Le Guin
China Mountain Zhang, Maureen McHugh
The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell
The Snow Queen, Joan Vinge
Empire of Bones, Liz Williams

Fantasy
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley (as Kari Sperring points out, the history in this one is rubbish. Nevertheless, as a revisionist version of a well-known myth from a female POV, it’s definitely seminal)
The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper
Crown of Stars series, Kate Elliott
Tamir trilogy by Lynn Flewelling
Ash, Mary Gentle
The Liveship Traders, Robin Hobb
Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner
Cyrion, Tanith Lee
The Book of Atrix Wolfe, Patricia McKillip

What about you? What are your favorite genre books written by women? Feel free to make your own list! (whether you’re a woman or not, BTW. We need more people celebrating women in the genre)

ETA: additions suggested in comments:

SF
Virtual Death, Shale Aaron
Happy Policeman and Brother Termite, Patricia Anthony
Catherine Asaro
Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
All the Windwracked Stars and sequels, Elizabeth Bear
The Darkover series, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler (and other books)
Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh (and other books)
The Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins
The Mount, Carol Emshwiller
Sarah Canery, Karen Joy Fowler
C.S. Freidman
Slow River, Nicola Griffith
God’s War, Kameron Hurley
The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Lear’s Daughters duology, Marjorie Bradley Kellogg
Nancy Kress
A Different Light, Elizabeth Lynn
Dragonriders of Pern, The Talent series, Anne McCaffrey
The Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon
The Healer’s War, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Virtual Girl, Amy Thompson
Star of the Guardians, Margaret Weis
Uncharted Territory, Connie Willis
Looking for the Mahdi, N Lee Wood

Fantasy
Blood and Iron and sequels, Elizabeth Bear
The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
Santa Olivia, Jacqueline Carey
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Susannah Clarke
Deverry series, Katherine Kerr
The Farseer trilogy, Robin Hobb
The Fox Woman, Kij Johnson
His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi Novik
The Earthsea Cycle, Ursula Le Guin
Lavinia, Ursula Le Guin
Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link
The Riddle-Master trilogy, Patricia McKillip
The Folding Knife, KJ Parker (assuming KJ Parker is indeed a woman)
The Orphan’s Tales, Catherynne Valente
Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner