-Tess Gerritsen on “Non-white heros: the kiss of death in the marketplace” (I realised for the first time that Gerritsen herself was Chinese-American, something that was–I now realise–carefully passed up in bios and promo material, at least over here). And urk. I’d read a thriller with an Asian detective in a heartbeat…

-Cora Buhlert on “Women Writers, international writers, marginalised writers”. Towards the end, she speaks of the tendency to assume that ESL learners have bad English, a fact which I’m all too aware of: I have a stack of reviews which complain about the lack of fluency in my writing style, and what’s fascinating about those is that they all, without exception, were written by people who knew English wasn’t my native language. See Juliette Wade’s awesome post on the subject. It’s an interesting (if infuriating) phenomenon). Though nobody has been pressuring me yet to write more “French” stories. Thank goodness, I wouldn’t know where to start on those…

-Over at the World SF blog, Joyce Chng interviews Malay writer K.S. Augustin.

-Liz Wiliams on “Science Fiction reflects the extremes of human belief”

Yes, I know. Blog’s been fairly quiet. I’m chugging away on the novella, slowly rediscovering the joys of worldbuilding and writing (which took a big hit when my headspace was occupied by the job hunt, the flat renovation, and sundry RL items). Also, dealing with Harbinger of the Storm French translation, plus the edits for Master of the House of Darts just came in, and I realised I hadn’t written the acknowledgements or the historical footnotes at all. Darn. And I thought the summer was going to be quiet…

So, as some of you doubtless know, I’ll be in California/Nevada in the runup to Worldcon, roughly August 5th-August 16th. We’re mainly on romantic/catching-up-with-friends mode, but I did have time to plan one thing: I’ll be doing a reading, a Q&A and signing over at the excellent Borderlands Books, on Sunday, August 7th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm.
So, if you happen to be in the vicinity and want to meet me–and chat on writing stuff, Aztec stuff, or just life stuff–here’s a handy time and place!
(and it’s going to be my first and last US event for a while, because I’ve gone way over my yearly quota of travelling, and it’s unlikely I’ll be returning to the US till mid-2012–at best)

Also, if you have recommendations for restaurants and places to be while in San Francisco, this is the thread

A longish, crucial scene wrapped up.
Things included: dragon fruit. Longans. References to the Oath of the Peach Garden, and the poetry club in Dream of Red Mansions (which I think translates to Crab Flower Club, but I’m not too sure. My version has “Crab Apple Club”. I hope they’re the same plant or at least the same reference…). And another unwitting reference to Dream of Red Mansions.
Also, I might have been rather mean with a particular character. Ah well. Such is life. She’ll recover

Over at Speculate!, Brad Beaulieu and Gregory A Wilson are running a three-week special on Harbinger of the Storm: this week is the review of the book; next week will be an interview with me, and the following week will focus on writing techniques used within Harbinger.

Many thanks to Brad and Greg for the opportunity–not only did they read and dissect the book from cover to cover, they also arranged a three-way chat on Skype across three different time zones on a weekday, which is nothing short of heroic.

The podcast has featured authors such as K.J. Anderson, Patrick Rothfuss and N.K. Jemisin, and Brad and Greg have a palpable and infectious enthusiasm for all things genre. Go listen here, and check out past episodes, too!

In other shameless news, I opened my copy of Interzone 234 to discover that “The Shipmaker” had taken 4th place in the Readers’ Poll (behind Nina Allan’s “Flying in the Face of God” and two neat Jason Sanford stories), and that the illustration by Richard Wagner had tied for 1st place. Wow…

Had a lazy weekend, which involved much writing, eating Russian food (thanks to a friend who made us discover borscht, dressed herring, pierogi, and grilled pork), and of course Vietnamese food (a rather copious shrimp curry, thanks to my grandma).

Entering my second-to-last week of the job; also, entering French summer, which means everything suddenly is going very slowly, and people are unavailable… (frustrating). On the plus side, this week is the annual picnic of the department; I volunteered for salad. I hesitate to make bò bún, but I think I’ll go for a more classical French or Italian dish, if only because leftovers are more easily recycled.

In other, more exciting news, slowly filling in the holes on the novella, and answering a couple questions about the French translation of Harbinger of the Storm. The new novel project is going to be, er, an old one, ie revising Foreign Ghosts [2] before it is sent out. (with a side order of brainstorming sequels).

*rolls up sleeves*

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[1] Apologies for the inevitable spelling/usage mistakes: I’m doing my best to retranscribe from Cyrillic, but Russian is nowhere near my native language…
[2] Foreign Ghosts is the Xuya novel. In the words of the blurb I wrote a couple years ago:

The year is 2009–but the world is profoundly different. China’s discovery of America before Columbus has given rise to a West Coast ruled by Xuya, the former Chinese colony. Now, instead of San Francisco, the bustling metropolis of Fenliu is Xuya’s second-largest city, where Irish-Americans walk side by side with Aztec warrior-spies, and the vermillion-painted houses of Xuyan gentlemen-scholars contrast with the grime of Inca clan-compounds. Transportation is done by aircars and maglev trains; and technologies such as network sockets, communicators and weapons are routinely implanted into human bodies.

In this bewilderingly foreign world, PI Jonathan Brooks is desperately looking for a way to fit in. His latest gamble was to rent a flat in one of the posher Xuyan areas of town–but it backfired with the flat turned out to contain a cache of illegally imported mummies. Expropriated and considered a suspect, Brooks must discover the truth and clear his name before he is arrested and tortured.

But Brooks’ hurried and careless investigation may have unintended consequences: Fenliu is a city of many cultures, perpetually poised on the cusp of dislocation, and the racial riots of five years ago need only the flimsiest of excuses to flare up again…

-Tansy Rayner Roberts on Pratchett’s Women: the Boobs, the Bad, and the Broomsticks:

How rare is it to have a fantasy novel BY A MAN which is entirely about female characters? How rare to have a story with so many women in it that you don’t even need a romance because the women already have plenty to do?

-N.K. Jemisin on The Limitations of Womanhood in Fantasy

Why is it hard for a female character to be considered strong if she’s self-effacing or modest, for example? Lots of women who are trailblazers and asskicking heroes are modest. This is all of a piece with America’s ongoing devaluation of traditional women’s gender roles, like being a housewife. (Or a househusband; we also devalue men who chose “women’s work”.) I can’t remember the last American fantasy I read that starred a housewife. I’m hoping there are some out there — recommendations welcome — but offhand, I can’t think of any. But housewives can be great characters, if they’re written right.

Here’s the problem with this wholesale rejection of both societally-imposed and self-chosen “typical” women’s behaviors — in the end, it amounts to a rejection of nearly all things feminine. And that’s definitely not good for women.

-Max Barry on Dogs and Smurfs:

Let me walk you through it. We’ll start with dogs. I have written about this before, but to save you the click: people assume dogs are male. Listen out for it: you will find it’s true. (..) People assume animals are male. If you haven’t already noticed this, it’s only because it’s so pervasive. We also assume people are male, unless they’re doing something particularly feminine; you’ll usually say “him” about an unseen car driver, for example. But it’s ubiquitous in regard to animals.
(…)
Then you’ve got Smurf books. Not actual Smurfs. I mean stories where there are five major characters, and one is brave and one is smart and one is grumpy and one keeps rats for pets and one is a girl. Smurfs, right? Because there was Handy Smurf and Chef Smurf and Dopey Smurf and Painter Smurf and ninety-four other male Smurfs and Smurfette. Smurfette’s unique personality trait was femaleness. That was the thing she did better than anyone else. Be a girl.
(…)
Male is default. That’s what you learn from a world of boy dogs and Smurf stories.

Meanwhile, work is chugging along on the Novella that Wouldn’t Die. One more scene, and some recurring characters are finally started to show up (I know, it’s a bad sign when the Named Characters in your cast number above 10–for this length, at any rate).

The H and I just handed in our Hugo ballot. There’s until July 31st to read and vote, but we’re both really absent-minded, so better safe than sorry.

You can actually still register online, either as a full attending member, or as a supporting member if you’re not planning to attend the con. In both cases, you get the voters’ packet, which is chockfull of goodies, including awesome comics like Fables, and entire novels only available in hardcover. Well worth the (50$-) price of admission. Plus, of course, you get the right to vote for the Hugos–and, like any popular awards, the Hugos are determined by their voters. If you’re happy/unhappy/angry with the Hugos, now is the chance to make your voice heard!

(and, while you’re at it, if you have a moment to consider my story “The Jaguar House, in Shadow” for Best Novelette, I’d be really honoured and grateful)

Ginger and pepper mutually reinforce each other’s taste when put in the same dish.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off looking for a big bottle of water.

Electric Velocipede are revamping their website to prepare for their launch as a e-zine. In the runup to that, they’re republishing fiction from their previous issues online. Among which is “The Dragon’s Tears”. Probably the best description of this is that I wrote as a homage to the Chinese fairytales I read when I was a child–I wasn’t very up to date on historical research then, but I think I nailed the feeling I got when I was six or seven, and immersed in a big fat book of wonderful stories with dragons, immortal carpenters, and crabby Iron-Crutch Li, where everything and everyone could turn out to be magical (and possibly deadly. That’s part of the deal with magical people).
Also, as Anne S. Zanoni points out, she sent me one of the sweetest mails ever after she proofread this–I’m a big Patricia McKillip fan, so being compared to her while I still felt like a raw newbie was, well, pretty magical…

Huan Ho sealed the last window, leaving only a crack in the shutter. Tonight, he thought, his eye on the empty streets, the neighbours’ barred shutters. Tonight he had to pass the door on the hill, or let the sickness take his mother.

Read more here, and do check out the rest of the cool stuff while you’re there.

Emmanuel Chastellière very kindly interview me for Elbakin, the French fantasy website. You can find the interview here.