Still snowed under, but I did want to make sure this was out there as people were filling out their ballots…

Hugo nominations deadline is on March 10th; I’ve already put up an awards recommendation post  (and supplementary recs here). But since the Hugos include non-fiction categories, I thought I’d add a few more recommendations in that direction:

Best Fanzine:

Both the World SF Blog and Europa SF have done a great job of taking SF past the Western Anglophone bias that still dominates the field: Europa SF is mainly focused on Europe whereas the scope of the World SF blog is a bit larger. Both have interesting and varied features, and I think their nominations would add diversity to the field.

Best Fan Writer:

Abigail Nussbaum and Aishwarya Subramanian are two blogs I read regularly. They both write fiercely intelligent, detailed posts on genre (and non-genre) books, and have led me to many an unsuspected treasure.

(btw, because people have asked: yup, On a Red Station, Drifting is eligible for the Best Novella Hugo; if you’re a Hugo or Nebula voter and you’re interested in reading it, contact me–for Nebula voters, it’s in the SFWA forums as part of the Nebula Awards voting packet).

Paul Weimer was kind enough to ask me to take part in a Mind Meld on Food in Science Fiction vs Fantasy. You can find it here; lots of food for thought (pun intended :p).

Haven’t been posting a lot, and it doesn’t look like things are going to get better (RL still throwing everything it can at me ). I’m on twitter a bit more if you want to know what I’m up to–those days it’s mostly funny articles, cute animal pictures and the occasional rant.

I’ll try to have author’s notes up for the upcoming “The Weight of a Blessing” in Clarkesworld. And then I’ll go back to hibernating…

In the meantime, have a cute video of an otter shooting basketball hoops (thanks to Farah Mendlesonh).

And because good news obviously don’t come alone… Please to announce that I’ve sold my Xuya story “The Weight of a Blessing” to Clarkesworld. I started this while on the Rainy Writers’ Workshop in Brittany, and had a long… reflexion period to basically come to the conclusion I needed to take a baseball bat to my existing scenes and change the existing structure to better reflect the plot arc. This is part of my “Vietnamese in space” series with the Rong people (the same as in “Immersion”). It’s also, er, a somewhat angry story about colonialism, cultural legacies and virtual realities. Should be in the March issue of Clarkesworld.

Many thanks to Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Tricia Sullivan, and the WIB writers’ groups (Dario Ciriello, Traci Morganfield, Juliette Wade, Keyan Bowes, Genevieve Williams) for their sharp eyes and wonderful advice.

Snippet:

On her third visit to Sarah—on the last occasion that she sees her daughter, even if it is only in V-space—Minh Ha says nothing. There are no words left, no message of comfort that she could give her.

Instead, she takes Sarah’s hand, holds it tight until the last of the warmth has leached from her body into her daughter’s—and braces herself for the future.

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Even in the visitors’ V-space, Sarah looked awful—thin and wasted and so ethereal that Minh Ha wanted to take her daughter home and ply her with rich dish after rich dish to bring some fat back on her bones. But, of course, it was too late for that—had been too late ever since the much publicised arrest and the even more publicised trial, all the grandstanding that had brought a taste of bile in Minh Ha’s throat.

So, some of you might remember that I repeatedly said (on twitter and elsewhere) that my Immersion Press novella On a Red Station, Drifting, published by a small UK press, was not eligible for a Nebula and that it wasn’t worth voting for it?

Fast forward to yesterday evening, when my phone rings in the middle of my chopping potatoes–I pick up, and am somewhat surprised to hear the lovely Kate Baker, who asks me whether I want to accept Nebula nominations for  “Immersion”  and On a Red Station, Drifting.

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My second or third reflex (after the “OMG OMG ” stage) was double-checking to see that the novella was indeed eligible and that this hadn’t been a horrible mistake somewhere (yes, paranoid. Why do you ask?). That was when I realised that what mattered to the Nebulas (as confirmed by the Nebula Awards commissioner Tom Doyle) was territory of sale and not location of publisher. And that, since the book was on sale everywhere including the US, it was indeed eligible for the Nebulas.

At which point I naturally felt very very silly, and very humbled that in spite of my shooting myself in the foot, people had kindly voted for the novella…

So thank you very much to everyone who voted for “Immersion” and for On a Red Station, Drifting; and to my editors Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace at Clarkesworld, and Carmelo Rafala at Immersion Press, as well as to everyone who helped me writing those and who tided me over during the long dark teatimes of the writerly soul.

Meanwhile, I’ll be off recovering from massive shock…

(full list of nominees here–congratulations to all my friends on the ballots, but especially happy to see Ken Liu taking over the world once more, and Helena Bell getting well-deserved recognition for her awesome short fiction)

(aka mì hoành thánh: noodles with wontons)

Aka one of my Sunday lazy dishes: I buy the wontons pre-made from the XIIIe Arrondissement, and then make the soup come together fairly quickly. The version in the picture lacks a bit of vegetables: I’d usually throw in two handfuls of fresh spinach/ arugula, or one bok choy (all per person), in addition to the spring onions–except of course I seldom have greens left in my fridge on a Sunday evening! It’s a fairly effortless dish that only requires a bit of attention while it’s simmering on the stove.

Noodle soup

I’m pretty sure the traditional recipe for this doesn’t include the sesame oil or the five-spices, but I really like the taste of the broth with those two ingredients thrown on.

Just thought I’d repost this here if you have anything you can spare: Singaporean SFF writer Joyce Chng (J. Damask) is going through a bit of a sticky pass at the moment due to repeated hospitalisation of the family cat on top of other health issues. If you have a moment and want to buy books and/or swag, please head here.
Any signal boosts much, much appreciated.

Ran a laundry; decided to make nước màu (caramel sauce) in my cast-iron enamelled pot (which was a welcome change from the bad saucepan I used the last time). The sauce is cooling as we speak; I’ll be hunting for a jam pot next. Have to say oven mitts are great for protection during the risky endeavour of heating up sugar…

Now I’m off to spread the laundry to dry. Ah, heady days…

(also bought a copy of Nigella Lawson’s How to Eat, and am currently reading it with fascination. She’s a smart no-nonsense cook and a lot of her advice resonates with me even though our cooking reflexes aren’t exactly on the same spectrum due to different sources).

So… have just finished Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina–I bought it mainly because it was recommended to me as a great portrayal of a mixed-race protagonist: its eponymous heroine is half-dragon, half-human in a world where a fragile peace reigns between the two species. Seraphina is the Music Mistress at the court of the human queen of Goredd, where she passes as human in order to avoid the deep-seated prejudice and fear engendered by dragons (who are able to take human form but are betrayed by their silver blood and their odd smell).

It’s an intriguing setup; but in the end, I’m sad to report I was somewhat disappointed by Seraphina and its portrayal of race relationships.

(rambly musings about prejudice and passing)
Read More »

Aka thịt kho tàu: braised pork (that takes care of the first two words; kind of unsure what “tàu” means, my dictionary suggests “Chinese”, which seems a bit odd, but why not). This is a classic, hearty family dish that’s often part of a Tết spread (along with bánh chưng and other classics); best spooned over rice and with some kind of pickled veggies to offset the richness. Recipe mostly made up through peering at a few posts and at my Vietnamese recipe book.

The traditional version of this uses pork belly, but I thought it was a bit of a fat overdose and went for a mixture of half pork belly half pork shoulder (you do want fatty pieces of the pork though, don’t take filet mignon). I also upped the number of eggs to have one per person, but it’s purely a matter of taste (the traditional eggs for this are ducks’ eggs, which are way smaller and allow people to each have their own!).

You’ll need nước màu (caramel sauce) to make this: you can buy it at your local Asian market, but it’s far cheaper to make your own. See here for instructions (not for the faint of heart!).

Thit kho tau

And here’s the recipe: