Just a heads-up on the website that the ebook edition has gone up on amazon. You can find it here: amazon.com|amazon.co.uk|amazon.fr.

Meanwhile, am still jet lagged. Will go grab breakfast.

Ebook cover

Aka the shiny… Art courtesy of Nhan Y Doanh, and cover layout thanks to Janice Hardy–thanks to both of them for putting up with my (short-term) deadlines and producing such beautiful things. (MC is Linh; the older woman in lower right-hand corner is Quyen. Slightly more detailed view of the original watercolour is here if you’re interested, since Doanh had to cut bits of it off to fit the cover format).

The ebook should be live on amazon within a day or two if I didn’t screw up the Kindle upload…

(and remember you can still get the limited edition hardback with Melissa Gay’s artwork direct from Immersion Press, while stocks last…)

3000 words, tentatively titled “The Moon over Red Trees”. Major cleanup needed, but I have draft!

Night over The Red Trees. Clarisse rises from the bed, casting a glance at the moon that slowly seeps into the room. Raoul, asleep in his bed with his arms outstretched towards her, groans and shifts, looking for her, but he does not wake up. He used to, when she first came here months ago; but he soon got used to her wandering through the house every night–and tonight of all nights, he knows she won’t be able to sleep.

Within her, the magic pulses–a steady beat like the waves of the sea, like the call of a drum–but she’s been listening to it for months, and she knows this night is its last night. After all, nothing lasts forever, not even the spirits’ gifts.

Tonight is a time for endings. 

In a “good news never come alone” kind of thing, got news this morning that “Scattered Along the River of Heaven” and “Immersion” were both finalists for the Sturgeon Award. The complete list of finalists can be found here  (and yes, Ken Liu is also in fine form this year ).

If you need me, I’ll be busy squeeing…

Er.
Wow.
Apparently “Immersion” and On a Red Station, Drifting are both finalists for the Locus Awards (best short story and best novella, respectively).
I’m on a freaking shortlist with Ursula Le Guin. *faints*

Congrats to all my fellow nominees, and best of luck to everyone!
(I won’t be at the Awards ceremony, sadly. End of June is way past the time when I’m allowed transatlantic flights, so I’ll be content with cheering everyone on).

In other Red Station news, I can confirm we’re on track for a release of the ebook at the end of May (maybe earlier if I can tackle it before I leave for the US, but not guaranteed). And I have seen the new cover sketches and they are awesome.

-”Two Sisters In Exile” will be reprinted in David G. Hartwell’s Year’s Best Science Fiction, out from Tor sometime this year. Haven’t seen a TOC yet, but I know the volume contains at least “The Waves” from Ken Liu–nice company to be in :p

-Also quite pleased to announce I sold my novelette “Memorials” to Asimov’s. This one took a lot of work whipping into shape, so many thanks to Ken Liu, Bo Balder, Joe Crow, Pam Wallace–and special ones to Tricia Sullivan, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz and Benjanun Sriduangkaew for keeping up my faith in the story.

Snippet:

Cam finds Pham Thi Thanh Ha in her house, as she expected. By now, she doesn’t question the aunts’ knowledge or how they came by it. She does what she’s told to, an obedient daughter beholden to her elders, never raising a fuss or complaining– the shining example of filial piety extolled in the tales her girlfriend Thuy so painstakingly reconstitutes in her spare hours.

Set in the postcolonial corner of Xuya (except no mindships this time around!). With my favourite secondary characters ever, the cabal of aunts who know what is good for you (even if you don’t!).

I tend not to stop when I’m writing a draft, unless it’s for something really vital (for instance, the precise headdress that someone is wearing is something I can always work out later; the layout of the rooms where the nobleman was murdered and that my characters are searching is rather more vital to the way the scene plays out, and requires me to have actually done the research/invention/work). Accordingly, my first (and subsequent) drafts are peppered with little notes to myself, that I generally smooth out in the next revision.

I stole a leaf from a friend’s book, who marks such places in his manuscripts with @; except I upgraded to square brackets because 1. there’s less risk of me accidentally using them in anything, and 2. Square brackets enable me to see the beginning and the end of my own annotations.

(cut for length) Read More »

Other Half of the Sky cover

Today is the release date for The Other Half of the Sky, Athena Andreadis’s and Kay Holt’s amazing anthology of space opera with female protagonists (with Elena Tsami’s stunning cover art). Contains my postcolonial Xuya continuity story “The Waiting Stars” (with mindships, and attack drones; and cousins making snarky comments at each other), as well as stories by Ken Liu, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Nisi Shawl, Vandana Singh and many other fine writers.

You can buy direct from Candlemark and Gleam here, either the physical copy or the ebook (and physical copies come with a DRM-free ebook), or on amazon. If not in the US, check the Book depository here.

And, if you still need extra motivation, check out the reviews, interview and excerpt website here.

Tentative title: “The Frost on Jade Buds”
Snippet:

On the comms-image, Chi looked much as Thuy remembered her: tall and thin and dour, almost skeletal, as if what had had happened to her in her youth still stifled her metabolism–and, in truth, perhaps it did. Neither Thuy nor any of the family–or, indeed, any inhabitant of the Scattered Pearls Belt–really knew the full extent of what happened to her, or how to reverse it.
“You look well, elder sister,” Chi said. The words would have suited the imperial court; would have been appropriate for an elder of Chi’s generation. There were other, more familiar ones, more suitable for the sister’s of one’s blood; and Chi could have used them. She could have pretended to care. But of course she no longer bothered.

With two mindsships–and orbitals–and horrific weapons!

And why, yes, I procrastinate by writing Xuya mindship stories (well, OK, not quite procrastination, it was a commission). Now to clean up the mess of the first draft…

For everyone who missed it yesterday on twitter, I can confirm there will be an ebook of On a Red Station, Drifting, for sale on amazon (and on other platforms if I work out the principles of the thing. Have only ever done Kindle for Scattered Among Strange Worlds).

The e-edition should have a different cover than the paper book, and Immersion Press will continue to sell that as a limited edition hardback (just as a reminder, there were only 200 copies of those printed, and they’re going fast, so if you want to grab one, head over to their website). It will be a self-published edition; release date will be May or beginning of June, depending on how much energy I have and how soon we can get the new cover done.

Watch this space for more news as I have them.