So, for the curious amongst us, here’s my cookie recipe (which I love to bits, because it’s not too sweet). Beware, the quantities involved are astronomical. This easily makes 30-40 cookies; my usual batch size is perhaps half of this.

You will need:

For the basic dough
180g butter
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1.5 tsp baking soda (about 5g)
2 eggs
1.5 teaspoon salt

For the garnish
0.75 cups chopped nuts (90g)
0.75 cup oats
1.5 cups chocolate chips (100g)

Preheat oven to 175°C.

Melt the butter, and wait for it to cool. Meanwhile, chop up what needs to be chopped for the garnish, into parts as small as you like. Mix all the ingredients for the dough, and then fold in the garnish elements. Mix thoroughly.

Fill a bowl with water, and keep it handy, along with a fork. On a metal plate, put small-sized balls of dough (a handful), and then use the fork, dipped in water, to crush them into flat shapes. Put into the oven, leave for around 15 minutes. The cookies should be golden but still moist. Take out of the oven, put them on a drying rack, and start again until the dough runs out.

There you go! They’ll keep for a while, if you keep them in a biscuit box or some other suitable container.

Variants:
Tons. The cookies I made for Eastercon, which are the ones pictured above, were made by replacing the chocolate chips by 100g chocolate, which I melted with the butter. You can also vary the garnish, of course: I’ve used raisins, berries, other nuts, peeled and candied oranges… Whatever you feel like. I usually replace in equal volumes, so about 3 cups of garnish all in all, but your mileage might vary.
I do like to keep the oats because it keeps the cookies crunchy, but they’re not compulsory either.

And now I’ll leave you, as I’m about to try a dangerous cooking experiment–namely, replicating something I once ate in a restaurant…

So, this is what I’ll be getting up to:

Saturday, 12:30-2:00pm, Waterstone’s Birmingham High Street: Angry Robot signing

Saturday, from 4pm, Churchill: Angry Robot signing
Yes, this is the AR afternoon. Featuring Lavie Tidhar, Lauren Beukes, Colin Harvey, John Meaney/Thomas Blackthorne, Dan Abnett, Andy Remic, and Ian Whates (hope I haven’t forgotten anyone…). Come see us!

Sunday, 7:30pm-9:00pm, Gladstone: Author reading with the fabulous Simon Morden.

(full programme grid here, though lacking the names of participants)

I was on a panel, but sadly it looks like I can’t be signing and panelling at the same time…

Also, not making any promises, but there should be some baking happening before Eastercon–think sweet things

Otherwise, I’ll be in the bar. Not sure yet about my arrival time, but I should be operational Friday late evening (10:00pm-ish), and I’ll be leaving Monday in the afternoon. Looking forward to seeing some of you there!

ETA: adjusted schedule to reflect new signing times (there’s a snafu with the grids, which is that they only work modulo 90 minutes…)

OWW buddy Cécile Cristofari is looking to sell an attending membership to Eastercon, following circumstances who make it impossible for her to attend. It would go for 60 euros–about 50 pounds, slightly cheaper than the current rate over at the Eastercon website.

If you are interested–or know anyone who is interested–ping me, and I’ll pass it on.
(any reposts/RTs much appreciated. Thanks!)

Have been sitting on this since yesterday evening: the tireless Donna Scott let me know my Interzone short story “The Shipmaker” has made the shortlist in the Best Short Fiction category. Where it’s, er, up against some very stiff competition by Nina Allan, Peter Watts, and Neil Williamson.

Wow?

While I go for a liedown, you can go congratulate Lauren Beukes, whose Zoo City is on the shortlist for Best Novel. And indeed, everyone else on the list (it’s quite an impressive rollcall).

The Award Ceremony will take place at this year’s Eastercon in Birmingham–any members of the BSFA/Eastercon can vote. I’ll see about getting the story up online.

As usual–many many thanks to everyone who nominated it, to Andy Cox and Andy Hedgecock for publishing it in the first place, and to the BSFA Awards administrator, Donna Scott, for so quickly tallying up the votes.

ETA: an online version is now available here. Thanks for Andy Cox for the sheer reaction speed.

-Paul Cornell on ebooks: some terrific points (the one on reader vs. publisher expectations on hardbacks was one of those “oh, of course” moments). Well worth a read. And, if you read this blog, you should know I’m cheering on for point 14, and adding a few choice words specific to those poor, benighted people like me who want to read in one language different from the authorised one in their region. At least with DVDs you get a choice of subtitles. And dear God, point 16–yes. Definitely point 16. If I have to pay for an ebook, I want a proper table of content–at the very least.
-Courtesy of Roberto Quaglia (and Ian Watson, who was doing the filming at the time), the video of last year’s Eastercon panel on “Writing in English as a Foreign Language” (with Roberto, Gérard Kraus, Anna Ferruglio Dal Dan, and Claude Lalumière, who actually was with me on the exact same panel at the 2008 worldcon–except it was in French )
-And now for something lighter (via Lee Harris and Mark Charan Newton): automatic Daily Mail headline generator. As Lee says, not quite 100% accurate, but still scarily on the mark.

Off to wrap the last Christmas present now. See you later

In no particular order:

-Cheese is considered a gel or a paste and, as such, is not allowed in a cabin luggage. It would be nice if a. They actually advertised this elsewhere than after your luggage got stuck at security, and b. they didn’t make you wait ten minutes while they search someone else’s luggage to tell you this. It would have spared me some careening through the airport trying to get the luggage checked in, in time to make my flight (for the record: I had to plead a bit with Air France, but I managed to check it in about 3 minutes before check-in closed). If I were feeling optimistic, I’d go for c. they should make it easier to check in your luggage with its “illegal” items (of which they are now so many I feel like giving up), at the very least by making it easy to go back to the check-in counters (I had to basically go out the airport and come back again), or even (God forbid) have a checkin counter at security. But, you know, that would be cheating.

-Jetse de Vries throws a mean launch party (but I already knew that). The Shine launch party was filled with good alcohol, good food (the aforementioned cheese), and plenty of awesome people. Got a chance to chat to some UK-based friends, as well as to Ellen Datlow (who was over for Worldcon), and a number of other contributors to the anthology: Gareth L. Powell, Eva Maria Chapman, and Alastair Reynolds (well, strictly speaking, I caught Alastair in the dealers’ room on Monday morning, but it still counts).

-It was good to see people again (in particular to be rooming with Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, who is in the process of being co-opted into the convention circuit). Also had many great conversations about immigration, identity, and Asian immigration in particular with a number of people throughout the con (somewhat depressing that countries seemed to become more and more closed to foreigners from the “wrong” parts of the world, but overall it gave me a lot of food for thought)

-Went to a few panels, but not many. I survived my own (the one about Writing in a Foreign Language, which was very interesting, as we had a group of people with very different experiences of English), and I think I made it to two others (one about Clarke, and one about whether there was a time limit on SF novels). Spent way too much time schmoozing and drinking and talking, as usual

-I am not a night person. Was up early most mornings (8:00am-ish), tried to talk past 1:00am in the evening–and ended up going for what I assumed was a short nap Sunday evening at 8:00pm. Yeah, right. Woke up at 11:30pm and wandered down to find the con winding down. Grr.

-The dealer’s room is starting to be dangerous for me–but not for the reasons you’d think. Going to three Eastercons means I’m starting to know a lot of people, and as a result it was hard for me to wander down the aisles quietly (also, I’m a surprisingly chatty person in the company of like-minded people).

-Goodies. What I love about this eastercon team (same one that put together Eastercon 2008, both most impressive cons in terms of organisation) is that they give a mug in the goodies bag, which is awesome. I also got an extra mug courtesy of Carl Rafala of Immersion Press, who had printed out personalised mugs for all the authors in his forthcoming The Immersion Book of Science Fiction. And in the way of books, I got myself a copy of Ian McDonald’s King of Morning, Queen of Day (great urban fantasy), Mary Gentle’s Golden Witchbreed, Eric Brown’s Helix, Lavie Tidhar and Nir Yaniv’s The Tel-Aviv Dossier (courtesy of the Chizine team), and Daniel Fox’s Jade Man’s Skin, the follow up to the great Chinese/Taiwanese-flavoured fantasy Dragon in Chains.

Well, looks like that’s all I have in the way of con reporting. Eastercon is still one of my fave cons: it’s big but not too big, it’s handy to get to (no transatlantic flights), it’s always very nicely run, and lots of awesome people are there.
So, until Birmingham…

…I’m going to Eastercon at Heathrow. Starting to feel quite excited, as I’ll have a chance to see people I haven’t spoken to in a while. Sadly not able to take my Friday off as I originally intended, but I still hope to have a good time.

I can haz programming as well this year:
Saturday, Noon-1pm, Hotel Lobby: Open Autograph Session. If you want Servant of the Underworld signed… And if you don’t have the book, I have bookmarks to hand out.

Saturday, 2pm-3pm, 41 (Winchester): Writing in English as a Foreign Language. In which I meet up with Claude Lalumiere again (we were on a panel together on that very same subject at Worldcon–but in French and for a very reduced audience).

Saturday, 6pm, Royal C+D (Edwd/Vic), Book Launch Party – Shine. Drinks, French cheese and other munchies, and the chance to meet Jetse de Vries, Alastair Reynolds, Gareth L Powell and Eva Maria Chapman. Come join us for food and fun!

Otherwise, I’ll be hanging around, probably near the bar. Don’t hesitate to say hi–I should be relatively easy to spot :=)