The longlist for France’s Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire has been released, and, er, D’Obsidienne et de Sang on there a great number of times–the novel’s longlisted for Best Foreign Novel, my wonderful translator Laurent Philibert-Caillat is longlisted for Best Translator for his translations of my book and Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City, and my cover for the French edition (produced by Larry Rostant) is also longlisted for Best Work of Art.

Er, wow?

Many congrats to Lauren Beukes for doing a similar triptych, to Lionel Davoust for being longlisted for Best French Novel, and to ezine Angle Mort for making the list!

(shortlist is due out at the end of March, winners announced in May)

After a lot of fighting the thing with scissors, I opened it, and behold:

I have my contrib copies of Master of the House of Darts!

To celebrate, I’m giving away ten copies of the book. 5 are up at Goodreads (and I’ll note the giveaway is available worldwide). Another 5 are up for grabs here: the difference with the Goodreads ones is that I’m trading those for a review of the book posted on your blog or on amazon (I have a slight pref. for amazon because the book hasn’t been getting a lot of signal boost, but do post wherever you want on the Internet, and whatever you feel about the book–more than a few sentences, of course–and you’re obviously free to say if you didn’t like it). First come, first served. I’ll sign and personalise them if you so require.

Memo: you don’t have to have read the previous books in the trilogy to make sense of this one; it’s a standalone like an episode of a crime series, though obviously character arcs get wrapped (last book of the trilogy, yadda yadda). Post here or in the LJ mirror if you want to give a copy a good home.

ETA: wow, thanks everyone! All copies offered through aliettedebodard.com are gone now, but you can still get the ones from goodreads by entering the giveaway, as indicated above (you have until January 8th).

Oh, and, now that AR has officially announced it: there will be an Obsidian and Blood omnibus! Called Obsidian and Blood, it will gather all three books in one handy paperback (or ebook), and will be released in July 2012. More details here (not much for the moment other than ISBNs, but there should be some cover art at some point).

Costs £13 or $16, depending on whether you’re in the US or UK, and £8 as an ebook, about or less than the price of two volumes–so, if you’ve got fewer than 2 Obsidian and Blood books and want a complete set in a nice package, you know where to head…

Meanwhile, if anyone’s read Master of the House of Darts and wants to post a few reviews on amazon, I’d be very grateful, ’cause I can’t say the book’s getting a lot of attention at the moment…

In other news, finished a short story (which ended up being called “Breath of the Nine Dragons”), about a Japanese-funded project in the Me Kong delta–which probably has the dubious honour of mangling both the Vietnamese and the Japanese culture in the same 7000 words…
And got my UPS package (a self-printed cookbook from Lulu, which has already started falling apart. As you might guess, I wouldn’t advise using Lulu for hardcovers, or maybe I’ve been very unlucky in my particular copy…)
Next up: novella revisions, and some desultory research into the history of Paris for a novel project.

So, the sorting hat has performed its magic, and the winners are:
1st prize: Lee Hallison
2nd prize: starlady38
3rd prize: Cécile Cristofari, who hit about every way to get points

I’ll be in touch with the winners to get them their prizes.

-Keyan Bowes on “Why I write American”, chiming in on the differences between Asian (where she used to live) and American fiction as she perceives them
-Amal El-Mohtar on “Towards a Steampunk Without Steam”, a great discussion on why imposing Victorian values on steampunk is a bad idea (and yes, it’s an old post)
-Gabrielle Gantz interviews me for The Faster Times
-Lawrence M Schoen interviews me for his feature Eating Authors
-Val’s Random Comments weighs in on Master of the House of Darts (aka, thank God, the book is working)
-Jaoob at Drying Ink reviews Master of the House of Darts

In other news, huge congrats to the Angry Robot overlords Marc Gascoigne and Lee Harris for winning the World Fantasy Award last night! (even though a bit sad there wasn’t a Bragelonne win, as this would have been the very first win of a non-Anglophone) The complete list of winners is here.

And Happy Halloween everyone–we don’t celebrate here, so I’m going to stick to some phở…

(the less experiences cooks can also tell me who their favourite character in Obsidian and Blood is )

Prizes are as follows:

-1st prize: your choice of EITHER:
-a glyph artwork (it’s from Guatemala I think), which will look fabulous with a frame and hung upon your wall, a signed copy of Writers of the Future XXIII, which has the very first Acatl short story with the original Marcus Collins artwork, and a signed copy of Master of the House of Darts.

OR:

-a signed copy of Writers of the Future, a signed copy of Master of the House of Darts as above, and a tuckerisation. I will put a character with your name (adapted for correct ethnicity if the story requires it), and a few telling details in the next work I tackle. I’m hoping it’s Unclean Spirits, the Foreign Ghosts sequel, but if the series doesn’t sell and I never end up writing the sequel within a reasonable amount of time, I’ll shift it to an appropriate novelette. In addition, you will also get a sneak peek at the Vietnamese space station novella.

-2nd prize: whichever of the two prizes above the 1st place winner doesn’t choose.

-3rd prize: your choice of signed book, either Writers of the Future, Servant of the Underworld, or Harbinger of the Storm.

The rules are as follows: I will put everyone’s names in a hat, and draw at random. Your name gets put in the hat as many times as you have points. Get points in the following manner (they’re all cumulative, so you can do several of those things at the same time):

1. 4 points for creating and posting your favourite Aztec-inspired dish (a few hints here, and you can also google “Aztec food” for plenty of other websites. Basic staples include maize, cactus, turkey, various spices and chillies, and cacao beans). I will NOT judge how authentic the recipe is, or even check to see that it’s eatable, but mainly how creative you are!
(however, do not try to sell me a hamburger as your favourite Aztec food…)
ETA: sorry, wasn’t clear. Post the Aztec dishes in the comments of this post or its LJ mirror.
2. 2 points for telling me, in the comments, your favourite character in the Obsidian and Blood books, and why. There’s a handy list of characters here if you’ve forgotten their names (which can always happen with Nahuatl tongue-twisters…)
3. 1 point for simply commenting, either on this blog post or on the LJ mirror
4. 1 point per repost of this on FB, LJ, Twitter, etc. (comment with a link to the post(s)/RT and I’ll credit you).

ETA: sorry, my brain went on holiday… You have until next Tuesday (Nov. 1st) to enter.

This is open to anyone, wherever you are in the world–so get cooking and reposting

Let me know what you think, and I’d be very grateful if you shared/RTed/etc.
(sorry about the preview–I’ve tried to pick the best image I could, but youtube’s automatic choices aren’t excellent, to say the least…)

ETA: sorry, the competition is coming a bit later today, when I’ve finished with the various picture uploads…