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.
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.
-Damien G Walter very kindly names me as one of 20 most promising young novelists in this Guardian article. The company is kind of… impressive, to say the least.
-Over at The Shake, Zucchini Bikini reviews On a Red Station, Drifting::
All in all, I highly recommend this book, both for itself and for what is represents – a different way of writing hard sci fi, a way that includes and magnifies stories and pasts that haven’t been represented well in this genre before.
-Calvin N. Ho on “The Stigma of Immigrant Languages” (a phenomenon I would hazard is not limited to the US).
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.
Of the selfish variety…
-Ian Mond reviews the Nebula-nominated novellas, which includes On a Red Station, Drifting
More then just being an insight into a culture and tradition that I know bugger all about, Red Station is written with a delicate intensity. It’s not an easy read, because the novella doesn’t provide us with a set of sympathetic characters that we can cheer on. Rather, through some gorgeous writing and the complexity of the world building, each character earns our respect. And that makes the ending all the more powerful.
-MJ Starling on On a Red Station, Drifting
(…) a great, harsh, messy, human book that deserves every vote it gets.
Very quick post as I’m still at Eastercon and the hotel internet is a bit overloaded…
Delighted that “Immersion” and On a Red Station, Drifting are both finalists for the Hugo (for best Short Story and Best Novella, respectively). The full list of nominees is below; among the many many friends I have on the ballot, I am utterly delighted to see Zen Cho is up for a much-deserved Campbell Award, that Ken Liu continues his unstoppable march to world domination, and that Strange Horizons , Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Clarkesworld are up for the award, which is awesome.
Not sure “delighted” is the word, actually. More like serious-time flabbergasted. I suspected something about “Immersion” due to the strong buzz [1], but I have to admit the second nomination was completely unexpected (and I’m still dazed that people actually read the novella–in a good way!). Many thanks to everyone who voted for them/mentioned them/reviewed them. I sadly won’t be at Worldcon because it’s way too close to my due date (and I strongly suspect the Nebula Awards will be my last transatlantic con for a bit–I have nightmare images of long-haul flights with young children 
). But wow.
(yes, still in shock, why do you ask)
(complete list of nominees below)
Read More »
Over at the Kirkus blog, Ana and Thea from the Book Smugglers kindly review On a Red Station, Drifting. Aka wow.
This is an extremely political story in every sense of the word: on a macro scale of fighting for one’s beliefs in impossible situations and within the microcosm of the domestic, the individual—this dichotomy not really a dichotomy at all, as the micro and macro often intertwine in an inextricable tangle.
This is a beautifully realized story and the characters, plot, theme and writing are expertly crafted. My one regret is that I did not read it before we sent out our Hugo Award Nominations.
So, it’s occurred to me I didn’t actually provide this for my latest release–accordingly, there you go, author’s notes for On a Red Station, Drifting.
I started writing On a Red Station, Drifting after one too many readings of the Chinese classic Dream of Red Mansions, and musing on old literature.
It’s no secret that “classical literature”, at least the brand taught in French schools, is overwhelmingly male and concerned with “male” affairs: wars, violence, fatherhood, father/son relationships… I found the same preoccupation prevalent in SFF, to a point where it became unsettling–it’s a subject covered by Ursula Le Guin in her Language of the Night and by Joanna Russ in many of her writings. One of the things that drove this home for me was seeing the statistics compiled by Martin Lewis for the Clarke Award (among the highlights: around 90% of the books had at least a male protagonist, a good quarter featured no women main characters at all, and a good 81% of the books had the protagonist kill someone, while only under half the protagonists were in a stable happy relationship).
A reminder that pre-orders are open for my limited-edition hardback Xuya novella “On a Red Station, Drifting”, and that you save £3 off the cover price of £10 if you preorder–see here for details, including a sampler scene from the book!
(and if you’re still hesitating, there’s a more detailed review over here by @requireshate)
So… remember the Vietnamese-space-station Xuya novella? Pre-orders are now open; and you’ll save £3 from the cover price of £10 if you preorder via the Immersion Press website!
ETA: the ebook is now available here: amazon.com|amazon.co.uk|amazon.fr|smashwords
Here’s a little snippet from the book to whet your appetite (more info here):
Linh arrived on Prosper Station blown by the winds of war, amidst a ship full of refugees who huddled together, speaking earfully of the invading armies: the war between the rebel lords and the Empire had escalated, and their war-kites had laid waste to entire planets.
