-brought up more boxes! More specifically, the extra books–the shelves are currently 80% filled, and I’m staring in mounting dread at all four boxes in the living room. Also, I seem to have lost a few books, which is annoying when they’re, say, #12 in a series of 18 (the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters, to be more specific). On the plus side, I found my much-cherished copy of Elizabeth Bear’s New Amsterdam, and all my bandes dessinées (don’t have many of them, but I cling to them…).

-spent a nice afternoon/evening with friends doing some tabletop RPG, and then some mah-jong. Darn, I’d forgotten how much I enjoy mah-jong. One day, we’re going to be proficient enough to stop playing with the “simplified rules” (ie, no taking into account of special hands, and no bonuses. Counting a hand with the various points and doubling systems is already troublesome enough when we play about once a year, and never with the same people each time…). Also, one day, we’re going to figure out what the extra tiles in our game mean, ie how to use Vietnamese jokers…

-edited the heck out of the novella. Temp title is “On a Red Station, As If Within A Dream”, which sucks (mostly because there is absolutely no connection whatsoever. Well, OK. It is a red station in several respects, but the dream aspect? Not so much. Lobbed it off to H for his opinion while I tackle next project’s research.

Snippet:

Linh had been on Prosper Station for less than two hours before her disguise was pierced. She didn’t actually see the two men in station livery enter the room she was in—it was, in any case, far too large, filled from end to end with the makeshift houses erected to receive the mass of refugees aboard Prosper. But she was magistrate, fitted with enough mods to notice even the smallest discrepancies; and so she heard their passage: the hush that passed over the noise of the crowd, leaving only the crackling sound of maize frying in the cooking units—a wave of silence, steadily headed for her.

She’d expected this, but wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or anxious. Try as she might, her identity couldn’t be hidden–not once her name had been added to the rosters of the Temple of Literature on the First Planet.

The checklist includes a massive banquet scene, all the tropical fruit I could cram into 140 pages (longan, pitaya aka dragon fruit, lychees, coconuts, pineapple ), quotes from Chinese classics such as Three Kingdoms and (in a very meta fashion) Dream of Red Mansions, bad Vietnamo-Chinese poetry (I wrote it myself, which explains a lot of things…). Also, it has an entire scene amongst giant vats of fish sauce. Pure win, I tell you

I was reading this fascinating article by Jason Sanford over at SF signal, on military SF. Not that I’m much fascinated by military SF, I admit, but the article is fascinating for another thing: it’s the use of the word “political” to refer to something that, for me, has nothing to do with politics (in this case, whether or not to approve of war). I’ve seen it before, to refer to diverse other things, such as people’s positions on QUILTBAG relationships, abortion, women’s rights… The thing is, for me, those are not political problems. My position on war and abortion isn’t politics: it’s a matter of pure ethics, of how I put things in the context of my personal morals, rather than where my chosen political party stands on the issue (in fact, if anything, it would be a matter of where my religion stands on the issue).
Thing is… in France, parties don’t define themselves by this kind of position. Our left wing is slightly more pro-abortion and pro gay rights, for instance, but it’s far from their main campaign argument–so far that I don’t particularly associate a particular party with a particular moral stance [1].
This would seem to be a purely US use, and I’m curious–if you’re a USian and reading this blog, mind explaining to me why “political” for this kind of subject? Is “ethics” banned from public discourse, and I somehow missed the memo?

ETA: I stand corrected. Patrick Samphire and K.S. Augustin pointed out to me that this was also a UK and Aus usage. I’d not seen it in UK/Aus blog posts, and I leapt to conclusions regarding its use a tad too fast.

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[1] Amusingly, I tend to define the French left wing and the right wing in terms of where they stand with relation to wealth: the left wing wants to tax the rich to death, the right wing wants to over-favour them. (and yes, this tells you everything you need to know about my politics vs my cynicism)

So, tonight I was rereading the French translation of Harbinger and finishing up with a few troublesome notes. Here’s a sample scene from that endeavour: I’m sitting in the sofa with the French translation on my knees, and going through my own notes. From time to time, I’ll ask a question to my husband that goes something like this:

Me: “Here, listen to this. Do you think there’s something wrong with it?”
The H, frowning: “Er. No. Quite honestly no. It’s just you trying to apply English grammar to the text.”
Me: “What about this? Don’t you think it’s too modern for the time period?”
The H, still frowning: “Hum… Probably.”
Me: “What would you replace it with? I’m coming up blank…”
[The H rolls his eyes upwards, but agrees to brainstorm suggestions with me for a bit]

And this, right here, is why I would make such a bad translator from English to French…

(let me reassure you that it’s nowhere as catastrophic as it seems, and that I manage most of the edits on my own, especially the translations of technical terms my wonderful translator–Laurent Philibert-Caillat–wasn’t entirely sure on. But about a fourth to a fifth of my edits have to go through my husband, to make sure that I’m not inserting random anglicisms into the text…)

In other news, the H forcibly put me in front of my computer Saturday morning, and insisted that I write something and stop moping on the internet. Whad’ya know, it actually worked. I broke 20k on the novella today–hit the first climax scene and the start of the spiral towards the end.
(one of the many, many reasons I’m happy to be married to the H)

…into a new neighbourhood:
-find two local bakeries: the one that makes the best bread (if necessary, split between the one that makes the best baguettes and the one that makes the best loaves); and the one that doesn’t make the best bread, but is open on Sundays.
-find the local Asian (Vietnamese/Chinese) takeaway (which has the advantage of being open 7/7). Not difficult, as there are three of them within a 2-minute walk.
-find the local pizza delivery place, preferably one open late at night and on Sundays. Not as easy as the Asian takeaway; we finally found a kebab place that also doubles as a pizzeria, and makes their own dough by hand. Yummy. Drawback is over-reliance on eggplants (I love eggplants to bits, but the H is less obliging).
-find the nearest Asian (ie Vietnamese) food-store. Normally, this would be Chinatown, but we’re in luck, as there’s a small grocery store that carries a handful of basic supplies. Already bought some chả lựa and spring onions
-find the nearest open-air market. Theoretically done, but we haven’t been yet.
-find a cheesemonger, a fishmonger, and a butcher. Got the cheesemonger, still working on the other two.
(and yes, it’s all food. I can’t see why there’s a problem there…)

Let’s see…
Kitchen: almost done. Dishwasher working. Rice cooker reinstalled. Broken cupboard was fixed this morning.
Living room: furniture almost in their final locations, except for my desk which will possibly move around a bit. Not yet unpacked: my computer, misc. papers, and books.
Bedroom: my clothes unpacked and sorted. The H’s are still in boxes.
Bathroom: most of the stuff is elsewhere, because the cupboard isn’t installed yet. But the washing machine is working (we had a bit of a fright because it wouldn’t restart–turns out it was a plugged filter).

Missing: a dresser for holding the excess dishware and cutlery. Sorting out the duplicate materials in the cellar.

All in all, a most profitable weekend

Oh, and I did manage to finish editing Foreign Ghosts, as well as tentatively plotting two sequels, Unwelcome Spirits and Revered Ancestors. One thing down, several billions to go…

The move went well, even though the piano didn’t make it (the movers hadn’t foreseen the lift wouldn’t be large enough, and it takes special people to move a fragile piano upstairs). The H is a little sad, but normally we should have it on Monday.

Our flat has been completely done over, and it’s very pretty (parquet floor, nice kitchen with all-new appliances, and the suppression of a wall that cost us space in the living room).

I’m also close to the new job (about half an hour, as opposed to the hour I used to commute before), which definitely feels nice.

Computer’s still in storage, so I’m typing this from the small laptop–and, of course, we’re in a room full of boxes (they’re winning, trust me). And yeah, writing has been pretty much not happening in this corner of the woods…

And our move has been under the sign of Doctor Who: we finished up the Tennant specials during the packing of boxes (nothing extraordinary, though I can’t quite understand the bile against them. They’re pretty average episodes with nothing special, except perhaps “Waters of Mars”, and “The End of Time”, which doesn’t have a fantastic scenario, but is worth it just for Timothy Dalton as a Time Lord ). And our new, mini living room setup was christened with the first few Matt Smith specials (so far, I like Smith more than Tennant, and I have to say “The Eleventh Hour” was a terrific ep).

Now, if only we could have a TARDIS to move things around…

6600 words total. It’s mostly going very fast because I’m combining existing sections rather than writing them from scratch.
(also, yes, if I keep this up, I should exceed my target of 30k by a large margin–prov. total is in the high 40ies. However, I probably have tons of things to prune from the worldbuilding, which should help)

To tide you over: Gareth L. Powell has just released his SF novel The Recollection with Solaris:

(and if that cover doesn’t convince you to check out the book, try this handy summary over at the Solaris website)

The blurb is bittersweet, though, and reminds me that today is the day of Colin Harvey’s funeral–my thoughts go out to his family and friends. Still angry, and very sad at the hole he leaves behind him.

Isn’t it pretty?

(Chinese print purchased in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Sorry about the wonkiness on the edges, I had to weigh the scrolls down with something, so I basically cropped the picture to get an unobstructed view… I love the little house perilously perched atop the mountains–not very visible in the small version, but much better in the large one)

Am home from Worldcon. It was a good one, though I’m thoroughly exhausted at the moment: con fatigue + jetlag does not make a happy writer, or indeed sane human being…

More later when I have had some sleep (though a quick impressed shoutout to American Airlines for managing to transfer both us and our luggage in under 30 minutes at Fort Worth airport. Compared to this, the 30 min wait at the French end feels painfully under-efficient…)

I was stunned to learn this morning that my friend and fellow AR author Colin Harvey had died of a stroke. I’ve known Colin for a while–I met him at my first Eastercon, way back in 2008; and then again at Worldcon for the launch of Angry Robot. We saw each other at Eastercon each year; and he was nice and friendly, and funny and generous as he could always be, introducing me to a bunch of people, and quite happily chatting away around a beer or a coffee. The last time I met him in person was at this year’s Eastercon, where he briefly dropped by–intending to use the rest of the holiday to spend some quiet time with his wife. As usual, he had plenty of projects he wanted to tackle–from anthologies he wanted to edit to his novel in progress, and to the courses in film-making he took at Bristol university–and I had been looking forward to meeting him again next year. Now, of course, all I’m left with is the painful knowledge I won’t meet him again.

I’ve only read Colin’s recent work, the two novels he wrote for AR–he had a way all his own of making gritty, deprived futures feel real, and to create sympathetic characters who struggled against oncoming disasters. He also did so much for the field, by working hard on Bristolcon, and by editing those wonderful anthologies (I still have my signed copy of Future Bristol, though I think I’ll never look at it quite the same way).

The news leaves me stunned, and saddened, and angry at the unfairness of the world (but then, the world’s hardly ever fair). Colin leaves a gaping hole, and he will be much, much missed.

My thoughts go to his wife Kate and his family on this sudden loss.