105 000 words. Sekrit project aka the sort-of-urban fantasy set in Paris. Of course, it’s a first draft and more full of holes than a colander, and my next task will be to fix those before lobbing the draft to my kind crit group so they can deservedly savage constructively criticise it.

But for now I will bask in the knowledge of a job well done.

Here, have a snippet:

It was Ninon who first saw her. Philippe, though, felt her presence first, but hadn’t said anything. It wasn’t a wish to protect the young Fallen so much as to protect himself–his status in the Red Mamba gang was precarious as it was, and he had no desire to remind them of how much of a commodity he could become, given enough cruelty on their part. And Heaven knew, of course, that those days it didn’t take much for cruelty or despair to get the better of them all, when life hung on a razor’s edge, even for a former Immortal.
They’d been scavenging in the Grands Magasins–desperate and hungry, as Ninon had put it, because no one was foolish enough to go down there among the ruins of the Magicians’ War, with spells that no one had had time to clean up primed and ready to explode in your face, with the ghosts and the hauntings and the odour of death that still hung like fog over the wrecks of counters and the faded posters advertising garments and perfumes from another, more innocent age.

(picture via Patron of the Arts)

Rich Horton:

Aliette de Bodard’s “The Breath of War” has a really neat science-fantasy premise: women in this world breathe people into life from stone, people who then become their companions and are necessary to breathe life, in turn, into children. Rechan is a somewhat rebellious woman, who abandoned her stone brother in the mountains as war broke out – and now that the war is over she climbs back to the place she left him. There’s a secret, of course: the true nature of the Stoneperson she gave life to, and it’s an interesting secret leading to a moving resolution. This, I suppose, is science fantasy at its purest: a rational-seeming world with mostly SFnal imagery, with a thoroughly implausible, but very fruitful, central conceit.

Gardner Dozois:

The best story in this issue is probably Aliette de Bodard’s “The Days of the War, As Red As Blood, As Dark As Bile”, another in her long series of Xuya stories, taking place in the far-future of an alternate world where a high-tech conflict is going on between spacefaring Mayan and Chinese empires. This one is a direct sequel to her 2013 novella ‘‘On a Red Station, Drifting’’, taking place on an embattled and somewhat rundown space station whose inhabitants are faced with the prospect of evacuating in the imminent threat of an advancing alien fleet. It centers on a young girl struggling against but finally being forced to accept a peculiar kind of apotheosis; the scene where refugees are trying to escape the station during an attack is quite harrowing, so be warned.

*happy writer* (and a shout-out to Benjanun Sriduangkaew, who gets called an “exciting new writer” and gets her story “Autodidact” recommended by Rich Horton. It is excellent, you should go read it–Benjanun is a finalist for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer this year, and stories like this are an excellent showcase as to why). Meanwhile, I shall go back to knocking my head against the wall to work out my novel ending.

Quite pleased to announce that my short story “Immersion” will be reprinted in Alex Dally MarFarlane’s Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women. Will you just look at that cover and at that TOC? Very honoured to be part of this.

TOC:
“Girl Hours” by Sofia Samatar
“Excerpt from a Letter by a Social-realist Aswang” by Kristin Mandigma
“Somadeva: A Sky River Sutra” by Vandana Singh
“The Queen of Erewhon” by Lucy Sussex
“Tomorrow Is Saint Valentine’s Day” by Tori Truslow
“Spider the Artist” by Nnedi Okorafor
“The Science of Herself” by Karen Joy Fowler
“The Other Graces” by Alice Sola Kim
“Boojum” by Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
“The Eleven Holy Numbers of the Mechanical Soul” by Natalia Theodoridou
“Mountain Ways” by Ursula K. Le Guin
“Tan-Tan and Dry Bone” by Nalo Hopkinson
“The Four Generations of Chang E” by Zen Cho
“Stay Thy Flight” by Élisabeth Vonarburg
“Astrophilia” by Carrie Vaughn
“Invisible Planets” by Hao Jingfang
“On the Leitmotif of the Trickster Constellation in Northern Hemispheric Star Charts, Post-Apocalypse” by Nicole Kornher-Stace
“Valentines” by Shira Lipkin
“Dancing in the Shadow of the Once” by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
“Ej-Es” by Nancy Kress
“The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu
“The Death of Sugar Daddy” by Toiya Kristen Finley
“Enyo-Enyo” by Kameron Hurley
“Semiramis” by Genevieve Valentine
“Immersion” by Aliette de Bodard
“Down the Wall” by Greer Gilman
“Sing” by Karin Tidbeck
“Good Boy” by Nisi Shawl
“The Second Card of the Major Arcana” by Thoraiya Dyer
“A Short Encyclopedia of Lunar Seas” by Ekaterina Sedia
“Vector” by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
“Concerning the Unchecked Growth of Cities” by Angélica Gorodischer
“The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew” by Catherynne M. Valente

For a change, our guest cook this week is the H, who proudly presents his patented crumble recipe 🙂 (or, you know, not. Crumble is fairly easy to make. But I reckoned it made for a pretty picture and a fairly easy recipe for the lazy among us!)

See here for more info!

That’s a bit of a misleading post title, I’m afraid… I’m not going to comment at length because it’s a bit churlish to comment on a ballot one is part of, and also because my brains are fried (thanks to the snakelet, whom I think is secretly a zombie–has uncontrolled gestures, drools all the time, eats Mom’s brains, what more evidence do you need?). But, more seriously–broadly, I agree with John Scalzi on the matter: you may or may not agree with the particular people on the ballot, but insofar as I know everyone has full rights to be there.

As John points out, it doesn’t mean everyone gets automatic first place votes, or even votes above No Award. ETA: Where I disagree with John is that if you don’t want to read some or all of the nominees, that’s entirely fine by me. Yup, even if said nominees are me. I don’t think being on the Hugo ballot entitles you to equal, measured and fair consideration on the sole basis of your work. See the end of the post for more details.

Also, whatever your thoughts on the ballot, please read and vote? The Hugos won’t be a huge inclusive award unless there are lots of voters reflecting all walks of fandom, and this year is already on track to have a record number of voters–which is great. FYI, if you’re not attending Worldcon it’s not too late for a supporting membership, which nets you the voter’s packet–lots of good fiction–and voting rights. Remember it’s an Australian system, i.e. ranking by preference, which, by cushioning much of the effect of a splitting of votes, allows you to express several preferences, though it’s not a panacea (do read the rules, though, because they’re not always intuitive, especially with regards to the use of the ranking system and “No Award”, which can be downright confusing. Further info here, including in the comments. I certainly wish I had known this at my first Worldcon).

Further reading, below, well worth consideration (on the Hugo ballot, but more generally on the issue of divorcing authors from their works and the old “let’s consider these solely on merit” chestnut). I don’t agree with everything, but this is stuff well worth keeping in mind.

Rose Lemberg

S.L. Huang

Ferrett Steinmetz

(slightly edited post)

Very very pleased to announce that “The Waiting Stars” is up for a Hugo Award for Best Novelette (though, given that other people on the ballot include Ted Chiang, I think I can safely skip the acceptance speech :p ). Particularly happy because Loncon3 is a special con: it’s the symbolic anniversary of the first Worldcon I went to (Interaction in 2005), with the H (who wasn’t the H at the time!), it’s my first con as mother of the snakelet, and it will also be my first English Worldcon as a writer rather than as a fan.

Many thanks to everyone who took time to read “The Waiting Stars” (and especially those who nominated it). And also very very pleased to see Benjanun Sriduangkaew on the ballot for the Campbell Award: I’m crossing my fingers very hard for her.

The full list of nominees is below:

Continue reading →

New recipe up at the blog: bulgur and chard gratin, aka veggie yumminess (aka “discovered what to do with chards today”) 🙂

Belatedly announcing that I sold my short story “The Moon over Red Trees” to Beneath Ceaseless Skies (yeah, this is a BCS kind of year. Not that I’m complaning. It’s a great market, and, as evidenced by publication of Benjanun Sriduangkaew, Seth Dickinson and Yoon Ha Lee  , Scott H. Andrews has got awesome taste).

It’s a bit of a change for me, as this is a historical fantasy set in colonial Indochina in the beginning of the 20th Century.

Snippet here.

I will now go back to my novel writing being the mother of the snakelet.

Am still around, just very very busy (especially with the snakelet progressing at exponential pace towards toddlerhood. Babies are scary sometimes. The good scary, but still).

Still working on the novel that wouldn’t die. 73k words in, 18.5 chapters. 30 to 40k words to go, 6.5 chapters. I can do it. *deep breath*

In the meantime, I’m over at SF Signal, revealing which SFF character I would like to share a drink with.

Today is the last day to nominate for the Hugo awards.

I’ve updated my recs post here with two novellas and a short story. Wish I’d made more progress on the novels, but it’s been a slowgoing kind of year, reading wise (I think I’m possibly the only one who entetertained delusions that it was going to be a productive time).
The nomination form is here (you’ll need your member number and PIN, which should have been emailed to you). I would urge you to nominate even if you feel you haven’t read enough last year: it’s a huge field, and even something that feels like an incomplete, fragmented view of it is a valuable opinion (and experience has shown that the people who don’t vote because they feel they haven’t read enough are disproportionately women and other minorities, which has the implications you can guess on the shortlists. Vote vote vote, if you’re able to do so). I know I’ll be finalising my ballot tonight. What about you? Have you voted? Did you find new favourites this year?