I will be attending the worldcon in Helsinki, Finland. More details as I have them.

So, as promised, the giveaway results…
Congratulations to Clare Henry (who won the ARC), Asha Bardon (who won the HoSW paperback), Chesley Cox, Donna Kelly, Margo, Keith Manuel and Joanne Burrows (who won a set of House of Binding Thorns promo cards).

And also as promised: the food most people would miss in a post-magical-war Paris would seem to be viennoiseries (pain au chocolate and croissant) and cheese. I was really impressed by the Vietnamese food ones–some classics such as banh mi and pho, but also things like bun vit mang or nom hua chuoi! And nope, probably not happening in a post apocalyptic Paris, they’ve got enough trouble finding the fish sauce already °_°

Thank you very much for taking part, it was fun to read everyone’s entries 🙂

Should you want more info on House of Binding Thorns, it’s here. And, hum, if you didn’t win the ARC but happen to want to pre-order here are the links (again, I know it’s hard and not everyone can afford to buy, but it does help the book. It’s very much appreciated if you do preorder, and I should be able to announce the preorders rewards a bit later–hopefully early next year, with my publishers’ blessing)

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And here’s the Pinterest board for the book!

Follow Aliette’s board House of Binding Thorns on Pinterest.

And as promised, here’s the giveaway for one ARC of The House of Binding Thorns: ruined and decadent Paris, Fallen angels, alchemists, a dragon kingdom under invasion, and backstabbing aplenty! Open anywhere in the world–I’d of course much appreciate it if you could review the book on goodreads, for instance, (it does help the author *sheepish grin*).

I’ll close it next Thursday, and probably post some highlights of the food question as well.

Here are the promo cards:

(the HOUSE OF BINDING THORNS ones have got a random quote from the book at the back, the HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS ones come with both US and UK covers and have a pull quote)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The multi-award winning author of The House of Shattered Wings continues her Dominion of the Fallen saga as Paris endures the aftermath of a devastating arcane war…

As the city rebuilds from the onslaught of sorcery that nearly destroyed it, The Great Houses of Paris, ruled by fallen angels, still contest one another for control over the capital.

House Silverspires was once the most powerful, but just as it sought to rise again, an ancient evil brought it low. Phillippe, an immortal who escaped the carnage, has a singular goal—to resurrect someone he lost. But the cost of such magic may be more than he can bear.

In House Hawthorn, Madeleine the alchemist has had her addiction to angel essence savagely broken. Struggling to live on, she is forced on a perilous diplomatic mission to the underwater Dragon Kingdom—and finds herself in the midst of intrigues that have already caused one previous emissary to mysteriously disappear…

As the Houses seek a peace more devastating than war, those caught between new fears and old hatreds must find strength—or fall prey to a magic that seeks to bind all to its will.

For more information go here.

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And if you need more idea of what you’re in for, here’s the Pinterest board for the book:

Follow Aliette’s board House of Binding Thorns on Pinterest.

The dragon has decided, being Chinese, that it wants to hoard knowledge rather than gold.
Ok, ok, not much knowledge there unless you count a dark fantasy Gothic thriller as knowledge (I’m sure you’ll learn lots of things about Paris :p).

I’ll be setting up a giveaway but that’ll have to wait until next week as the house is currently in the throes of plague (aka norovirus plus laryngitis, a combo I heartily don’t endorse).

For more info about the book, go here.

And if you’d like to pre-order:

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(like last time, pre-order and/or buy in the first week after release and you’ll get something–I can’t give details yet but there will definitely be a reward to make it worth your while. Pre orders help me, the author, too, because they tell the publisher that readers are enthusiastic for the book and obviously I want to keep my publisher happy!)

Aka “arg I hadn’t realised it was so close!”. Next week I’ll be Guest of Honour at the Eurocon in Barcelona.

Here is my schedule.

For reference: I go to these cons to meet people, so unless I’m on my way to somewhere else I’m quite happy to be chatted to (and I don’t bite, promise!). Also quite happy to sign books, etc. if you have them, even if it’s not my “official” signing (which, for the record, is at Gigamesh on Saturday 18:30). Also: my Spanish is darn rusty but I’ll try my best 🙂 If you’re curious, I’ll be at Chronos on Saturday at 17:00, where we’ll be doing an interactive interview in Spanish with Silvia Schettin–“interactive” because I foresee I’ll be spending a lot of time asking vocabulary questions from the audience…

I will also have the shiny business cards above on me: The House of Binding Thorns ones have got a random quote from the book, so if you want a peek at the book, do get one (The House of Shattered Wings ones have got a choice of covers plus glowing review quotes :)).

(do bear in mind I’ll be with the librarian though, so if I look like I’m running somewhere that’ll be it. Experience has shown that I spend my cons running from one place to another, and con + baby is a killer combo in that regard…)

Courtesy of Christopher Kastensmidt (whose Elephant and Macaw banner stories you should be reading if you’re not already! Swords and muskets in colonial Brazil!), I’m reposting the entire list of Brazilian SF in English that he posted to Facebook, cleaned up and linked.

All text is Chris’s, not mine 😀 (the original post is here).

Continue reading →

Just a quick heads-up that my short story “The Dragon’s Tears”, originally published in Electric Velocipede, is now up at Lightspeed Magazine. I wrote this as a homage to Chinese/Vietnamese fairytales: you can read more on the genesis on this in the interview I had with Christie Yant, here.

Snippet:

Huan Ho sealed the last window, leaving only a crack in the shutter. Tonight, he thought, his eye on the empty streets, the neighbours’ barred shutters. Tonight he had to pass the door on the hill, or let the sickness take his mother.

She had been watching him from her bed. “They ride tonight,” she said, when he was done.

Read more here.

It’s an old and sometimes creaky story but I’m stupidly fond of it, as it always reminds me of childhood.

Also, you can help support the magazine by buying the entire issue (with exclusive extra content), or subscribing? Thank you!

So I kind of needed to give someone something and I thought I’d try my hand at these–and Gillian Polack is entirely right, they are dead easy to make and so so good! You can replace oranges with any citrus fruit (I kind of want to try lemon now).

Recipe here. I’m not posting a picture of the orangettes (the chocolate-candied peels) because mine ended up looking a bit weird due to coating issues with the chocolate (they still taste great though, but they’re not very presentable!).

So… cover time!

Tor.com has kindly agreed to reveal the cover for the US edition of The House of Binding Thorns. It’s still by the awesome Nekro, with art direction by Adam Auerbach, and it looks gorgeous.

Here’s a little teaser:

Head on over to Tor.com for the full cover, and the official cover copy aka “what this book is about in more detail”. Be warned, however, that if you haven’t read The House of Shattered Wings and intend to (though you don’t need to have read The House of Shattered Wings to enjoy this, it’s standalone), this contains major spoilers.

If you want a between-the-books snippet and a look at the Pinterest board, you can head on over to the official novel page on this website, here.

The book will be out April 4th in hardcover from Roc in the US, and April 20th from Gollancz in the UK and the Rest of the World, and you can pre-order the US edition right now [1] (*cough* pre orders are really important for authors because they’re an indicator of how much people are excited about the book, so if you happen to want this I’d be very grateful if you did preorder. Also, did I mention this is standalone? It is standalone, you don’t need to have read The House of Shattered Wings to enjoy it, and my admittedly biased opinion is that this is a better book because I definitely gained a level in novel-writing between both books.*cough* [2])

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[1]I put in the link for the preorder of the UK edition but I’m a little less sure about this: the Kindle link looks right, but the default amazon link is to a hardback edition that I’m pretty sure isn’t coming out (and last time people who did order the hardback edition never got their books, so I’m a little leery of the same thing happening again).

[2]There will also be preorder freebies like the last time, but I’m still working on what these should be!

Just a quick note that if you’ve wanted to buy The House of Shattered Wings but thought the hardback was too expensivve, or if you just want to see what all the fuss is about… today is the release date of the US trade paperback edition (and the ebook prices have been lowered to match, too). In a turn-of-the-century Paris devastated by a magicians’ war, political and magical intrigues, Fallen angels, Vietnamese immortals, and rather too many dead bodies…

More info on the novel here.

Meanwhile, I’ll be off wrangling The House of Binding Thorns revisions…

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