Cover for The Other Half of the Sky

So, here’s the cover for The Other Half of the Sky, the anthology of feminist space opera story edited by Athena Andreadis and Kay Holt. It’s courtesy of Eleni Tsami (that link leads to Eleni’s blog, where you can see her discuss the evolution of the cover and show the full wraparound).

Isn’t it pretty? The anthology has my Xuya story “The Waiting Stars” as well as stories by Ken Liu, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Christine Lucas… (see the full TOC here as well as a mini-widget with excerpts).

Quite looking forward to this one!

Very pleased to announce that “Immersion” will be reprinted in Jonathan Strahan’s The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven. I spy familiar names in that TOC, including Karin Tidbeck and Ken Liu.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be over there squeeing…

Just saw on twitter that Clarkesworld owner and editor Neil Clarke has lost his day job, after having a bummer of a year that included a severe heart attack and a hurricane. If you want to support the magazine by taking out a subscription, now would be a great time, and you can do this here. In addition to publishing my short stories “Immersion” and “Scattered Along the River of Heaven”, Clarkesworld also has consistently strong fiction: my favourite pieces include Yoon Ha Lee’s “Ghostweight”, Theodora Goss’s “England under the White Witch”, and Xia Jia’s “A Hundred Ghost Parade Tonight”, among many other fine pieces.

-Benjamun Sriduangkaew’s “Woman of the Sun, Woman of the Moon” is a retelling of the myth of the love between the archer god Houyi and the moon goddess Chang’e–except that it makes Houyi a woman and uses the opportunity to poke some pretty sharp points into traditional Chinese family structure. It’s a novella, but it honestly doesn’t feel like it–the two main characters are strongly depicted, and the language is so beautiful and crunchy it just leaves you longing for more. Seriously one of the best stories I’ve read this year.

It is the aftermath of the world’s end, and nine birds–nine suns–lie dead while Houyi cradles the curve of her bow, her fingers locking around the taut hardness of its string. The tenth sun, the last, has fled. Chastise them, Dijun said, a father’s plea. But there is the land and the horror and the dryness, desiccated corpses in empty dust trenches that were rivers not long ago. There are dead dragons, too, and snake women with bright eyes–and is it not right to bring down the suns, is it not what Houyi is meant to do? She is a god who protects; she is a god given a duty.

-Karin Tidbeck’s “Brita’s Holiday Village”: a gentle, dream-like account of a writer’s holiday in an isolated Swedish village and of the people she meets there. Lovely atmosphere and sharp observations.

-Rochita Loenen-Ruiz’s first column for Strange Horizons is up, on Identity and the Indigenous Spirit. Everything she says is worth reading and mulling over.

From Tita King, I learned to wade through the dead weight of imposed culture and the acquired prejudice against my own culture. Her passion for our indigenous culture helped me to find freedom in the indigenous self. Looking back, I know I was very lucky.

As part of the promotion for the launch of John Joseph Adams’ EPIC anthology (more info here), you can now read my short story “As the Wheel Turns” (associated author interview is here). This is, er, another instance of a time machine story–written well over 4-5 years ago and in a style that I don’t think I could reproduce now, even if I tried. But hey, it got me into an anthology with Ursula Le Guin and Kate Elliott!

In case you’re wondering, I wrote this by drawing on the stories I read/was told as a child–it’s not strictly accurate historical China so much as a fairytale version of it, coupled with my misunderstanding a couple of things because I was very young when I heard said stories (and also the fact that Chinese culture != Vietnamese culture, though they of course share a bunch of common tropes/myths/etc.). But I still have a fondness for the story; it’s not every day you get to write a story with multiple reincarnations of the protagonist. Do tell me what you think of it.

(if you were at WFC, this is the story I read the first third from at the EPIC group reading–I know some people asked me if they could find it elsewhere, and I apologise for completely blanking on the fact that Lightspeed was going to reprint it…)

In the Tenth Court of Hell stands the Wheel of Rebirth.

Its spokes are of red lacquered wood; it creaks as demons pull it, dragging its load of souls back into the world.

And before the Wheel stands the Lady.

Every soul who goes to the Wheel must endure her gaze. Every soul must stop by her, and take from her pale hands the celadon cup, and drink.

The drink is herbs gathered from the surfaces of ponds, tears taken from the eyes of children, scales shed from old, wise dragons. To drink is to forget, for no soul can come back into the world remembering past lives, or the punishments meted out to it within the other Courts of Hell.

No soul.

Save one.

Read more.

Temp title is “The Angel at the Heart of the Rain” (might just keep it, it’s not that bad). Very much shorter than expected at 1.5k words, will have to ask the market that asked for this if they’re OK with this.

At first, you believe it is only a matter of time until your aunt joins you. You huddle in a small flat with your younger sister Huong and two other refugees, washing rice that smells only faintly of jasmine, cutting ginger that has grown hard and tasteless in the cupboards where it was hoarded like treasures–and you think of a home so far out of your reach it might be on another planet.

On the phone, your aunt’s voice is breezy, telling you not to worry–that she’ll find a visa and a plane ticket, that she knows someone who knows someone who can give her a hand with the formalities of the High Commissioner for Refugees. Behind her, you hear the dull thud of bombs falling like rain in the streets–the same sound that swells and roars within your dreams until you wake up in a room that feels deathly silent.

Which just leaves me with another story to write before the end of October (a month that includes Bristolcon and World Fantasy Con). Also, planning a novel with Mindships in my spare time.

Onwards, I guess…

Current mood: determined 😀 😀

–“Courtship in the Country of Machine Gods” by Benjanun Sriduangkaew: a lovely story of language and war in a future society. I particularly liked the depiction of the invaders as seen by Kanrisa, very apt.
–“Simon’s Replica” by Dean Francis Alfar: a sweet and heart-braking story of death and memorials and the passage of time. I love the language.
-J. Damask/Joyce Chng has a series of microfictions on her blog on Lady White Snake, accompanied by really cute illustrations.

So… tentatively have new story, “Memorials” (temp title, as it’s suitable but not very striking), clocking in at 9k words or so. I was convinced it was completely broken, now I’m not so sure–let’s see what happens… (whatever happens with it, many thanks are owed to Tricia Sullivan for bombarding me with reasons to complete the story and push through my, er, not-so-pleasant thoughts about my worth as a writer etc.).

Cam finds Pham Thi Thanh Ha in her house, as she expected. By now, she doesn’t question the aunts’ knowledge or how they came by it. She does what she’s told to, an obedient daughter beholden to her elders, never raising a fuss or complaining–the shining example of filial piety extolled in the tales Thuy so painstakingly reconstitutes in her spare hours.

Thanh Ha is a big woman, who must tower over her extended family–though right now, her cheeks are hollowed with grief, and the black band of mourning on her sleeve seems to have sucked all joy from her. “Younger aunt… Cam.” She hesitates over the name, a subtle way to make it clear that Cam had better get to the purpose of her visit quickly. “Be welcome here.”

I’m slowly starting to clear my backlog of stuff, and am quite embarrassed to discover I completely dropped the ball on some stuff I owed. One of those days. Arg arg arg.

For a break, I think I’ll go write a silly little story (the operative word being “little”), and work on reviews of some fiction I’ve read (Tran-Nhut’s The Banquet of the Unicorn and Rattawut Lapcharoensap’s Sightseeing).

(on the plus side, I now know all the suitable pronouns in Vietnamese to address strangers, at least for the next 5 years or so–I now have no excuse to go practise when ordering food in restaurants…)

Athena Andreadis has announced the TOC of her feminist space opera anthology The Other Half of the Sky:

Athena Andreadis, Introduction

Melissa Scott, “Finders”
Alexander Jablokov, “Bad Day on Boscobel”
Nisi Shawl, “In Colors Everywhere”
Sue Lange, “Mission of Greed”
Vandana Singh, “Sailing the Antarsa”
Joan Slonczewski, “Landfall”
Terry Boren, “This Alakie and the Death of Dima”
Aliette de Bodard, “The Waiting Stars”
Ken Liu, “The Shape of Thought”
Alex Dally MacFarlane, “Under Falna’s Mask”
Martha Wells, “Mimesis”
Kelly Jennings, “Velocity’s Ghost”
C. W. Johnson, “Exit, Interrupted”
Cat Rambo, “Dagger and Mask”
Christine Lucas, “Ouroboros”
Jack McDevitt, “Cathedral”

Very pleased to be part of this awesome lineup! Mine is… er, weird, and involves Xuyan mindships, a Vietnamese rescue squad and homicidal nanobots. You can read samples from all the stories below, courtesy of Kate Sullivan:

Also, I went back to my Vietnamese lessons with Mom and managed to get through three entire sentences without being corrected in anything! (yes, it seems measly. However, to pronounce Vietnamese words without screwing up requires quite a fair bit of training)

My story “Heaven Under Earth” is up at Electric Velocipede:

Husband’s new spouse is brought home in a hovering palanquin decked with red lanterns, its curtains displaying images of mandarin ducks and kingfishers—the symbols of a happy marriage.

First Spouse Liang Pao has gathered the whole household by the high gate, from the stewards to the cooks, from the lower spouses to their valets. He’s standing slightly behind Husband, with his head held high, with pins of platinum holding his immaculate topknot in place—in spite of the fact that he’s been unable to sleep all night. The baby wouldn’t stop kicking within his womb, and the regulators in his blood disgorged a steady stream of yin-humours to calm him down. He’s slightly nauseous, as when he’s had too much rice wine to drink—and he wonders why they never get easier, these carryings.

Check it out here, and tell me what you think.

Author’s notes forthcoming Thursday or Friday, depending how much free time I have.

Electric Velocipede is also having a kickstarter to fund their next year of online fiction, here: if you want to support quirky online fiction, this is the place!

ETA: edited this slightly to save my comments on the story for the author’s notes.