I’ve read somewhere that all good epic fantasy should have maps of the known world–well, I’m not exactly writing epic fantasy, but I’ve just added a special map page for Obsidian and Blood onto the website.
Of course, we all know I suck at drawing, so they’re just rough schematics, but if you’ve always wondered where exactly Acatl’s temple was in relation to the Great Temple or the Serpent Wall–this is the place to go.
(there might be minor inconsistencies with those in SoU and HoS, because I wasn’t smart enough to draw the maps beforehand)

A new French webzine has launched here: its inaugural issue has stories by Laurent Kloetzer and me (“Coeur Flétri”, the English-language translation of “Blighted Heart”). With extra texts by Xavier Mauméjean and Daryl Gregory, which you can get when you buy the whole issue (2.99 euros), or you can wait a bit for them to be posted.

Thanks to Seb Cevey, Florence Dolisi, and the whole Angle Mort team for the honour of opening up the shop 🙂

(and wow, it sure feels weird to be published in my native language…)

Also, for an encore, my second French translation will soon be published in Galaxies, courtesy of Pierre Gévart and Camille Thérion. It’s “Chute d’un Papillon au Point du Jour”, in which the astute will recognise the French version of the Xuya story “Butterfly Falling at Dawn”.

And for the encore of the encore, here’s the webpage of my French publisher, Eclipse.

So, the synopsis for book 3 came back from AR towers with a couple of very perceptive editorial comments. I’ll need to sit down and rework it, but I’m going to start working on it as soon as I’ve finished the current short story.

Temp title is “Master of the House of Darts”, which has the inconvenient of not fitting on a cover, so it’s only a placeholder until I have a brilliant idea for an alternative title. Going to be referred to as MHD/book 3, methinks… Focusing on human sacrifice, the Aztec way of waging war, and Tenochtitlan’s relationship with its neighbours.

Also, I’ve put up the combined character index for books 1 and 2 of the series online (warning, mild spoilers), and the combined Aztec glossary (no spoilers, bar if you want to see what concepts I used in books 1 and 2 🙂 ).

And for those French-speakers among you, Eclipse, the imprint of Bibliothèque Interdite, which bought the French rights to the series, has announced its initial lineup, which most notably includes Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker. Haven’t seen the actual books other than the mockups, but I do like the sober look very much (and they’re not systematically reordering a cover if they like the original version, which is interesting). Also, I’m a big fan of their big shiny banner (see below).