Meant to post about this earlier, but ran into a few website problems (now fixed, thank God, but had a pretty unfunny 24 hours on Thursday where I seriously contemplated complicated tech manoeuvres).
Very pleased to announce that “The Waiting Stars” is a finalist for the 2014 Locus Awards in the “Best Novelette” category. Many thanks to everyone who voted for it! (also, wow. The other people on the ballot kind of make me want to crawl up somewhere and hide).

Also, a very nice writeup of the story over at Tor.com by Niall Alexander.
The full list of finalists is as follows:

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

• MaddAddam, Margaret Atwood (McClelland & Stewart; Bloomsbury; Talese)
• Abaddon’s Gate, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• The Best of All Possible Worlds, Karen Lord (Del Rey; Jo Fletcher UK)
• Shaman, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• Neptune’s Brood, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)

FANTASY NOVEL

• The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Morrow; Headline Review)
• NOS4A2, Joe Hill (Morrow; Gollancz as NOS4R2)
• River of Stars, Guy Gavriel Kay (Roc; Viking Canada; HarperCollins UK)
• Doctor Sleep, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Republic of Thieves, Scott Lynch (Del Rey; Gollancz)

YOUNG ADULT BOOK

• Zombie Baseball Beatdown, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown)
• The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Holly Black (Little, Brown; Indigo)
• Homeland, Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen; Titan)
• The Summer Prince, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine)
• The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, Catherynne M. Valente (Feiwel and Friends)

FIRST NOVEL

• The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic, Emily Croy Barker (Dorman)
• The Golden City, J. Kathleen Cheney (Roc)
• Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar (Small Beer)
• The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker (Harper)

NOVELLA

• “Wakulla Springs”, Andy Duncan & Ellen Klages (Tor.com 10/2/13)
• “Black Helicopters”, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean)
• “The Princess and the Queen”, George R.R. Martin (Dangerous Women)
• “Precious Mental”, Robert Reed (Asimov’s 6/13)
• “Six-Gun Snow White”, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)

NOVELETTE

• “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”, Ted Chiang (Subterranean Fall ’13)
• “The Waiting Stars”, Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky)
• “A Terror”, Jeffrey Ford (Tor.com 7/24/13)
• “The Sleeper and the Spindle”, Neil Gaiman (Rags and Bones)
• “The Prayer of Ninety Cats”, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean Spring ’13)

SHORT STORY

• “Some Desperado”, Joe Abercrombie (Dangerous Women)
• “The Science of Herself”, Karen Joy Fowler (The Science of Herself)
• “The Road of Needles”, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales)
• “A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel”, Ken Liu (F&SF 1-2/13)
• “The Dead Sea-Bottom Scrolls”, Howard Waldrop (Old Mars)

ANTHOLOGY

• Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells, Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, eds. (Tor)
• The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin’s Griffin; Robinson as The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 26)
• Unnatural Creatures, Neil Gaiman & Maria Dahvana Headley, eds. (Harper; Bloomsbury)
• Old Mars, George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds. (Bantam)
• The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Seven, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Night Shade)

COLLECTION

• The Best of Joe Haldeman, Joe Haldeman (Subterranean)
• The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean)
• Kabu Kabu, Nnedi Okorafor (Prime)
• The Bread We Eat in Dreams, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)
• The Best of Connie Willis, Connie Willis (Del Rey)

MAGAZINE

• Asimov’s
• Clarkesworld
• F&SF
• Subterranean
• Tor.com

PUBLISHER

• Angry Robot
• Orbit
• Small Beer
• Subterranean
• Tor Books

EDITOR

• John Joseph Adams
• Ellen Datlow
• Gardner Dozois
• Jonathan Strahan
• Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

ARTIST

• Bob Eggleton
• John Picacio
• Shaun Tan
• Charles Vess
• Michael Whelan

NON-FICTION

• Here Be Dragons: Exploring Fantasy Maps and Settings, Stefan Ekman (Wesleyan)
• Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler, Rebecca J. Holden & Nisi Shawl, eds. (Aqueduct)
• The Man From Mars: Ray Palmer’s Amazing Pulp Journey, Fred Nadis (Tarcher)
• Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction, Jeff VanderMeer (Abrams Image)
• Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, Ytasha L. Womack (Lawrence Hill)

ART BOOK

• Hannes Bok, Hannes Bok: A Life in Illustration, Joseph Wrzos, ed. (Centipede)
• Margaret Brundage, The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage, Stephen D. Korshak & J. David Spurlock, eds. (Vanguard)
• Spectrum 20: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner, eds. (Underwood)
• Maurice Sendak, Maurice Sendak: A Celebration of the Artist and His Work, Justin G. Schiller, Dennis M.V. David & Leonard S. Marcus, eds. (Abrams)
• Shaun Tan, Rules of Summer (Hachette Australia; Hodder Children’s; Levine ’14)

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.

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”) 🙂

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?

Posted a new recipe on the blog: sweet potato cakes with salmon and cream sauce. A bit time consuming, but well worth a try! See here for recipe.