So, I just tried out the santoku, the biggest of the three Japanese knives I received from my former colleagues. I was chopping a carrot–normally a task that requires me to push slightly in order to counter the basic springiness of the carrot.
The santoku moved through the carrot as though it were soft butter.

The Japanese: proudly supplying kitchens with high-grade weaponry since 1945.[1]

[1] I could be wrong about this because I’m not Japanese, but I was given to understand the santoku was actually a “modern” knife, born in the crucible between the West and post-war Japan–when traditional food was scarce, and the influence of the West in the diet started to loom large.

OK, so I’ve tentatively put up a page for Master of the House of Darts, with a summary, and the final cover art(!).

I can haz pretty cover?

(Oh, you want to know about the book. It has the following things: Teomitl finally gets to command an army, Acamapichtli demonstrates the true extent of his powers–and Acatl finally catches Nezahual-tzin in the women’s quarters of the palace. And your usual quota of mayhem, deaths and bloodthirsty creatures, not necessarily in that order 🙂 )

My schedule for Renovation. I’ll be arriving sometime Tuesday afternoon/evening (we’re not sure yet), and leaving completely bleary-eyed after the Hugo Losers’ Party (though the plane home goes through Fort Worth, and we have 30 minutes to change–so there’s actually a chance we might still be there Sunday evening…)

Wed 13:00 – 14:00, Molecular Gastronomy: When You have more Gadgets in Your Kitchen than Your Mom (Panel), A04 (RSCC)
What kitchen gadgets do you have now and which do you want to have? How soon will immersion circulators and anti-griddles be as common as pasta presses and sorbet machines in the “gourmet” kitchen? What _other_ strange lab equipment might become the Next Big Thing in kitche nappliances? The modern science and chemistry of cooking. _Future Food_ is a series on PlanetGreen featuring the restaurant MOTO in Chicago.
Dave Howell (M), Aliette de Bodard, John O’Halloran, Keith G. Kato
Ooh, neat. Have never been on this kind of panel before. This should be fun.

Wed 16:00 – 17:00, Interview with Aliette de Bodard (Interview), A09 (RSCC)
Aliette de Bodard, Christopher Kastensmidt
This one is Chris’ fault…

Thu 14:00 – 15:00, Autographing: Thu 14:00 (Autographing), Hall 2 Autographs (RSCC)
Aka where I will sign your stuff (short fiction, novels, sheets of white paper if you feel like it). Aka also the bit where I will feel quite lonely (not that famous), so the standard strategy of coming to chat with me works fine, too.

Thu 15:30 – 16:00, Reading: Aliette de Bodard (Reading), A14 (RSCC).
There will be cookies. Not homemade, ’cause I’ll be on the road, but I’ve brought over traditional stuff from Brittany.

Fri 11:00 – 12:00, Minority Representation in SF Art and the Ugly Reality (Panel), D05 (RSCC)
Minority representation needs to get better in our visual SF, including casting in film and TV and the design and selection of cover art. A discussion of what’s wrong with the status quo and how the industry can and should improve.
Lee Moyer, Aliette de Bodard, Lee Harris, Naamen Tilahun
This one should be interesting. Hope it remains civil (from past experience, those panels have a bad tendency to degenerate, most often because of someone in the audience)

Fri 16:00 – 17:00, F*** Your Knight and the Horse He Rode in on: Fantasy Series not Based on Medieval European Culture (Panel), A10 (RSCC)
An irreverent panel where young writers challenge the predominance of medieval-inspired settings in fantasy.
Christopher Kastensmidt, Saladin Ahmed, Aliette de Bodard, Ken Scholes
Hmm. Again, Chris’ fault. He’ll be moderating though 🙂

Sat 11:00 – 12:00, KaffeeKlatsch: Sat 11:00 (KaffeeKlatsch), KK1 (RSCC)
Wanna discuss Obsidian and Blood, future projects, or something else? Also, I’ll be bringing the Breton cookies leftovers…

Sat 16:00 – 17:00, Cross-Cultural Influences in SF (Panel), A03 (RSCC)
How are cross-cultural inflences manifested in Science Fiction? We look at the impact of both modern and ancient cultures on on SF. How, say, has American SF been affected by Japan? What are the trans-Atlantic influences in play? We expect a wide-ranging discussion.
Mari Kotani, Aliette de Bodard, Brenda W. Clough, Nick Mamatas, Takayuki Tatsumi
Ha. This would be the panel where I try very hard not to point out that SF is a one-way street from the US to the rest of the world? *diplomacy fail*

And, of course, the Hugo Awards, aka when I have a pretty dress and the H goes around in a serious suit. You don’t want to miss this 🙂

In which the World SF team strikes again:

A combination of genre professionals and fans from the international scene and the United States have gathered together to create the World SF Travel Fund. The fund has been set up to enable one international person involved in science fiction, fantasy or horror to travel to a major genre event.

The first recipient of the fund is genre blogger and activist Charles Tan, from the Philippines.

Charles is a tireless promoter of speculative fiction. Besides his own Bibliophile Stalker blog, he contributes to the Nebula Awards blog, the Shirley Jackson Award blog, SF Signal and The World SF Blog. He also edited two online anthologies of speculative fiction from the Philippines.

Charles is highly regarded in the SF scene both in the USA and internationally. The Fund’s intention is to facilitate Charles’ travel to World Fantasy Con 2011 in San Diego, California. Multiple award winning editor Ellen Datlow said: “Charles Tan has in a very short time, become a major force in science fiction and fantasy. Bringing Charles over to the United States for the World Fantasy Convention would be a boon the convention by adding a truly international voice to the mix and selfishly, it would allow many of Charles’s fans in the field to meet him personally.”

Living in the Philippines, where wages are far lower than in the West, Charles would be otherwise unable to ever attend a major convention. The Fund’s purpose is to make such a trip possible, for the benefit not only of the recipient but for creating and extending dialogue in the wider world of speculative fiction.

Author and editor Jeff VanderMeer said: “Charles Tan is tireless, talented, indefatigable, a great guy, and someone who has become indispensible to our sense of the genre community. He’s a wonderful choice for this initial effort.”

The Fund has set up a Peerbackers Project with the hope of raising $6000, enabling two years of running. The Board, tasked with selecting future candidates, is composed of Lauren Beukes, Aliette de Bodard, Ekaterina Sedia, Cheryl Morgan and Lavie Tidhar and reflects the truly international nature of the SF world today.

For inquiries and further information please contactworldsftravelfund@gmail.com.

The Peerbackers Project: http://peerbackers.com/projects/the-world-sf-travel-fund

If I can add a few words–Charles is a fantastic person, and more than a little insane. I never quite understood how he could hold a dayjob and do all the stuff he does for genre–but he does, and it’s amazing stuff too, from gathering the SF tidbits for SF Signal, to organising interviews for the Nebula Awards, and of course keeping the World SF blog up and running.
I definitely think it’s high time he was brought over from the Philippines, and also high time we had a travel fund like this. There are many things set up to enable fans to travel to conventions, and they’re fantastic initiatives, but so far there has been nothing that focuses on getting people from developing countries into the US or the UK: the price differential, as Lavie points out, is just ginormous for people like Charles–way too much to pay for so much as the entry fee for the con.

There you go. I hope you’ll check out the peerbackers page, and if you can afford to donate anything… (this is very much a case of every little bit helps)

OK, so work continues on the novella–I took a brief break for some flash fiction. Temp title is “The Heartless Light of Stars”, though I’m not necessarily convinced by it.

Vu had never been able to speak to Thuy. Even when they were children, he’d had got on well with the rest of his siblings–had chased lizards with them in the courtyard of their house, clung to them as the family scooter, laden with fish and fruit, wove its way through the congested traffic; and had breathed in their dreams, sharing their longings and aspirations as though they were his own.

Uh. Yes. More Vietnamese in space. Why do you ask?

Hugo voting deadline came and went while I was on blackout; nwhyte has a recap here of people announcing their voting intentions online. Good news is, if we’re going by that, I don’t think I’m going to need that speech after all 😉

(I remain intrigued by the sharp divide between people who complained the story was too slight, and people who said it was too complicated to follow. The breadth of reactions to the same text is always something I find very much fascinating).

Currently finishing up my edits for Master of the House of Darts, writing up the historical notes and the acknowledgments. Next up: more novella work, in addition to preparing the California/Nevada trip (aka what am I going to read at both readings, and what kind of cookies I drag with me).

Yay, LJ is back!!!! Good to be in business again.

I’m in Brittany at my parents, enjoying a break before packing up for San Francisco and Worldcon (and dealing with the renovation works and the move, sigh). They did install Internet, but I’m going to try very hard not to use it–so, to all intents and purposes, this is a blackout 😉

In other, writerly news, you can pre-order the French version of Harbinger of the Storm on amazon, under the title Le Cinquième Soleil. It’s interesting to see the titles: book 1 was “Of Obsidian and Blood”, book 2 is “The Fifth Sun”. Quite a change from the English versions–which, to be fair, are completely untranslatable (you can translate them, they just make sucky French titles).

And the Joanna Russ fairy said, “If you think that family and love and grief are not inherently important topics, you might as well put some zombies in your Pride and Prejudice and be done with it.”

Yes, yes, and yes.

(from owlectomy, via starlady38)

I don’t post about this much on the blog–but I just emptied my office space over at work, after 4 1/2 years of working with the same company. I’m only leaving tomorrow, but it already feels singularly empty…

Amusing fact of the day: you wouldn’t believe how many mugs and tea-boxes I managed to accumulate on my desk.

Amusing fact of the day #2: my office plant (aka Nyarlathotep, in the grand tradition of naming plants after Lovecraft creatures) is so big it was taking the entire car, and whenever I braked it would poke me in the shoulder. I think it was feeling lonely…

Got a nice going-away party; was given a nice Lancel women’s purse, and a set of Japanese cutting knives, which is going to be a nice change from our old low-end supermarket knife (the H was already eyeing them speculatively. I’m preparing bandages…).

Writing-wise: zero, as I spent the entire day moving boxes from the car to the office space, and back to the car–and then between the flat and the car…

For part 2 of their feature on Harbinger of the Storm, the tireless Brad Beaulieu and Greg Wilson interview me. Go check it out here (and check out the other episodes while you’re at it!)

The awesome Sirens this fall and make a joint presentation on “Magical and Monstrous Female Beings in South Asian Myth and Folklore” (which sounds like a really interesting subject to discuss, and one that I bet hasn’t been covered to death at cons). If you feel like hiring her or donating money, go here.