Feeling down and gloomy in this month of December? Fear not. Steph Burgis and Patrick Samphire have put up the December Lights Project, a collection of light-hearted and feelgood stories for the holiday season. I’ve only read one so far, Steph’s “Undead Philosophy 101”, which was a hilarious tale about vampires teaching at East Lansing University. There’s other offerings from Sherwood Smith, Sarah Prineas and Patrick Samphire, with more familiar names coming up.

(they did ask me to contribute, but unfortunately I tend to go dark, or to put my characters through the wringer before they’re allowed to feel good…)

Meanwhile, I’ll go see if I can get to work, or if the black ice wins.

-Locus goes digital (pdf editions for sure, perhaps epub and kindle). Awesome. Probably the excuse I needed to resubscribe without having paper copies cluttering my house.
-Via Cheryl Morgan and the World SF blog, the fund raiser for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Award. Prizes include things donated by Neil Gaiman, and Jeff and Ann VanDerMeer. I’ve ranted quite often enough about the prevalence of Western Anglophone SF in the SF field–this award, which focuses on works translated into English (and reward both author and translator) is most definitely welcome.

And 1000 words on the novel, slowly getting back into the swing of things. Also working on an article (either for this blog or for SFnovelists) on some TV tropes that bug the heck out of me.

32,000 words. Beginning of chapter 9, which means I’m back on track wordcount-wise. Nezahual and Teomitl are back to their old habits. Fun. *sadistic author*

It’s that time of the year again: beginning of the Nebula voting period, and of the nominations for a number of things (Hugo, Nebulas, BFSA awards)… I haven’t started up my reading yet, but I soon will.

And here’s my 2010 list of published things (which doubles as achievements for the year):

Short stories:
-“Age of Miracles, Age of Wonders”, Interzone, issue 230, September 2010
-“As the Wheel Turns”, GUD magazine, issue 6, September 2010
–“By Bargain and by Blood”, Hub Magazine, issue 108, January 2010
-“Desaparecidos”, Realms of Fantasy, June 2010 issue
-“Father’s Last Ride”, The Immersion Book of Science Fiction, September 2010
-“Father’s Flesh, Mother’s Blood”, Dark Futures, September 2010
–“Melanie”, Realms of Fantasy, February 2010
–“Memories in Bronze, Feathers and Blood”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, issue 45, June 2010
-“The Shipmaker”, Interzone, issue 231, September 2010

Novelettes:
“Eye of the Destroyer”, Blood and Devotion, Spring 2010
“Fleeing Tezcatlipoca”, Space and Time, issue 111, Spring 2010
“Silenced Songs”, Music for Another World, August 2010
“The Church of Accelerated Redemption” (with Gareth L. Powell), Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic SF, Spring 2010
“The Jaguar House, in Shadow”, Asimov’s, July 2010
“The Wind-Blown Man”, Asimov’s, February 2010

-Novel
Servant of the Underworld, Angry Robot, October 2010 (fantasy)

You can find a number of them online (I’ve linked where applicable). If I were to strongly push for something, it would be “The Jaguar House, in Shadow”, my Xuya-cum-Jaguar-Knights alternate history (eligible in the novelette category).
I also like the two Interzone short stories quite a bit, especially “The Shipmaker”, but at the moment they’re not eligible for the Nebulas by virtue of having had UK publication only (though insofar as I can tell, Hugos are fine).

I have also uploaded Servant of the Underworld, “The Jaguar House, in Shadow”, “As the Wheel Turns” and “Desaparecidos” up on the SFWA forums (since to-date, those four are the ones that have received Nebula nominations).

As usual, if you’re voting for any of those and want to read something in there, feel free to contact me.

I’ve just submitted two short stories. Been a long time since I haven’t done that.
In other news, my 2011 schedule is filling up (can’t say anything yet, but some sekrit event is definitely on the cards)

And 1,000 additional words on the novel, bringing me to 30k or something like that (right now, the novel’s in two pieces, of which one is on a computer and one on my neo). I was complaining to the H about feeling bored with the whole thing, and he looked at me and said, “yup, that seems like the right time for you to say so.” Guess it’s official: we have entered the Terrible Middles.

Still trying to select which stories to pimp for the Nebulas. The novelette’s pretty much self-explanatory (“The Jaguar House in Shadow” got good reviews, a mention in Rich Horton’s year-end summation, and high visibility); the novel’s easy, as I only published one this year. The short story… I’d want to plump for “The Shipmaker”, but the odds are it won’t be eligible for the Nebulas (it’s been published in the paper edition of Interzone, but not in e-version, and I’m not sure fictionwise will have the e-version up by the end of December). So it’s a choice between “Memories in Bronze, Feathers and Blood” (how can you not like Aztec steampunk, plus it got a number of good reviews), and “As the Wheel Turns” (my Chinese reincarnation short story published in GUD, which has a more original structure, more lyrical language and who’s left a lasting impression on the couple of people who’ve read it).

Decisions, decisions…

So, apparently the high-speed trains run slower when there’s snow (makes sense, but it does break my heart to have to pay high-speed fares and then have the train go extra slowly). Took me 8 hours to come back from Mulheim in Germany, where the latest VD workshop was being held. OK, part of the journey is nonsensical, since I have to take a first train to go south from Mulheim into Switzerland, and another north from Switzerland back to France (and then a further train from Strasbourg to Paris). And part of it was the delayed train on the last segment of the journey. But still–got plenty of time to write 🙂
Apart from that, I had a great weekend in Villa Diodati, away from Internet and the phone network. Wrote a ton, critted awesome stories, and ate extra good food as usual (full report forthcoming, but I need to grab some pictures first).

Novel wordcount: +6000 words, and an odd Aztec ritual.
Movie count: watched last episode of Sherlock, The Great Game. Much better than episode 2. And Moriarty was awesome.
Misc: copies of Galaxies arrived, with the French translation of “Butterfly, Falling at Dawn”. Definitely odd to see myself translated in print, but kind of cool too.
Misc 2: apparently, the internet says I should expect a really negative review of SoU sometime soon, aka the kind that has claws and uses them freely. It will be… interesting (the wise thing, knowing myself, is also probably to ignore it until after I’ve finished book 3. I’m not sure I can count on myself to be that wise, but I’ll try).

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)

Found this via means I shall not reveal: the ahuizotl page from Wikipedia now includes the following

Ahuizotl feature prominently in French author Aliette de Bodard’s debut novel Servant of the Underworld, in which they are real creatures living in the water of Lake Texcoco, feeding on the eyes and fingernails of the drowned.

Look, Mum, I’m (almost) famous :=)

(a hearty thank-you to whoever edited the page)

Nope, not a shameless promotion post, not yet… Just sorting out through my 2010 publications, which came to 9 short stories, 6 novelettes and 1 novel if I didn’t screw up in my additions.
Wow. That was a good year.

Wordcount: 24,000/100,000

Awesome title ideas: no further ones.

Body count: 1, 3 in progress. Oh, and 1 owl and 1 jaguar.

Best moment of the day: Everything appeared normal: a dead body was being carried back through the gates, followed by a procession of priests in grey cloaks.

Unexpected moment of the day: the jaguar’s death. Seriously. Some characters are just made of awesome.

Research: used the fact I owed my French publisher maps of the city to replace everything into a coherent system. Also found out about Tlatelolco via the Spanish version of Wikipedia.