The cover art for Servant of the Underworld:

Isn’t it full of awesome? (some stuff might shift around a bit, but overall it’s meant to be pretty much final)

For the curious, the central design is lifted from the Calendar Stone. It represents the Sun God along with the Four Ages of the World, which makes it pretty appropriate for the book (I won’t say why because of spoilers). You can find explanations on the symbols here (scroll down a bit for the first ring).

Now I’ll go and have that much delayed dinner…

–“After the Fire” is now available as a podcast on StarShip Sofa, thanks to the concerted efforts of Tony C. Smith and Kate Baker. It sounds awesome, so I urge you to pop over and give it a quick listen. Also, check out the Wild Wild West retrospective, and the science news.

-Via Mark Pexton, the artist who did the awesomely creepy art for “Ys” in Interzone, another version of his illustration:

Dark Goddess by ~Superego-Necropolis on deviantART
I think this one is even creepier than the first.

OK, I suck at that shameless self-promotion stuff, but I figure I’ll just follow the movement, and write down the stuff I published that’s eligible for the Nebulas–in case anyone is interested.

If you want to read any of the stories below that are not available online, feel free to contact me, and I’ll be glad to provide a copy (whether you’re a SFWA member or not).

Novelettes

• “On Horizon’s Shores”, Intergalactic Medicine Show, issue 14, September 2009 (SF)
• “Healing Hands”, Fantastical Visions IV, July 2009 (Pseudo-Greek Fantasy)
• “Beneath the Mask”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, issue 8, January 2009 (Aztec fantasy/mystery)
• “Butterfly, Falling at Dawn, Interzone, issue 219, November 2008 (SF, alternate history: I think that one is eligible by virtue of its first US publication in Dozois’ Year’s Best, but I’m not 100% sure on this)

Short Stories

• “After the Fire”, Apex Magazine, November 2009 (Dark Chinese SF)
• Golden Lilies”, Fantasy Magazine, August 2009 (Dark Chinese fantasy)
• “Blighted Heart”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, issue 22, July 2009 (Aztec Fantasy)
• “Memories of my Sister”, Expanded Horizons, issue 7, May 2009 (Pseudo Hindu fantasy)
• “Dancing for the Monsoon”, Abyss & Apex, issue 30, April 2009 (Pseudo Cambodian fantasy)
• “City of the Gods”, Alternative Coordinates, issue 1, Spring 2009 (Pseudo-Hindu fantasy)
• The Dragon’s Tears”, Electric Velocipede, issues 15/16, Autumn 2008. (Pseudo Chinese fairytale)

FYI, if I had to pick favourites, they’d be “After the Fire”, “On Horizon’s Shores”, “Golden Lilies” and “The Dragon’s Tears” (which I’m still absurdly attached to even though I wrote the first draft of it about 3 years ago).

I’ll be off to take a look at my reading list and see what I can nominate myself.

EDIT: added categories…

My Servant of the Underworld proofs have just arrived, and I have a little over a week to check them. I think I’m going to be scarce on the internet this week…

But, OMG, it looks like a real book. It’s both elating and scary (as in, oh dear, I can’t hide behind other TOC-mates anymore).

The BF’s only complaint so far was a lack of cover art 🙂 (which should arrive sometime in the week, I’m told. Another reason to be freaking out…)

So, here’s some of what I got for my B-day:

• Three books on Ancient India (the BF)
• Eyewitness book on the Aztecs, Mayas and Incas, and book on Aztec armies (tlmorganfield)
• Last season of Battlestar Galactica (my father)
• New gloves to replace the fatigued ones I had (my mom)

I am surrounded by people who know my weaknesses 🙂 (also, I got a lovely Bday card from AR towers, with a cute little robot on it, which was very sweet)

In other news, Saturday was plumbing day, aka the day when I cleaned the bathroom of limescale (I do this regularly, but hadn’t paid attention to my washbowl tap or to my showerhead). I have proved conclusively that my practical sense is close to zero (as in, don’t try to unscrew the tap without making sure the washbasin is properly plugged–this ended with a bit of the tap inside the washbasin outlet, and ten minutes’ worth of scare while the BF took the outlet apart). But now it looks to be all clean 🙂

Up, about and already late…

I’ll leave you with further linkage to Apex Book of World SF contributors, proving just exactly how indefatigable Charles Tan can be: Han Song from China, Anil Menon from India, Tunku Halim from Malaysia, and Dean Francis Alfar from the Philipines.

Taking the neo with me to improve wordcount on Harbinger of the Storm (24600 words, two murders, one major antagonist, and counting)

Been a while since I last updated this:

• Winter Song by Colin Harvey. The planet of Isheimur was terraformed centuries ago, at the height of humanity’s resources and ambitions. But everything was lost in the subsequent intergalactic war, and Isheimur has been slowly sinking into decay, recycling every year the bases of its survival–knowing that each piece of technology that breaks down can never be replaced. Into this dying world stumbles Karl, a human marooned after the destruction of his ship. Karl is desperate to get home; but the atrophied subsistence society of Isheimur might not be ready for the radical shock of his presence…
  A very cool read. There are no earth-shattering ideas, but the characters are very well-drawn, believable and sympathetic without being sappy. The slowly dying society is terrifically depicted, and while I know some people might disagree, I absolutely loved the ending. I love that there are no compromises or shying away from brutal truths.
• Blindsight, Peter Watts. I picked this one up mainly on the recommendation of the BF, who heard Peter Watts speak in Montreal and was apparently very impressed by what he had to say. Earth becomes aware of an alien presence when thousands of miniature objects survey the planet. A mission is hastily put together to see what the aliens could possibly want: headed by a genetically engineered vampire, Theseus aims to achieve first contact. Its other members are a pacifist soldier, a heavily-robotised biologist, a linguist with multiple personalities, and the narrator, a ex-epileptic with half his brain removed, and who acts as a detached observer to report back to Earth. But his detachment may be the one thing that ends up dooming him…
  Wow. This was full of terrific ideas about cognition, consciousness and sentience. As a bonus, it was also an awesome first contact story, with none of the plausibility problems I usually have with those stories. There are a fair amount of explanations about biology, but always done in a fascinating fashion; and it’s got the Chinese Room experiment playing a huge part (yes, I’m a geek) . It played a lot like a tremendously intelligent horror story in space, for all the SF trappings (the vampire is a huge clue, but not the only motif that’s been taken from horror).
  Word of warning: it’s also very, very dense. My report to the BF was basically that he had to read it, but that French would probably be easier on him than English…

It would seem I share a birthday with Neil Gaiman and Sesame Street. (and Martin Luther, incidentally).

One step closer to fame and fortune 🙂

Happy birthday to Mike Munsil, Liberty Hall founder. Hope it’s a good one!

In other non-related news, here’s some linkage: the other interviews on SF Signal of the contributors of the Apex Book of World SF include French dark fantasy author Mélanie Fazi, horror writer and AR author Kaaron Warren, and Croatian Aleksandar Ziljak (whose story “An Evening in The City Coffeehouse, with Lydia on my mind” is up in the November issue of Apex Magazine).

My con report for Utopiales is up on the World SF news blog (I was not going to produce one, but Lavie nagged me). You can read it here.
Lots of text, but sadly no illustrations–given that the BF and I had managed to forget the camera in the somewhat precipitous departure from Paris. Next time, we’ll do better…