…barbed lunch with his husband and co-head of House Asmodeus, in which they compared notes about an upcoming dinner with envoys of other Houses. Nothing surprising or insurmountable. He was out in the gardens, halfway between his office’s open French windows and the river. The lawn, pockmarked with debris and ash, sloped down to what had been the quays by the river Seine and which was now a roiling mass of gray, iridescent water. He’d made the mist…
…at particular way of old people whose mind wasn’t steady anymore. “They’ll come here,” she whispered, her eyes boring into Linh’s, uncomfortably bright and feverish. “There is no escape.” “We’re safe,” Linh said. The woman looked sceptical. Linh drew herself to her full height, calling on a hint of the dignity and poise she’d taken when heading her tribunal sessions. “We are the children of the Emperor, and he will protect us.” The old woman looke…
…rch the contents of Gardner Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction on Amazon.com, and, hum, in addition to publication of “The Shipmaker” in the volume itself, I have 4(!) Honorable Mentions: for “Father’s Last Ride” in The Immersion Book of Science Fiction, “Desaparecidos” in Realms of Fantasy, and my two Asimov’s stories, “The Jaguar House, in Shadow” and “The Wind-Blown Man”. Particularly happy for “The Wind-Blown Man”, which was a hassle to writ…
…w is light, with a pleasant, grassy taste. Do not over-steep it, lest it become bitter. # After the funeral, Quang Tu walked back to his compartment, and sat down alone, staring sightlessly at the slow ballet of bots cleaning the small room–the metal walls pristine already, with every trace of Mother’s presence or of her numerous mourners scrubbed away. He’d shut down the communal network–couldn’t bear to see the potted summaries of Mother’s life,…
…like a beautiful picture that doesn’t really hold up to either scrutiny or real-world comparisons? It’s not a deal-breaker, and I do recommend this book, but still… it’s a bit of a blot on it. Also arguable, of course, is that the system presented here seems derived from a uniquely American model of slavery (the parallels to the plight of African-Americans are pretty clear), rather than tackling other forms of decolonisation with more complex mode…
A Xuya story published in Athena Andreadis’s To Shape the Dark. Companion piece to “In Blue Lily’s Wake”. Dan Linh had walked out of the Purple Forbidden City not expecting to return to it–thankful that the Empress had seen fit to spare her life; that she wasn’t walking to her execution for threefold treason. Twenty years later–after the nightmares had faded, after she was finally used to the diminished, eventless life on the Sixty-First Planet–s…
…oul’s bereaved, for when you love, can you be sure you’re loved? To love is to die a little in the heart. They’ll lose their way within dark sorrow land, those passionate fouls who go in search of love. And life will be a desert stripped of joy, and love will tie the knot that binds to grief. To love is to die a little in the heart….
…cipe from Linda Collister and Anthony Blake’s The Bread Book, an excellent compendium of breads that also includes the odd pastry recipe. I have a variety of small cake pans we used for this, including an actual muffin pan (and some, er, more colourful ones 🙂 ). This is a dairy-free version. Blueberry muffins Recipe Type: Dessert Cuisine: US Author: Adapted from Linda Collister and Anthony Blake Prep time: 15 mins Cook time: 25 mins Total time: 40…
…which I felt confident finding at my usual fishmonger’s. A quick internet search revealed the most popular fish after cá lóc was cá hồi (salmon), and other suggestions included cá tuyết (my dictionary said “mackerel”, whereas Wikipedia Vietnam showed me a lovely picture of an Atlantic codfish), and cá ro phi (tilapia, if Wikipedia Vietnam is anything to go by). I crowdsourced the question to twitter (thanks very much to everyone who weighed in!)…
…not the worst thing. No, the worst thing is the last five minutes or so of the movie, which promise a sequel. Excuse me while I go tear my hair out, and start a search of a decent movie adaptation of the novel… (any recs welcome, btw. I could use good movies)…
