…pending!). It occurred to me that this was a situation that could easily become fraught, given the depredations of the colonists, who had a tendency to get everything that caught their eyes (seriously. Read a history of colonial Indochina sometimes, and try not to smash something. The sheer arrogance and entitlement is nauseating), and part of this story is an attempt to go against the rosy-eyed cliché of a woman lifted from poverty by the power o…

…ek to Carl Engle-Laird at Tor.com. Wow. I’m over the moon. I love what Tor.com is doing (and I love their art too, which is always striking), and I’m really glad I shall be appearing with all the cool kids. This is a bit of a change from my usual stuff: it’s, er, dark post-apocalyptic fantasy [1]. With a twist. Many thanks to Elizabeth Bear, Scott Lynch, D Franklin, Gareth M Skarka and Mur Lafferty for the seed of this; and to Rochita Loenen-Ruiz,…

…ggest I write stories with unicorns. They bury you at the bottom of the gardens–what’s left of you, pathetic and small and twisted so out of shape it hardly seems human anymore. The river, dark and oily, licks at the ruin of your flesh–at your broken bones–and sings you to sleep, in a soft, gentle language like a mother’s lullabies; whispering of rest and forgiveness; of a place where it is forever light, forever safe. You do not rest. You cannot…

…It’s great for backups, and also for working on the same folder on several computers (since I own three, and on two different OS, this is rather welcome). Free, available for PC, Mac and Linux. (for actual writing, I use Word, which I can get on any platform–including computers that aren’t mine. Plus, I tend to receive edits in Word’s Tracking Changes format, so it makes my life easier. I wish Word would stop randomly crashing on huge files, but I…

…for an Egg” in Asimov’s), Steve Gaskell one (“Micro Expressions” in Cosmos Online), Jeff Spock one (“Everything that Matters” in Interzone), Benjamin Rosembaum one (“True Names” in Fast Forward 2, cowritten with Cory Doctorow), and Benevolent Dictator Ruth Nestvold a whooping four (“Troy and the Aliens” in Abyss and Apex, “An Act of Conviction” in Helix, “Mars: A Traveller’s Guide” in F&SF, and “The Rivers of Eden” in Futurismic, co-written with J…

…red Along the River of Heaven”: Lois Tilton on Locus Online marked it as Recommended, and noted it as a “good story” in her semi-monthly summary (my first time ever Lois Tilton likes something of mine…). Ken Liu posted a few thoughts on it here; John M. Kerr liked it ; starlady38 referred to it as “painfully good” (and reviewed Harbinger of the Storm, too!); the World SF blog showcased it; VarietySF wondered if it was part of a new trend of “helpf…

…y little coherence as a result… To tide you over into the weekend, have an online story: “The Heartless Light of Stars” over at Daily Science Fiction, aka the Sài Gòn story, and last of my contribution to the Numbers Quartet (but there’ll still be Nebula Award nominee Nancy Fulda’s awesome “Godshift” to round off the sequence). Meanwhile, I’ll be off to brainstorm more Jade in Chains, which has morphed into Thick Waters considering the way the sto…

…erpunk Movement, for example. But whenever I want to see what’s lurking around the corner, it’s easier to find stories that take place in the other side of the galaxy than in a country of the Third World written by a citizen of said country. Take the case of Brazil: when I was growing up, all I could read in terms of SF was Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Heinlein (later, Frank Herbert, William Gibson) and a handful of Brazilian authors published by sma…

…tiful 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 models of oppre…

…which elude racism. I don’t have much in this category; and would quite welcome recommendations this year. Bonus points for POCs and/or people beyond the usual Western Anglophone World. -Campbell Award: it’s Zen Cho‘s second year of eligibility, and I think she deserves wider recognition–she writes awesome fiction that is at once funny, heartbreaking and creepy (see “The House of Aunts” on Giganotosaurus for an exemple of what I mean, or “The Pers…