…Just a heads-up on the website that the ebook edition has gone up on amazon. You can find it here: amazon.com|amazon.co.uk|amazon.fr. Meanwhile, am still jet lagged. Will go grab breakfast….

…te or sugar); the third is that the metric scale indicates the first 10 mL (which is really useful for small amounts of liquid and avoids me juggling with tablespoons and teaspoons). I see, though, that the version for sale on amazon.com doesn’t really seem to have #3 on my list, which is odd? And that’s all for this week–tune in next week for the next five items on the list 🙂 What about you? What items couldn’t you do without in the kitchen? (par…

…woman in a shawl, who glanced fearfully around her, as if she expected soldiers to come out of the shadows at any moment. Bent and bowed, she looked so much like Linh’s long-dead mother that Linh found herself instinctively reaching out. “It’s going to be all right, Madam,” she said. The woman looked at her: past her, in that particular way of old people whose mind wasn’t steady anymore. “They’ll come here,” she whispered, her eyes boring into Li…

…a Andreadis and Kay Holt’s The Other Half of the Sky, an anthology of feminist space opera that’s shaping up to be quite impressive. Many thanks go to my betas on this: Abhinav Jain, Brandie Tarvin, Andy Coughlan, John Murphy, and extra helpings of said thanks to Ken Liu and Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, whose very perceptive comments helped me fix a disastrous ending. You can go read Athena’s posts about the anthology here and here if you’re interested to…

…r has been cumbersome because of RL, but so totally worth it. Below is the complete listing. Meanwhile, I’ll be over there in the corner, comatose (partly from shock, partly from sheer jetlag, my body being utterly convinced it’s still in Vietnam and therefore that it should be in bed). More later. Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America is proud to announce the nominees for the 2011 Nebula Awards (presented 2012), the nominees for the Ray…

…n (at least), a glorious retelling of the Tristan and Yseult legend. With battle scenes, magic, and you know, sex scenes 🙂 I read bits and pieces, and Ruth excels at making the past come alive, as well as giving life to a variety of complex and sympathetic characters. Check it out! It’s only on amazon (KDP exclusive)….

…use I also started to take it semi-hemi-seriously by compiling vocabulary lists and regularly listening to tapes). I can now reasonably ape pronunciation, but it remains hard for me to pronounce a word “cold” and have it come out OK (case in point, yesterday I attempted to say tháng giêng, aka January, to a friend of mine, and she went blank for a minute before context enabled her to catch up). On the plus side, I can now say “hello” and “thank yo…

…, of course–and you’re obviously free to say if you didn’t like it). First come, first served. I’ll sign and personalise them if you so require. Memo: you don’t have to have read the previous books in the trilogy to make sense of this one; it’s a standalone like an episode of a crime series, though obviously character arcs get wrapped (last book of the trilogy, yadda yadda). Post here or in the LJ mirror if you want to give a copy a good home. Goo…

…with the digital age; but so far this hasn’t exactly been happening. An addendum on book and DVD prices: I can’t remember where the stat comes from (it was a scholarly report on piracy in various countries, but I can’t find the link for the life of me), but a DVD in India is sold for an equivalent value of $700, if we bring the price in rupees back to US-cost-of-living dollars. Imagine that you kept seeing ads and trailers for the new Batman movi…

…to disagree, do go ahead. I could use some reassurance here… [3]) [1] Wanting few characters in a novel didn’t apply in Ancient China, for instance: the list of Romance of the Three Kingdoms characters fills out half a thick volume; and the Chinese wouldn’t have considered the story realistic unless it listed tons of minor and major characters. [2] I’m mostly thinking of popular fiction here (genre), and particularly of US fiction, but I do see it…