…nd very much NOT your average urban fantasy. Plus, we definitely need more Brits trying out their hands at this sort of thing (I for one am getting tired of all those US settings and mindsets, and very much welcome stuff like Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London/Midnight Riot, and Suzanne MacLeod’s Spellcrackers.com). So, if you feel like checking it out, now’s the time… I’m off to preorder my own copy….
…r) -Antony at Science Fiction and Fantasy reviews the book: Servant of the Underworld is an intelligent, involving and very rewarding novel which I have no hesitation in recommendation to one and all. -Val reviews it at his blog: An interesting and unusual setting, a well rounded main character (did you ever meet a priest of the dead being the good guy in a fantasy novel?) and a brisk pace. This novel has a lot going for it. -Couple of reviews sho…
…their sockets, pleading, begging her to take him away. -(dark fantasy) “Golden Lilies”, Fantasy Magazine, August 2009. Came in the Top Five of the reader’s poll for 2009. Available in handy podcast format as well. A story of Chinese ghosts, bound feet and unsatiated desires. This one was a lot of fun to write–fair warning though, it’s pretty explicit and somewhat gruesome (the violence is somewhat peculiar, and no one dies, but it’s kind of squick…
…t you to this post instead) And, of course, the Hugos were also announced Sunday evening–mega congrats to everyone, but special mentions for Eugie Foster for being on the novelette ballot with her fabulous “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” (first published in Interzone 220); to Rachel Swirsky with her equally fab “Eros, Philia, Agape” (Tor.com. I personally preferred “A Memory of Wind”, which is on the Nebul…
…lable in handy podcast format as well at StarshipSofa. -(dark fantasy) “Golden Lilies”, Fantasy Magazine, August 2009. Came in the Top Five of the reader’s poll for 2009. Available in handy podcast format as well. -(epic-ish/philosophical fantasy) “In the Age of Iron and Ashes”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 31st December 2009. Also available in handy podcast format. Novelette (SF)“On Horizon’s Shores”, IGMS, issue 14, September 2009. Will email. You c…
Fellow VDer Rochita Loenen-Ruiz’s beautiful tribal story, “Hi Bugan ya Hi Kinggawan”, is now online at Fantasy Magazine. I first read it a year ago at VD4 in England, and just knew this awesome piece of prose would find a good home. Go read it! If not for the Mama-oh’s quick actions, you would have grown up without a mother. With a bamboo tube, and a woven blanket, she captured your mother’s spirit just as it was leaving her body, and so your mot…
…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…
…emons, conniving high priests and generalised political plotting. Oh, and more ahuizotls, because fingernail-eating monsters always make everything better. Pre-order on Amazon.co.uk|Amazon.com|Barnes and Noble|Book Depository|Amazon.fr And while I’m at it, another (very nice) review of Servant of the Underworld at Cold Iron and Rowan-Wood….
…Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction (the HM section is visible on amazon.com). Notably Rochita Loenen-Ruiz for her horror SF “59 Beads”, T.L. Morganfield for her alt-hist “The Happiest Place on Earth”, Sara Genge for her much-noted gender exploration “As Women Fight”, Juliette Wade for her first professional sale “Cold Words”, Stephanie Burgis for her quiet frontier fantasy “True Names”, J. Kathleen Cheney for her family Chinese fantasy “Early W…
Another of my January project has gone live at Tor.com: a roundtable on The Food of the Future, with Ann Leckie, Elizabeth Bear, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, and Fran Wilde. Check it out here. Thanks to everyone who took part–it was a lot of fun, and especially many many thanks to Fran Wilde for masterminding it and sending me pointed reminders about fixing and submitting it in what has been a rather overwhelming month (well, OK. L…
