…An Apology. Due to the fallout of the ceremony (and the fact that several committee members were angrily accosted late at night in the bar, which is not a very pleasant experience), they’ve had a spate of resignations. They’re short of people now, for various reasons. If you want to volunteer, now would be a good time. ETA: fixed this, as fjm pointed out that I had been mistaken. -Foz Meadows on Why Teaching Equality Hurts Men. I’m actually not c…

…rts is up against The Wise Man’s Fear in Book Spot Central’s Annual tournament: vote early, vote often, etc. (especially since I suspect it’s going to take me a miracle to reach the second round given the competition…) Meanwhile, I think I have a first scene for the book, except that it doesn’t have enough magical fireworks. Will go add them in….

…… In the process, I reorganised my website a bit, and moved a few pages around (hopefully nothing traumatic), as well as set up missing pages (*cough* Obsidian and Blood omnibus *cough*). And the weekend was meant to be spent looking at my US taxes, but this has come to a halt because the H is acting as some kind of virus incubator, and is therefore not entirely up and about… At least I have brainstormed more Jade in Chains, and am currently readi…

…y preceding the consonant, which explains why I could never work out a consistent system (I naively expected that one consonant=>one pronunciation). To give you a couple of examples: -“-p” (like in “tập”: volume, tome, episode): mostly sensible, pronounced like a “p” -“-ch” (like in “thích”: love, like): always pronounced “t” -“-t” (like “tết”: New Year, “một”: one, “cắt”: cut) much less intuitive. If after “i” or “ê”, pronounced “t” (except for t…

…Still brainstorming and researching the history of Paris. And still tentatively making changes to the blog to have better recipe formatting: apologies, it might look a little broken down for the next week or so. And started counting down to Eastercon. Wow. Can’t quite believe it’s so soon….

…fashionably late), and I used the opportunity to drag him to Chinatown Olympiades for the first time, one of the biggest Chinese restaurants in the XIIIe (which turned out to be kind of busy a Saturday at noon, lol). I introduced him to their dim sum menu (which is extensive compared to what you get in a lot of Paris Chinese restaurants), and we had a very pleasant meal altogether. Afterwards, we joined the queue of people in the Asian food store…

…the House of Darts. And I’m hoping we’ll be able to fix various egregious mistakes that were around in the text (as pointed out to me by translator extraordinaire Laurent Philibert-Caillat). So definitely worth investing if you’re a fan 😀 Misc other Obsidian and Blood news: Master of the House of Darts has been entered into Book Spot Central’s annual tournament, where books face off against each other. It’s in the same bracket as Patrick Rothfuss,…

…our enjoyment of the book (I only found out about this afterwards). Set in Communist Russia before WWII, Deathless tells the story of Maria Morevna, who sees more clearly than everyone else the cracks around the world: this destines her to be the bride of Koschei, the Tsar of Life, locked in an endless war with Viy, the Tsar of Death. It starts out like a fairytale (three birds transform into men and come for three brides), and then very quickly b…

…, my heart goes out to the families of the dead, whether it’s the three soldiers or the schoolchildren and the teacher. It’s a truly devastating thing to go through a death of a loved one, especially without rhyme or reason. And I hope they catch whoever is behind all three shootings before they can make more victims. But I have absolutely no pity for the politicians who think fanning a climate of xenophobia is the way to win a presidential campai…

…more faith. Michael M Jones, the editor, never gave up on it; and he has found an agreement with Cecilia Tan of Circlet Press to publish it. The catch: we have to raise enough money to pay everyone involved: the costs for Circlet, Michael, the contributors and the cover artist (and I hope I’m not forgetting anyone at this stage). Michael is aiming for pro rates; and the prizes include anthologies from Circlet Press as well as more classical bits (…