…e would you find an entire chase scene in a fish sauce brewing centre? I researched this bit through watching videos of the fish sauce factories at Phú Quốc, aka the best research I’ve ever done; and also sat down and read lots of accounts of banquets in Imperial China and Imperial Vietnam (that was tough research. It has a natural tendency to make me very hungry). Meanwhile, if you’re curious and want to read Dream of Red Mansions, the translatio…

…ot just vast armies clashing on dark plains at night, but lived through by real men and women related to us. It is deeply personal. In the West, I have detected a tendency to dismiss or minimize the effects of history on the present, as if history can be made irrelevant by a simple act of individual will. Such views, it seems to me, are signs of a perspective colored by the very privileges conferred on those who have been dealt a lucky hand by his…

…So… due to various real life factors including but not limited to a massive cold that’s had me indoors for the last few days, there’s been radio silence. Slowly resuming writerly life including all the emails in my backlogged inbox; might be a while before I tackle everything, especially since June promises to be equally hectic… (aka what do you mean, we need to shop for baby stuff?!?)….

…POC characters. That’s because the “broken English by POCs” stereotype is common and pretty harmful. It’s almost systematically deployed with foreigners speaking English, to various degrees (generally people from Europe etc. get heavily accented English, and POCs from outside Europe get broken English with an accent to boot). It’s harmful because this becomes, whether the author intended it or not, the defining trait of ESL speakers and non-white…

…(and sometimes) messy complexity. For a short story, I generally need two completely unrelated ideas: for instance, the latest one I wrote started with the image of a Vietnamese dragon flying out from the sun, and over it I layered the idea of a messy and protracted war between two nascent space federations. For a novel, I need more: I need a good idea of the setting, a bunch of characters I feel comfortable with, and a plot that has enough conte…

…dentity); they started out as “Hoa”, until I remembered that “Hoa” was the real-life name of the Chinese communities in Vietnam… This is set in the same continuity (of sorts) as “Scattered Along the River of Heaven”, which was set on Felicity Station: Longevity is another station in the network of ex-colonies, though with different masters. You’ll also notice the reference to Prosper Station–the trio Longevity, Prosper(ity) and Felicity together m…

…s I don’t mean niggly details that would require weeks of research: I mean really, really bad facts akin to calling everyone in a French novel “Dracula” because everyone knows Dracula is a typically French name. Facts that should have been a part of any basic research process, and that make the reader doubt the author really cared about the culture they were so “thoughtfully” depicting. Names. Food. Religion. That kind of thing. You’ll think that…

…d it was the shape of a four-poster bed that had seen better days, its silk canopy patched so many times the patterns on it had all but disappeared under the seams of repairs.   Read online! (for anyone who’s read the books: this happens before The House of Shattered Wings, and it’s the Asmodeus/Samariel courtship story!)…

…a 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 mother was restored 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…