…unts’ knowledge or how they came by it. She does what she’s told to, an obedient daughter beholden to her elders, never raising a fuss or complaining–the shining example of filial piety extolled in the tales Thuy so painstakingly reconstitutes in her spare hours. Thanh Ha is a big woman, who must tower over her extended family–though right now, her cheeks are hollowed with grief, and the black band of mourning on her sleeve seems to have sucked al…

…and the passage of time. I love the language. -J. Damask/Joyce Chng has a series of microfictions on her blog on Lady White Snake, accompanied by really cute illustrations….

…who knows someone who can give her a hand with the formalities of the High Commissioner for Refugees. Behind her, you hear the dull thud of bombs falling like rain in the streets–the same sound that swells and roars within your dreams until you wake up in a room that feels deathly silent. Which just leaves me with another story to write before the end of October (a month that includes Bristolcon and World Fantasy Con). Also, planning a novel with…

…t whether their–enforced–gender change can be reversed so they can be “normal” people). Another thing I realised only afterwards was that I hadn’t implied anything about the outsider society Fourth Spouse’s true love comes from–in my mind they were Chinese, of course, but with people’s tendency to assume a default whiteness for the not-described, I fear that people will simply read the story as “Chinese people are horrible among themselves, but th…

…eatures! But it’s not only features that make people “different” , and in fact our differences are often much much more than skin-deep. To whit: I can write (and have written) an entire story that features recognisably Asian people, without a single distinctive physical description. So can Rochita Loenen-Ruiz. (I wonder how much of the emphasis on physical appearance is shaped by our worship of movies/TV series? I sometimes think that Hollywood et…

…The Waiting Stars” Ken Liu, “The Shape of Thought” Alex Dally MacFarlane, “Under Falna’s Mask” Martha Wells, “Mimesis” Kelly Jennings, “Velocity’s Ghost” C. W. Johnson, “Exit, Interrupted” Cat Rambo, “Dagger and Mask” Christine Lucas, “Ouroboros” Jack McDevitt, “Cathedral” Very pleased to be part of this awesome lineup! Mine is… er, weird, and involves Xuyan mindships, a Vietnamese rescue squad and homicidal nanobots. You can read samples from all…

…ensibilities: Your alt reality is my everyday life. Yes. It’s a brilliant summary of what’s wrong with the “rule of cool” SF (and why you need to be careful about which bits of which cultures you put into your story, as I argued elsewhere) Activity this week is likely to be sparse, as I have to fit in a Vietnamese lesson, a few appointments left over from before the summer, and a workshop in Brittany with Kari Sperring, Tricia Sullivan and Rochita…

…Had food. Went to visit Orléans with the H and spent far too much time in a games shop looking at everything they had. Stared at my story until beads of blood formed on my forehead. Tried to ply my muse with food; it didn’t work. Proofed outcoming novella On a Red Station, Drifting (well, the first two thirds, anyway). Off to watch some Thin Blue Line before bed, methinks….

…– then our cultures are glittering mines. But drawing from your own background is backward and predictable if you’re a person of colour. Sometimes white people try to sell me back my culture and I have to buy it. My China is as much the BBC version as it is the PRC one. There are things I want to eat but cannot cook. -Rahel Aima on vernacular English: Embedded within non-western English lies a parallel tension. The vernacular promises all the sedu…

…tion’s artificial intelligence has offered guidance and protection to its human relatives. But war has come to the Dai Viet Empire. Prosper’s brightest minds have been called away to defend the Emperor; and a flood of disorientated refugees strain the station’s resources. As deprivations cause the station’s ordinary life to unravel, uncovering old grudges and tearing apart the decimated family, Station Mistress Quyen and the Honoured Ancestress st…