…l creatures. Oh, and star-demons, of course. More info here, including the real blurb; the first spotted review here at Val’s random comments, courtesy of Rob Weber. Book seems to be shipping through some of the usual places in the: amazon.co.uk, the Book Depository, Waterstones and WHsmith. Meanwhile, I have a %%% cold and was up for much of the night–so right now I’m feeling a bit zombified. But consider this my celebration post, while I go on c…

…Found this via means I shall not reveal: the ahuizotl page from Wikipedia now includes the following Ahuizotl feature prominently in French author Aliette de Bodard’s debut novel Servant of the Underworld, in which they are real creatures living in the water of Lake Texcoco, feeding on the eyes and fingernails of the drowned. Look, Mum, I’m (almost) famous :=) (a hearty thank-you to whoever edited the page)…

…erately, to highlight the hegemonic rather than territorial structure (the real-life Aztec Empire was hegemonic, exerting influence rather than seeking to incorporate territories into a global administration). I generally don’t pick names that carefully, but here I made a couple deliberate choices: Dắc Kiến is a traditional name for Vietnamese boys (it means “acquired view”, “knowledge”), and the fact it was given to a woman reflects the changes i…

…ek to Carl Engle-Laird at Tor.com. Wow. I’m over the moon. I love what Tor.com is doing (and I love their art too, which is always striking), and I’m really glad I shall be appearing with all the cool kids. This is a bit of a change from my usual stuff: it’s, er, dark post-apocalyptic fantasy [1]. With a twist. Many thanks to Elizabeth Bear, Scott Lynch, D Franklin, Gareth M Skarka and Mur Lafferty for the seed of this; and to Rochita Loenen-Ruiz,…

…write more ambitious short stories (not that “Butterfly, Falling at Dawn” really falls into the ambitious category, but several of the stories in there do). Flipping through the HMs, I noted several names I noticed: in particular, the Villa Diodati crew is taking over the world: Sara Genge has two (“The Gong” in Weird Tales, “Prayers for an Egg” in Asimov’s), Steve Gaskell one (“Micro Expressions” in Cosmos Online), Jeff Spock one (“Everything th…

…red Along the River of Heaven”: Lois Tilton on Locus Online marked it as Recommended, and noted it as a “good story” in her semi-monthly summary (my first time ever Lois Tilton likes something of mine…). Ken Liu posted a few thoughts on it here; John M. Kerr liked it ; starlady38 referred to it as “painfully good” (and reviewed Harbinger of the Storm, too!); the World SF blog showcased it; VarietySF wondered if it was part of a new trend of “helpf…

…s awesome “Godshift” to round off the sequence). Meanwhile, I’ll be off to brainstorm more Jade in Chains, which has morphed into Thick Waters considering the way the story is developping (yeah, the whole “blood is thicker than water” thing, and a few other clever allusions in there. I’m going to need to research the history of the Seine a bit). It’s occurred to me, reading stuff over the week (two of Kameron Hurley’s awesome posts on Gender Equal…

…ting deadline for the Hugos is July 31st, 11:59 p.m. CDT. You can find the online voting ballot here, and the packet here if you’re still trying to find nominees. This year I had to skip the novel category due to lack of time, and a bunch of others; but if you still need a candidate for your Campbell Award for Best New Writer, give Zen Cho a try? Stories here, here and here. Also, she’ll be at Nine Worlds in London August 9-11 if you’re in the vic…

…n you can’t keep your eyes off the child for fear they might inadvertently commit suicide (and it’s amazing the number of ways that kids can find to come to harm. It’s like they have a sixth sense for the worst thing to do at any given time). There are periods when they need you; periods when you play with them, read with them, talk with them, help them do homework… All of these are times when no writing happens. But. But… I’m a parent. I gave bir…

…chester on Friday and London on Saturday have sold out, but there are still spots for the Sunday event. Though sadly I can’t do the mass signing on Sunday, as I have to get home. There’s also an online event if you can’t make it to any of these: the schedule is below (and yeah, some of us will be waving trying to look smart in the bus Friday afternoon 🙂 )  …