…The amazing Fran Wilde has interviewed me for her series “Cooking the Books”–interviews focused on food and SF writers (you can understand why I was deliriously happy to be picked as an interview subject 🙂 ). I wax lyrical about the power of food, lemongrass chicken in “Immersion”, and my recipe process here….

…on, respectively The Last Wish, Blood of Elves and The Time of Contempt–volume 2, Sword of Providence, is another series of short stories like The Last Wish). Those were massively successful Polish books (giving rise to a number of derived products including a rather well-known series of video games). It’s… well, Tolkienesque. There’s a bad-ass sorcerer who beats everyone at sword fights and his very powerful lady love, and a lot of times this ski…

…Quite happy to announce that my Interzone story “Ship’s Brother” will be reprinted in Gardner Dozois’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Thirtieth Annual Collection. This is, er, pretty awesome? First time I ever sell two reprints to two different Year’s Bests… You can find the complete TOC here….

…which elude racism. I don’t have much in this category; and would quite welcome recommendations this year. Bonus points for POCs and/or people beyond the usual Western Anglophone World. -Campbell Award: it’s Zen Cho‘s second year of eligibility, and I think she deserves wider recognition–she writes awesome fiction that is at once funny, heartbreaking and creepy (see “The House of Aunts” on Giganotosaurus for an exemple of what I mean, or “The Pers…

Not really a lot of activity on this blog at the moment… I’m completely swamped with a lot of non-writing related things (mostly the day job, with a few side surprises). I’ve been hammering at the new story (aka Aztecs in space) while on the bus, as well as on a revision of “The Jaguar House, in Shadow”, and on some edits. And I’m running late on a bunch of crits I owe people. Eek. I think I’ll go to bed to get some sleep. With luck, I’ll manage…

…I said selling two different stories to two different Year’s Best was a first for me? I spoke a little too soon… Sean Wallace just let me know that Rich Horton wants to reprint “Scattered Along the River of Heaven” and “Heaven Under Earth” in his Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2013. That’s four freaking different stories to three different Year’s Best anthologies… *faints* If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll be off to do some massive squeei…

…A reminder that pre-orders are open for my limited-edition hardback Xuya novella “On a Red Station, Drifting”, and that you save £3 off the cover price of £10 if you preorder–see here for details, including a sampler scene from the book! (and if you’re still hesitating, there’s a more detailed review over here by @requireshate)…

…I’ve finally acknowledged that it was time to consider cooking a time-consuming hobby–expect the website to be redesigned to better highlight that bit (in fact, hoping to get the site in general tidied up). I bought Photoshop Elements in the hope of improving my pictures (yeah, I know. The software isn’t going to change the fact I have crap picture taking instincts, but I hope to improve that too, lol). And, finally, the Vietnamese learning will…

…Aannd we finally have liftoff on the holidays! Am going to enjoy my much-deserved week of rest and enjoy Christmas and the New Year. The blog is going dark for a week or so; in the meantime, have a few Virgin Mary pictures to tide you over (all from Vietnam, in case you were wondering 🙂 ). To all those who celebrate, Merry Christmas and a Happy (Western) New Year, and see you on the other side!…

…hard to read. But, new body or not, he still should have known better. “Thoi, you’re not meant to come here,” Huong Giang said. “I made it clear–“ “I know,” Thoi said. “But you need to come, elder sister. Now.” And, after a pause that was rife with implications– “There’s a man that has come here to Celestial Spires–a Galactic.”…