…panese). It’s been a runner-up for the Million Writers Awards for Best New Online Magazine, and deservedly so. If you want to support, go here. (I am somewhat biased as they’re publishing some of my fiction, but I do enjoy the mag consistently, which is rare) Fellow VDer Rochita Loenen-Ruiz has just arrived in Clarion West: she’ll post regular updates of her experience on her LJ: her first post can be found here. She’s also got a post over at Fant…

…that four successive touches of pain were applied to the ceiling. Sigh. I really hope we get to the bottom of this before the last of the paint peels off, and something else (and presumably worse) starts happening… 4 episodes into season 2 of Battlestar Galactica. Gotta love the fact that the number of survivors seems to be steadily diminishing, episode after episode. Somewhat to my surprise, Gaius Baltar has grown slightly more bearable, if not…

…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…

…y two days or something like that). Speaking of which, books bought in Montreal: The Well of Ascension and The Hero of Ages, Brandon Sanderson Bought both at con, finished on the plane home. It’s very much traditional fantasy, despite what the hype says on the cover, but it’s nicely done. Reminded me of my nights reading books with a light under the cover An Autumn War, Daniel Abraham Very much looking forward to this one. I loved both previous bo…

…t Xuyan Bride”, originally published in Interzone, will form part of the upcoming release of Polish online library Skryptorium at the Katedra site, edited by Jan Zeranski. The site itself is not live yet, but we’ve been given permission to spread the word 🙂 You can see a preview of the working design here. The Skryptorium project aims to showcase SF/Fantasy short fiction in translation for the benefit of Polish readers. Here are the current storie…

…you a chance to read “The Lost Xuyan Bride” on paper alongside many other tales from cool writers such as Mélanie Fazi, Jetse de Vries and Kaaron Warren. You can read a sample of the book online, Aleksandar Žiljak’s “An Evening In the City Coffeehouse, With Lydia On My Mind”–as Lavie puts it, a mixture of Boogie Nights and Men in Black….

…their antivirus system with a faulty patch, which classified 90% of all incoming mail as spam, notified the sender that the mail was spam, and erased it from the servers. (yes, go figure). Several mails have been eaten past recovery. Hopefully nothing too important. The BF is (understandably) fuming; I’m left wondering how on earth they thought an antivirus that erases mails would be a good idea. They’re trying to throw up a smokescreen by saying…

…ew and established authors that combines to a very pleasant result. For an example of cool fiction, see the rich and complex “Thieves of Silence” by Holly Phillips, or Rodello Santos’s atmospheric “To Slay with a Thousand Kisses”, a neat take on cursed spirits. Best Fanzine: –StarshipSofa: yup, podcasts are eligible for the Hugo. Check out my previous post for more info. Campbell Award: –Rochita Loenen-Ruiz (First Year of Eligibility): Rochita has…

…nice stuff about mixed heritages/cultures, which I haven’t seen that often online). I could rant, but honestly I feel the article and the comments are self-explanatory; and I’m reassured so many people are seeing it as problematic rather than taking it as gospel. I could dissect the article point by point (and believe me, there would be a lot of points to make, but I like my blood pressure the way it i. I think instead I’m going to go back to that…

…probable) that the Obsidian and Blood books include some mistakes. If you want references about Aztec life in the 1480s, can I suggest the work of people like Miguel Leon-Portilla or David Carrasco. Or, to put it another way: my books are awesome, reasonably well-researched fantasy, but very bad primary sources. A few online sources on the Nahuatl people: Museo Nacional de Antropologia (webpage in Spanish) The Nahua Newsletter The International In…