…1.5L of water, half an onion, 1 knob of ginger, a good teaspoon of five-spice powder, a good tablespoon of instant chicken broth powder, a LOOOT of fish sauce (1 or 2 tablespoons), a 1-inch piece of kombu, 8 shrimp with their shells, and 3 nests of egg noodles. And a dash of sesame oil before serving. Broth heaven. Yum yum.…

…planet. On the phone, your aunt’s voice is breezy, telling you not to worry–that she’ll find a visa and a plane ticket, that she knows someone who knows someone who can give her a hand with the formalities of the High Commission for Refugees. Behind her, you hear the dull thud of bombs falling like rain on a tin roof–the same sound that swells and roars within your dreams until you wake up in a room that feels deathly silent….

…or the consequences to the culture that gets trampled underfoot. I really do wish more people would reflect on this (and the closing remarks of the column) before they so blithely spoke of colonists seeking adventures in space……

…rom your vocabulary on mixed-race people. I don’t particularly enjoy being compared to animals, or the long history of prejudice inherent in that term (it’s a bit like thinking “mulatto” or “nigger” are appropriate descriptive words). For God’s sake, think on what it is you are saying before flinging this kind of word around. Disclaimer: this is based on my experience and on those of friends growing up (mostly in Europe, and most Asian-white mixed…

…Robots: The Recent AI, The Future is Japanese and Breaking the Bow on the list of recommended materials). I’m also on it for my two Clarkesworld stories “Scattered Along the River of Heaven” and “Immersion”, and for my novella On a Red Station, Drifting (which is mentioned by both Rich Horton and Gardner Dozois). The February issue of Locus also contains Rich Horton’s review of that selfsame novella: I recently saw two very strong novellas that mi…

…/recommendations post is here. I would add to those short stories already listed: Zen Cho’s “First Witch of Damansara”, a really funny and poignant story of culture clashes, wedding dresses and vampire grandmothers (published in E. Sedia’s anthology Bloody Fabulous, contact Zen directly for a copy; it’s well worth a read) Rose Lemberg’s “Seven Losses of Na Re”, about persecution, the loss of languages and relatives–which just made me cry Still hun…

…lised that what mattered to the Nebulas (as confirmed by the Nebula Awards commissioner Tom Doyle) was territory of sale and not location of publisher. And that, since the book was on sale everywhere including the US, it was indeed eligible for the Nebulas. At which point I naturally felt very very silly, and very humbled that in spite of my shooting myself in the foot, people had kindly voted for the novella… So thank you very much to everyone wh…

…ecent influx of traffic towards this post, so I feel the need to post an addendum. The above is my perception of Serafina as a book about the mixed-race experience (which was why a number of people explicitly recommended it to me). Someone has since pointed out to me that I didn’t consider the book might be addressing issues faced by less immediately visible minorities like Jewish people (I think Hartman is Jewish? Quite happy to be corrected on t…

…Just thought I’d repost this here if you have anything you can spare: Singaporean SFF writer Joyce Chng (J. Damask) is going through a bit of a sticky pass at the moment due to repeated hospitalisation of the family cat on top of other health issues. If you have a moment and want to buy books and/or swag, please head here. Any signal boosts much, much appreciated….

…yourself a favour and go read someone else’s account of modern Vietnamese history (from the independence onwards), because I felt the book didn’t really capture the ins and outs of what was happening in Vietnam in that time period. Again, this might all be my personal feeling, and it is also because, to some extent, I was expecting from a book that size something fairly comprehensive, which, in all fairness to them, clearly is not what the authors…