…So… looks like my recent website troubles have been fixed (the culprit to all my problems was a WP plugin that went funky, but nothing else looks wrong). However, given that the website’s still being hit by spambots (275 attempts in 2 hours!), I activated CAPTCHA on comments. Sorry for the extra nuisance; I hope that doesn’t put people off, but I see no other way to get rid of them….

…Speaking of cover reveals… Here’s the cover for On a Red Station, Drifting, my novella forthcoming from Immersion Press. More information about the novella here and here. This is my “Dream of Red Mansions” in space with fish sauce and family feuds (oh, OK, and a cool AI and mem-implants and various shenanigans). It should be released mid-December as a limited-edition hardback–more pre-ordering information when I have it!…

Got the recent Locus, and Rich Horton recommends “Heaven Under Earth”, and says this in his review: Best of all is ‘‘Heaven Under Earth’’ by Aliette de Bodard. Liang Pao is the First Spouse of a man on a planet where, for some reason, women are rare. Liang is genetically male, but has been altered to be able to bear implanted children as have his fellow Spouses, but now he must welcome a surprise – an expensive female bride. His first concern is…

…nd putting spread on canapés), but a group of guests very kindly agreed to come ahead of time and help with that–we made such good time that we were basically ready ahead of the 6pm starting date. The only surprise of the evening turned out to be our waffles: the H took the waffle recipe from the Larousse des Desserts , a venerable encyclopedia of French desserts which turned out to have quite a lot of embarrassing typos–specifically, when he popp…

So, in case you didn’t get the memo, RL & the dayjob are still eating away at my sanity spare time. In the meantime however, we had a rather busy weekend, but we did take time to eat a phở at a new place in the 13e, and that’s where I ate this: Yup, durian bavarois (I was originally going for durian macaroon, but got sold this instead, which was way less sweet and made all of yumminess). The perfect end to a meal with a phở. Funny observation of…

…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….

…y entertaining read if you don’t mind violence (there’s a lot of graphic wounds and battlefield scenes which don’t shy on the hours of suffering for the wounded), or sex (lots of explicit sex and ribald jokes, also I think some rapey content–there’s very little fetishisation of it, but it’s… explicit, as said before). It’s also not a monument of feminism, but it was rather a breath of fresh air to see several female main characters with their own…

…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….

…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)…