…ake nước màu (caramel sauce) in my cast-iron enamelled pot (which was a welcome change from the bad saucepan I used the last time). The sauce is cooling as we speak; I’ll be hunting for a jam pot next. Have to say oven mitts are great for protection during the risky endeavour of heating up sugar… Now I’m off to spread the laundry to dry. Ah, heady days… (also bought a copy of Nigella Lawson’s How to Eat, and am currently reading it with fascinatio…

…iters’ Workshop in Brittany, and had a long… reflexion period to basically come to the conclusion I needed to take a baseball bat to my existing scenes and change the existing structure to better reflect the plot arc. This is part of my “Vietnamese in space” series with the Rong people (the same as in “Immersion”). It’s also, er, a somewhat angry story about colonialism, cultural legacies and virtual realities. Should be in the March issue of Clar…

…ugo nominations deadline is on March 10th; I’ve already put up an awards recommendation post (and supplementary recs here). But since the Hugos include non-fiction categories, I thought I’d add a few more recommendations in that direction: Best Fanzine: Both the World SF Blog and Europa SF have done a great job of taking SF past the Western Anglophone bias that still dominates the field: Europa SF is mainly focused on Europe whereas the scope of t…

…it can at me 🙂 ). I’m on twitter a bit more if you want to know what I’m up to–those days it’s mostly funny articles, cute animal pictures and the occasional rant. I’ll try to have author’s notes up for the upcoming “The Weight of a Blessing” in Clarkesworld. And then I’ll go back to hibernating… In the meantime, have a cute video of an otter shooting basketball hoops (thanks to Farah Mendlesonh)….

…Paul Weimer was kind enough to ask me to take part in a Mind Meld on Food in Science Fiction vs Fantasy. You can find it here; lots of food for thought (pun intended :p)….

…Just a note that my angry short story “The Weight of a Blessing” is now up at Clarkesworld. This was a really tough story to write, for much the same reasons as “Scattered Along the River of Heaven”, though this one took months to get right… Have a look and tell me what you think?  …

…ho on Malaysian SFF in English. Lots of fascinating-looking writers in there. -Carl V. Anderson reviews On A Red Station, Drifting. I just go “wow”. Also appears he’ll spearhead a discussion of “Immersion” next Sunday over at his blog. <hr> [1] Incidentally, I find it amusing that the theme of “forgotten history” or “rewritten history” drives this anthology, as much as it drove my latest Clarkesworld story….

So… I’ve now finished reading How to Eat by Nigella Lawson, and I have a bit of a dilemma. I love Nigella Lawson’s style and her no-nonsense approach to cooking; and her advice and general tips, but… but the book itself has very few recipes I can use, mostly because so much of what’s in it requires either milk, buttermilk, cream, and/or alcohol, none of which my digestive system can bear (I do butter and cheese fine, and small quantities of milk…

…clearer. A few tidbits: “The Vermillion Seal” is of course a reference to official and/or personal seals and the colour of the ink used with them. You’ll notice that Sarah has a Galactic name; compare with Minh Ha’s niece, Hanh, and you get a glimpse of different ways to assimilate. And “Cygnus” is all I could come up with in the way of planet names 🙂…

…Just very, very busy… (not with writing, in case you had any doubts. Mostly %%% RL). Working a bit on the novel though progress is damnably slow. So far have three main characters, cool worldbuilding, and no plot whatsoever….