…ieve to think of the stars Our ancestors our gods Scattered like hairpin wounds Along the River of Heaven So tell me Is it fitting that I spend my days here A guest in those dark, forlorn halls? # This is the first poem Xu Anshi gave to us; the first memory she shared with us for safekeeping. It is the first one that she composed in High Mheng—which had been and remains a debased language, a blend between that of the San-Tay foreigners, and that o…
…osenbaum, Daily Science Fiction, 2012. speed of light: a physical constant denoting the speed of light in a vacuum, important in many areas of physics, and valued at 299,792,458 meters per second. It is the maximum speed at which all energy, matter, and information in the universe can travel–symbol c, postulated in Einstein’s special theory of relativity in 1905 AD. Vu had never been able to speak to Thuy. Even when they were children, he’d had go…
…-1–symbol k, first referenced in work linking entropy to probability by Ludwig Boltzmann in 1877 AD. It was the same way in life as in the story: the fisherman plying his trade on the river rapids; the princess trapped in her tower, waiting for the sound of his flute, waiting to be taken away from the palace. Except that Thien was the princess, the captive one–if the city of Hue could be a tower, and guiding tourists through the ruins of the Citad…
…only a hologram on the ancestral shrine, and your son Hoang, too young to understand, who kept asking you why Daddy wasn’t coming home. Not a Daoist story either, full of heroes with peach-wood swords and demon-fights–where the dead can rise, and walk again: the miracles that never happen. For you have stood at too many funerals, watching the coffins covered with a yellow shroud, and no one ever woke up, not even to become the shambling monstrosi…
…too wide, skin that feels too pale, an odd, distant smell wafting from the compartment’s ambient system that is neither incense nor garlic, but something else, something elusive that you once knew. You’re dressed, already—not on your skin, but outside, where it matters, your avatar sporting blue and black and gold, the stylish clothes of a well-traveled, well-connected woman. For a moment, as you turn away from the mirror, the glass shimmers out o…
…A Xuya universe story. You never liked your sister. I know you tried your best; that you would stay awake at night thinking on filial piety and family duty; praying to your ancestors and the bodhisattva Quan Am to find strength; but that it would always come back to that core of dark thoughts within you, that fundamental fright you carried with you like a yin shadow in your heart….
…ttany (sea, cycling and sand… There was sun, but the temperature was still pretty cool. Pleasant, but I didn’t really feel like taking off my jacket in the evening). Just learnt that Charles N. Brown, publisher, editor and co-founder of Locus passed away. I had the luck to meet him once at the Writers of the Future workshop, and to sit at his table, where he regaled us with anecdotes and advice. He was in many ways a towering man, and he will be m…
…A Xuya universe story. Where to Buy Space and Time Buy Now…
…paperback edition of The House of Shattered Wings is now out, and can be found in all good bookshops. This is the “gold foil” edition which also includes an exclusive short story, “The House in Winter”, set twenty years before the story and which, though standalone, sets up characters and situations for the standalone sequel The House of Binding Thorns (it’s in the manner of easter eggs: not compulsory to have read before reading book 2, but very…
…both write terrific fiction). In non-selfish self-promoting links, I’ve found a new webcomic to get addicted to: Freakangels by Warren Ellis and Paul Dufield. Set in a post-Apocalyptic, flooded London, this focuses around the Freakangels, a group of people cursed with strange powers. It soon becomes clear that it’s their combined powers that ended the world, and that they’re trying to make amends for it by making Whitechapel into a haven of peace…
