…ok without gushing, because it’s so good. It has Bear’s gorgeous prose and complex characters, as well as intricate worldbuilding that recalls the cultures of the Silk Road–a rarity in a field where non-Western fantasy is still the odd thing out rather than the norm. And the plot zips along from gorgeous set-piece to set-piece (Samarkar’s exploration of the ruined city is wonderful in this regard, conveying both the richness of what has been lost…

…oxanne) has a series on French Female Writers Through the Centuries: her latest review is of Marie NDiaye’s Three Strong Women, here. Whole series is worth reading, but this has some interesthing thoughts about NDiaye herself, and her sense of identity, or “truncated mixity” as she calls it, and handling what people expect her to write vs what she actually writes. -Nancy Fulda on Readers, Feedback and Good Stories. One of the hardest lessons I lea…

…restaurants). Plus, you always eat well at Grandma’s house (thanks to the combined efforts of Grandma, my maternal aunt, and my cousin). We also tested and patented the food crawl as we were travelling: this is a technique by which you get up at 6:00, have a cup of tea, eat a breakfast soup at 9:00, have lunch at 11:00, then have a boat ride on the Mekong and have a copious snack at 15:00, and proceed to dinner at 17:00 (all the while being point…

…e terms. Yup. Scary scary. That’s all I had. Next: pictures, and I’ll stop complaining, promise. [1] I’ll grant them one charitable intent, which is that they might be aiming this at French people who were in Indochina while it was still a colony. However, you have to realise that Vietnam became nominally independent from France in 1954, and that I don’t know when the renaming of stuff took place (offhand, juding from my bare-bones knowledge of hi…

(part 2 of 3) 4. Language: so, we have established one thing, which will come as no surprise, which is that my Vietnamese pronunciation sucks, and the more towards the centre we moved, the less I could make myself understood. I could sort of fake it in Hội An (to the point that when I asked for the bill it was presented to me in Vietnamese, cueing a “er, how much is ba mươi hai in English/French/convenient other language” [1]), but Huế was marked…

…g & having the moral right not to be held accountable for what you say Smartest quote about freedom of speech, ever. –The New York Times on Explaining Londoners. Definitely worth a laugh. I would like to point out that although the French do greet each other by kissing cheeks, we only do the one-on-each-cheek in Paris (every area of France basically has its own idea of how many kisses you should give) -Fellow VDer Stephen Gaskell has started a new…

…, better known in English as Marble Mountain: it’s a major Buddhist temple complex near Đà Nẵng (centre of Vietnam), which has a slew of pagodas and shrines on moutaintops, as well as temples carved within caves that are truly impressive. Easily my favourite place (though not very favoured by Western tourists; the crowd was mostly local) of the trip: serene and unearthly, and with fabulous views over the surrounding countryside. Easy to see why th…

…… is that, even while getting home relatively late, there’s still a good half hour of wonderful sun to enjoy while walking in a park. *happy writer*…

…Chinese kind, has a low smoke point at 180°C, which means that it starts decomposing into a lot of components if you use it on high heat–including a fair amount of carcinogens. Most cooking oils, by contrast, have a higher smoke point at 230°C or something like that, and are thus suitable for frying on high heat. Sesame oil is more like a dressing: you put it on cooked stuff, or in salads, but you certainly never ever use it for frying. So, no, th…

…Very pleased to announce I’ll be a Guest of Honour at Eurocon 2016 in Barcelona, along with Richard Morgan, Jun Miyazaki, and Enrique Corominas. Dates are 4-6 November 2016. (yeah, you’ll have noticed I seem to go to Barcelona quite a bit those days. Not complaining, it’s a great city, the food is awesome, and I get to practise my–ailing–Spanish…)…