…the love of God please, let’s not do counter-slates). I will, as usual, recommend stuff as the year goes on, and make a blog post closer to the deadline with a recap of what I loved. I encourage you to do the same. PS: Worldcon was lovely! Except 9 hours of time difference, which turns out to be quite difficult to catch up on… PPS: I debated over whether to leave the comments open. I reserve the right to borrow Scalzi’s Mallet of Loving Correctio…

…ntact, I’d likely be side-eyeing them anyway). Note that a slate isn’t a recommendations list. Those are fine, I’m very flattered and grateful to be on them (and obviously even more flattered to be on people’s ballots!). In fact, this year I’ve already started taking notes one eligible stuff I read, so that I can make sure to post my usual awards recommendation post at the beginning of the year. But slates are not fine (in case you’re wondering: b…

…s fascinating to watch it slowly browning. I hope it gets all brown, but I understand that it can take years before that happens! Been cooking a bunch of greasy foods in it to help season (crab fritters, lardons), and using Grace Young’s method of dumping the rice water in it and soaking for 20 minutes to clean it (mostly because it does save a bit of water 🙂 ). Really nice to have browned chicken and steaks again, I have to say. Maillard reaction…

…sappeared, and was never seen again. But now the Dai Viet Empire itself is under siege, on the verge of a war against an enemy that turns their own mindships against them; and the Empress, who once gave the order to raze the Citadel, is in desperate needs of its weapons. Meanwhile, on a small isolated space station, an engineer obsessed with the past works on a machine that will send her thirty years back, at the height of the Citadel’s power. But…

…and only wants a quiet life with her books. But when Selene, the latest student of Lucifer Morningstar, walks into the library, Emmanuelle finds herself drawn in an adventure to steal from another House. It’s a thrilling and dangerous task, but the most dangerous thing about it might just be Selene herself–aloof and resourceful, and unexpectedly attractive… Set in the universe of the critically acclaimed The House of Shattered Wings. And, hum, thi…

…knew who she was, of course. Everyone did: Selene, Morningstar’s latest student–his latest pride, before he grew bored of her and cast her aside; as he had cast aside all his other students. She walked tall and straight; wearing men’s clothes, a set of black trousers and a swallowtail jacket, both impeccably pressed and arranged with a meticulousness that was more frightening than alluring. The smart, sensible thing to do–and Emmanuelle was nothin…

…to you whether you have one or not? (image credits: Shepherd gate clock at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, UK, retouched by CarolSpears, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)…

…as the natural order of things, too–that they had to modernize in order to compete, to become more Western because the West was so clearly intrisincally superior. They massively sent their children to Western schools–to London, Paris–to be educated as a mark of privilege. Some countries, like Japan or Thailand, managed to modernise and retain national independence and some measure of culture. Others… had less success. Yes, there was military super…

Brief update on stuff set in the universe of The House of Shattered Wings: I’m over at the Gollancz blog on Writing Of Books, and Earth, and Courtship, the adventure/courtship prequel Still over at the blog on Challenges, Baking and The House of Shattered Wings, or how learning to bake saved my novel… And finally, if you’re in the mood for more Dominion of the Fallen short fiction, I have a short story, “Against the Encroaching Darkness”, which i…

Two lovely covers today: -Above, Athena Andreadis’s To Shape the Dark, an anthology focused on women scientists (and a follow-up to The Other Half of the Sky, which included my Nebula Award winning story “The Waiting Stars”). Contains my Xuya story “Crossing the Midday Gate” (epidemics! Cranky old women scientists! Ethical dilemmas and disastrous choices!), and work by Vandana Singh, Gwyneth Jones, and countless other luminaries. Check out the TO…