…ry,” he whispered. “I had to.” Her lips moved, straining to speak–but no sound could come out. It might have been his name she was trying to speak–a reproach, or thanks. He would never know. I’m sorry. At length her gaze grew slack, and the body under him stopped moving. There was only the blood, blood everywhere on his arms and hands–and the memory of her gaze transfixing him. He did not move. He remained kneeling by her body, in the silence of t…

…I showed her the laptop, and she shrugged. “You can take that too.” She sounded distracted, as if the pendant had brought back unwelcome memories. I guessed seeing her daughter and her granddaughter quarrel regularly must have been disheartening. *** I spent some time questioning the servants in He Chan-Li’s house, asking them if they had any ideas of where she might have gone, but nothing interesting came of it. After leaving the house, I took a…

…of charge: -my story “In the Lands of the Spill” is now available in the Avatars Inc anthology, an anthology about telepresence that includes works by Tade Thompson, Pat Cadigan, Ken Liu, Nino Cipri… -and I’ve made available a bundle of three of my Xuya stories that aren’t easy to find through my Patreon (this is a public post but do feel free to join my Patreon if you want the exciting paying stuff: this is much much appreciated). Go download th…

…you won’t have to face the judges in the City again. Nothing, until the ground comes up to meet you, and you land in a jumble of pain and shattered bones; and the scream you didn’t think you had in you scrapes your throat raw as you let it out—like the first, shocked breath of a baby newly born into a universe of suffering. *** It was Ninon who first saw her. Philippe had felt her presence first, but hadn’t said anything. It wasn’t a wish to prote…

…but also about the sapphic courtship of a tiger and a scholar. It’s about history, and stories, and who gets to tell what, and it absolutely nails down the oral form while managing to hit all my buttons. It sounds like the grown-up version of the tales my bà ngoại told me as a child, and that’s the highest praise. The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, by Zen Cho. When a bandit walks into a kopitiam (coffee shop), everything goes downhill…

…voters. -for those with more time on their hands, my novel Servant of the Underworld is eligible for the Hugos, Nebulas and BSFA awards (and the email offer still stands). It’s also in the SFWA forums. -if you hate my guts and/or didn’t feel my stories were great (fair enough), don’t forget to still read and vote. As I understand it, a lot of awards suffer from too few potential voters actually casting their votes, leading to the loudest people w…

…Expo : wow, I’m salivating… (via teafreaks) BF and I are still deep into the Canada guide, trying to work out what we’re going to do before Anticipation (looks like there’s more than enough around Montreal to keep us busy for a while). Off to spend some time with Hamster Sister (she had a bunch of wisdom teeth removed–some swelling happened, obviously…)…

…the stuff I’ve published in online zines). I’m still looking for a way to list subpages within a post (I’ve found the wordpress syntax, but it seems to be working only in the sidebar). I also have an author page up on Facebook, mostly following the example of Gareth. I suppose every little bit helps 🙂 And, as said above, I’ve finished up my Cambpell reading by the two novels I’d ordered a while ago: Thunderer and Acacia. Two very different beasts:…

…to the corpse on the altar: a minor member of the Imperial Family, who had died in a boating accident on Lake Texcoco. My priests had bandaged the gaping wound on his forehead and smoothed the wrinkled skin as best as they could; they had dressed him with scraps of many-coloured cotton and threaded a jade bead through his lips – preparing him for the long journey ahead. As High Priest for the Dead, it was now my responsibility to ease his passage…

…love the cover for Kaaron’s novel. They’re also holding the 12 days of Christmas over at the website, with authors contributing a different blog post every day. So far we’ve had Chris Roberson and Colin Harvey–stay tuned for more goodies. And Stephanie Burgis is holding an ARC giveaway contest for her novel A Most Improper Magick, a Regency YA novel about a girl dressing up as a boy to save her family from impending ruin. Oh, and it’s got highway…