…with the cuisine and people who are not. Anyway, that’s all from the blog; hope I can try some recipes soon, but last week scooped my brains out and ate them with a little cream……

…The amazing Fran Wilde has interviewed me for her series “Cooking the Books”–interviews focused on food and SF writers (you can understand why I was deliriously happy to be picked as an interview subject 🙂 ). I wax lyrical about the power of food, lemongrass chicken in “Immersion”, and my recipe process here….

…Firefly (don’t get me wrong, there’s stuff about Firefly that I love, but realistic depiction of Asians isn’t really one of them). I missed it on the first reading because I was struggling a bit with the universe, but it does get a lot of little details right (the immortals, the festivals, the ranks in the household). As Zen points out, it also falters in places (where are the Classics and the Confucian influences, for instance), but still, prett…

…Quite happy to announce that my Interzone story “Ship’s Brother” will be reprinted in Gardner Dozois’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Thirtieth Annual Collection. This is, er, pretty awesome? First time I ever sell two reprints to two different Year’s Bests… You can find the complete TOC here….

Remember when I said selling two different stories to two different Year’s Best was a first for me? I spoke a little too soon… Sean Wallace just let me know that Rich Horton wants to reprint “Scattered Along the River of Heaven” and “Heaven Under Earth” in his Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2013. That’s four freaking different stories to three different Year’s Best anthologies… *faints* If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll be off to do some…

…A reminder that pre-orders are open for my limited-edition hardback Xuya novella “On a Red Station, Drifting”, and that you save £3 off the cover price of £10 if you preorder–see here for details, including a sampler scene from the book! (and if you’re still hesitating, there’s a more detailed review over here by @requireshate)…

…the end of this one). I felt like I sailed over a plateau, albeit a very uncomfortable one, when I started injecting more of my personal life and experience into my stories (probably why writing a lot of them felt like pulling teeth, lol)–and I was the first one surprised to have so many stories recognised (in addition to the Year’s Best, “Immersion” also got mentioned here, here and here, got massively recommended for the Nebulas, and got nominat…

…Aannd we finally have liftoff on the holidays! Am going to enjoy my much-deserved week of rest and enjoy Christmas and the New Year. The blog is going dark for a week or so; in the meantime, have a few Virgin Mary pictures to tide you over (all from Vietnam, in case you were wondering 🙂 ). To all those who celebrate, Merry Christmas and a Happy (Western) New Year, and see you on the other side!…

…hful face flushed with what seemed like anger or trepidation: Thoi had been in his body for less than a year, and he was sometimes hard to read. But, new body or not, he still should have known better. “Thoi, you’re not meant to come here,” Huong Giang said. “I made it clear–“ “I know,” Thoi said. “But you need to come, elder sister. Now.” And, after a pause that was rife with implications– “There’s a man that has come here to Celestial Spires–a G…

…Happy new solar year everyone, hope it’s a great one filled with many awesome things! Enjoying my last hours of calm before the madness of 2013 starts up again 🙂…