…hers, etc.), and which seem to bear little relation to anything resembling real life. I’ve complained about science here, but now for bonus points: engineering projects! So, exhibit A. This is how a large-scale project looks according to most SF stories I’ve read: . Basically, a project manager who is God, or as near to God as matters, with anything from a hundred to thousands of (mostly) nameless, faceless grunts under him doing all the work. The…

…ctatorship on a generation ship, and “‘I m d 1 in 10’” is an absorbing and realistic near-future tale, complete with deliciously crunchy geeky vocabulary. Alyssa Wong is also eligible: I recommended “Santos de Sampaguita” (see “Short story” above). Alyssa also has a short story “The Fisher Queen”, in F&SF, which you can find in the SFWA forums here–a creepy story of mermaids, a fishing boat and peculiar sisterly bonds. Best semiprozine Scott H. An…

…HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS and ramps them up to a pitch of intensity that I really wasn’t expecting. (…) Wrenchingly tense, suffused with a creeping undercurrent of atmospheric horror, of decline-and-fall, and yet vividly alive. (…) It does so much so right, and so well, that I cannot help but love it wholly and entirely. It really is an utterly magnificent achievement. Liz Bourke Where to Buy Hardback (US) Penguin Random House US indie stores Amaz…

…yed cliché of a woman lifted from poverty by the power of love– whereas in real life, this would have been a complex situation to navigate, especially with regards to the skewed power balance. (of course real life would have been more subtle, and there would have been a variety of situations and relationships! I just don’t have space in a short story to deal with all of that) Another thing that changed between draft and published version was the g…

…ce can you give your children? Of course, family is both a stricture and a comfort: I try to focus more on the comfort side of things because I feel it’s underplayed in SFF, but there are familial obligations–and On a Red Station, Drifting in particular focuses on family honour; on how to deal with relatives you might have absolutely no liking for, but that you are still duty bound to protect–what is your duty to your family, and how far are you p…

…on it/the audiobook before September 8th, 23:59 GMT +1, and you can get a FREE copy of In Morningstar’s Shadow, an exclusive ebook of short vignettes that illuminates corners of the world and characters of the novel. For more info on the ebook see here. ETA: this is for either the US or UK edition. The caveat is that this is basically run solely by me and that I’m running a bit ragged: I will do my best to get back to you as soon as I can–if I do…

…would have been better prepared, had I thought of his coming. Read more. (free download at the Hub website) Many many thanks to Marshall Payne for his help on this one, as well as tlmorganfield, tchernabyelo, and everyone else who took a look at it on Liberty Hall (the crits date back to before I got smart enough to record who had critted my stuff for later thanks). And to Lee for prodding me into submitting it and accepting it for publication. (…

…you feel so inclined it’s here. If you prefer ebook format it’s in the Tor.com anthology that you can get for free on amazon (MOBI) or Barnes and Noble (EPUB) and most other major retailers. Novels I had really high expectations for Yoon Ha Lee’s NINEFOX GAMBIT, and I wasn’t disappointed. A space opera set in a repressive religious empire called the Hexarchate, NINEFOX GAMBIT follows soldier Kel Cheris as she is tasked with the impossible: retakin…

…rrasco. Or, to put it another way: my books are awesome, reasonably well-researched fantasy, but very bad primary sources. A few online sources on the Nahuatl people: Museo Nacional de Antropologia (webpage in Spanish) The Nahua Newsletter The International Indian Treaty Council American Indian Movement Survival International University of Texas at Austin University of Oklahoma And a few recs for fiction written by Native Mexicans: Words of the Tr…

…y floors were the 5th and 28th). We’d had enough of crowds by then (and my brain was starting to fry), and decided to pop into the bar for a while. As the lifts were completely clogged, it turned out that we were stuck in the bar for a while… (there have been far worse fates. We had lots of drinks). We sat with the Viable Paradise crowd, courtesy of Chris (and saw Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi arm wrestle it out for the Hugo. Cory won). [it later…