Very literally, in this case….
My Aztec steampunk weird alt-hist “Age of Miracles, Age of Wonders” has sold to Interzone (with mechanical creepy man, imprisoned god, blood magic, and a mining town in the Old West). Many thanks to the VD6 crew, Nancy Fulda, Stephen Gaskell, Sara Genge and Ralan Conley, for the crits that helped me fix the ending of this.

And I would also seem to have sold my Aztecs-in-space SF story “Shipbirth”, part of the Xuya continuity, to Asimov’s (do you detect a trend in story themes? :=) ). Many thanks to everyone who took a look at it on OWW: Allison Starkweather, Cécile Cristofari, Terra LeMay, L.K. Pinaire, Christine Lucas, and Ilan Lerman. And an extra dose of thanks to Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, who read it in record time and helped me fix a very important plot point.

I will be going for a liedown and more novel brainstorming.

• In techie notes, I’m now proudly powered by Chrome (which is just way faster than my creaky safari, especially on my odd connection–the one that’s supposed to have a 54MBits/s bitrate but always ends up as a 200 kbits/s). Also sorted out plugins, in order to crosspost to Twitter, and to post to LJ (yes, I know, that was happening beforehand, but the update de-activated the “mirror to LJ by default setting”). And uploaded a raft of new ebooks to my Bebook mini, including a lot of Lord Peter Wimsey (I love those. Delightfully old-fashioned).
• Bones: I have now officially reached the end of season 3, and therefore of my Spanish-dubbed DVDs. Had to switch back to English for season 4, which is a bit of an annoyance. Mind you, the first two episodes of season 4, “Yanks in the UK”, were just…painful. In a “let’s take every preconceived idea about the UK and write an episode around it without bothering to factcheck them first. Oh, and let’s give everyone exaggerated accents to make it clear we’re in the UK” way. (and, er, death penalty in the UK? Maybe, y’know, it’s been suppressed for a while now…)
• Bunch of reviews for my short fiction
  • Matt at Garbled Signals on Asimov’s, July 2010, which contains my story “The Jaguar House, in Shadow”:
    

    This is a great mix of world-building, character, and action in one story.

  • Tangent Online reviews my story “Desaparecidos” in this month’s Realms of Fantasy:
    

    (…) her story is both well told and entertaining, and there is a nice plot twist at the halfway point (look out for the character Miguel) that does a good job of taking “Desaparecidos” in an unexpected direction

    I find it fascinating when the reviewer says that the story “never touches on religion”, because for me it’s very much one of my quintessential stories about religion–about faith and hope and the belief in some larger meaning or purpose, and how they can (or cannot) sustain us through our darker moments. And, in the end, it’s about miracles, what is just and what is fair–very much religious topics as far as I’m concerned. [1] I’m assuming what he did mean is that there was no preaching in the story, but still… Kind of struck me as odd.

[1] Not to mention the angels in the story, of course.

Have had a couple questions about my alt-history universe Xuya (where the Chinese, the US and the Aztecs share North America), I decided to take the plunge, and transcribe my notes into a more legible form. I figured that with three stories out (two in Interzone and one in this month’s Asimov’s, the universe had cemented well enough that people might want extra explanations.

So behold the brand new spiffy Xuya page: all you’ve ever wanted to know about Xuya (well, not quite yet, but it does have a few pointers about the chronology, where the stories fit in there, and a few items of general interest).
Enjoy!

BTW, since I’ve locked the comments on the page, this post here is as close as it’s getting to the official question thread–in the (unlikely[1]) event that you have any interrogations about Xuya-related stuff, ask in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer.

[1] I’m a natural pessimist, and those are only short stories after all, with a small audience…

…slowly recovering from post-novel ennui. Showed Matthieu one story I wrote back in April, and wrote a zillion addresses on wedding invitations (my hand, it hurts). Also made some nice spring rolls involving salad, coriander and a variant of a cha siu/xa xíu (aka reddish BBQed pork). I’m starting to get the hang of this cooking thing.

Also worked on a Sekrit Project, which I should be allowed to make public soon.

Finally, look at this: the TOC for the July 2010 issue of Asimov’s, which includes my Xuya novelette “The Jaguar House, in Shadow”. I can haz pretty cover (with my name on it, w00t).

-Elizabeth Bear at Ideomancer (which, BTW, has an awesome new look):

In Servant of the Underworld, Aliette de Bodard has created a rather good debut novel, replete with magic, blood, and complex worldbuilding. There was a great deal to enjoy in this book, not all of it the immediately obvious.

-Josh Vogt at Examiner:

(…)for those who enjoy mythology, subtle horror, and even “detective” stories, Servant of the Underworld blends these elements into a unique story. Fortunately, it’s labeled the first book in the Obsidian and Blood series, so hopefully we’ll be seeing Bodard’s next release soon. Looks like book 2 is called Harbinger of the Storm. Sounds…peaceful.

-And Hereward L.M. Proops at Booksquawk (who didn’t like it so much, alas, but you can’t win every time):

(…)those looking for something truly different could do much worse than check out this novel. Whilst not perfect, Aliette de Bodard’s debut shows a great deal of potential which could be better realised in the inevitable sequels.

-The book also gets mentioned over at SF Signal as part of the “What Book Have You Recently Read That’s Good Enough To Recommend To a Friend?” discussion.

-Still at SF Signal, my short story “Golden Lilies” is identified as one of several “Nebula-worthy” short stories by Eugie Foster

-Finally, BestSF reviews “The Wind-Blown Man”, in the February 2010 issue of Asimov’s

Aliette de Bodard looks to China to create an alien society, alien cultures and technology – a world in which China is on a par, or better, with Western Christian society. For my money, I’d rather see Earth cultures used as inspiration to create truly alien societies, as that is true SF – but failing this, I’d much rather see the creative efforts as put in by de Bodard.

So, 74k words into Harbinger, with the longest chapter yet. The small incoherences (which I keep noting at the end of the book in order to fix them) are running to more than a page now. But on the plus side, the end is nigh. I can feel it–we’re entering the climax at the end of this chapter, and boy is it going to be huge fun.

Meanwhile, Blue Tyson reviews Servant of the Underworld over at Not Free SF, and mostly likes it:

Generally speaking in a fantasy novel you will find that the priests of the Death Cult are not very nice people. Or, at least the antagonist or people to be removed as obstacles. See Graham Masterton’s Pariah for example of the exact same god our protagonist here is the Servant of.

Not so here. Of course, your average fantasy novel is rather more likely to not be set in an Aztec city redolent with quetzal birds and jaguar spirits as opposed to ponies and pointy-hatted prestidigitators.

So, points for giving something different a shot.

Read the rest.

A very nice review of my Asimov’s story “The Wind-Blown Man” here on Tangent Online by Carl Slaughter, as well as some discussion over on the Asimov’s forums (some good, some bad). The upshot is mainly that it reads like a fantasy, which doesn’t surprise me: it’s actually SF, but it’s hard to prove it when the science developed along an alternate timeline which has nothing to do with our own, with biology and genetics developing far more efficiently than mechanics and mathematics[1]. It’s kind of interesting how everything ends up sounding like magic when you don’t have familiar technological landmarks. Mm. There’s got to be something I can take out of this…

That’s all for today. I’m off to watch Red Cliff 2 (I have to say the long version makes a lot more sense than the awful truncated version they showed in the French cinemas)

[1]Yup, I know maths are integral to science as we know it now. But if you choose to view science as a system to explain the world, it’s conceivable that another civilisation might come up with a completely different system that would also explain the world and allow us to predict some of the things that would happen. Then it would do exactly the same thing science does today. Our science was mostly shaped by Western/Greek/Indian thought, which gives a place of honour to mathematics–but the Chinese have always been more interested in biology and how the human body was a microcosm of the world, so I went ahead and used that as a basis for developing the new science. Feel free to argue with me; I’m well aware this isn’t the standard belief by any means…

-My novelette “The Wind-Blown Man” (aka the Daoists in space story) is now available in the current issue of Asimov’s (along with “The Stone Wall Truth” by fellow Codexian and writer extraordinaire Caroline Yoachim, which has a tantalising snippet up on the website). And, er, I would appear to be on the cover, right there with the famous people…

Here’s a snippet:

On a clear day, you could almost see all the way into Heaven.

That was what Shinxie loved about White Horse Monastery: not the high, lacquered buildings scattered across the mountain’s face like the fingerprints of some huge Celestial; not the wide courtyards where students sat like statues, the metal of their second-skins gleaming in the sun; but the clear, crisp air of the heights, and the breathless quiet just before dawn, when she could see a flash of light overhead and imagine it to be the reflection of Penlai Station.

In those moments, she could almost imagine herself to be free.

Quite curious to see the reaction to this one, as it was a bit of a challenge: it’s got a completely different scientific history of the world, a weird melding of science and religion, and it’s entirely told from the point of view of insiders to the culture (unlike “The Lost Xuyan Bride”, where having a European as the viewpoint character made a number of things easier to deal with exposition-wise).

-Apex is organising a Story of the Year Award. Up for consideration is my Chinese post-apocalyptic story “After the Fire”, but there is a lot of fine stuff on display. My personal favourites were Peter M. Ball’s “To Dream of Stars: An Astronomer’s Lament” and Rochita Loenen-Ruiz’s “59 Beads”. Both horrific in quite different ways. But go ahead, read and vote :=)

-Over at Strange Horizons, Andy Sawyer reviews The Apex Book of World SF, and says very nice things overall.

This is the bit where I’d go for a liedown were it not early morning here…

I’ve sold “The Jaguar House, in Shadow” to Asimov’s. It’s a novelette set in the Xuya universe (where China discovered America before Colombus, the same as “The Lost Xuyan Bride”, “Butterfly Falling at Dawn” and “Fleeing Tezcatlipoca”, not to mention novel Foreign Ghosts, currently with my agent). It focuses on the Aztecs in Greater Mexica, and the Jaguar Knights, elite spies and manipulators caught in the bloody aftermath of the civil war. Complete with blood sacrifices, crazy priests and hallucinogenic drugs.

The mind wanders, when one takes teonanácatl.

If she allowed herself to think, she’d smell bleach, mingling with the faint, rank smell of blood; she’d see the grooves of the cell, smeared with what might be blood or faeces.

She’d remember–the pain insinuating itself into the marrow of her bones, until it, too, becomes a dull thing, a matter of habit–she’d remember dragging herself upwards when dawn filters through the slit-windows: too tired and wan to offer her blood to Tonatiuh the sun, whispering a prayer that ends up sounding more and more like an apology.

Wrote the first draft of this in Brittany last summer (somewhat amusingly, the previous sale I made to Asimov’s, “The Wind-Blown Man”, was also written in Brittany, so there’s clearly something in the air here). I workshopped this on OWW, where it got very helpful crits from Christine Lucas (silverwerecat), Rachel Gold and Swapna Kishore.

If anyone wants me, I’ll be in the flat, jumping up and down and making incoherent noises.

Hum, TGIF?

Tired. But it’s mostly good fatigue. I’ve spent a lot of time today doing writing things: I sent off the corrections on the Asimov’s story, and sent them out, wrote a bio for the same story and did the same (and forgot to mention the Campbell in it. *bangs head against wall*). Then there was novel-related stuff, which I probably can’t talk about in public–but it was good stuff, definitely. And submissions, though not enough of these.

I’m about two scenes into a new short, one that finally makes sense (after ditching three different beginnings. I seem to be doing that a lot lately). Brainstorming another one, though on the backburner.

I also updated my website with preorder information, just for the sheer heck of it.

Now I’ve done too much computing and my eyes are fried; I still have stuff to do, but I think it will wait until I feel a bit more rested…

And, in totally un-SF news, the BF has finished his PhD thesis today–all printed out and ready to be sent to the supervisory committee. It might be already sent, actually–I’m not sure what happened at the post office, but there’s still a copy lying on the dining room table. Yipee!
(he learnt last week that he was supposed to hand everything in by Thursday, which made for a very rough weekend…)

I’ve sold my Chinese alternate-history “In the Time of Transcendence” to Asimov’s (the title is going to change as soon as I can work out a decent one…). Featuring a space centre in a monastery, Daoist philosophy, and forbidden love.

Many thanks to those OWWers who took a look at it: Christine Lucas, Tom Crosshill, Ilan Leman and Owen Kerr; and to Chris Kastensmidt for his comments.

EDIT: the new title is now “The Wind-Blown Man”.

That sound you hear? It’s me hyperventilating. I’ve been dreaming of breaking into Asimov’s for a while, and I don’t think it quite feels real yet. I think I’ll go back for a liedown…