And a last one before I leave on holidays…

The longlist for France’s Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire has been released, and, er, D’Obsidienne et de Sang on there a great number of times–the novel’s longlisted for Best Foreign Novel, my wonderful translator Laurent Philibert-Caillat is longlisted for Best Translator for his translations of my book and Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City, and my cover for the French edition (produced by Larry Rostant) is also longlisted for Best Work of Art.

Er, wow?

Many congrats to Lauren Beukes for doing a similar triptych, to Lionel Davoust for being longlisted for Best French Novel, and to ezine Angle Mort for making the list!

(shortlist is due out at the end of March, winners announced in May)

(ETA: yes, I’m aware it’s still Friday by 30 minutes… I screwed up with my posting system, and I don’t feel like undoing the automatic twitter and FB notifications)

So, a very quick update, because 15+ people are showing up tonight tomorrow night at my house, in order to see off the Lunar Year in style (ok, I lie, nothing to do with that. We’re housewarming with a bad sense of timing).

–D’Obsidienne et de Sang, the French translation of Servant of the Underworld, would appear to be a finalist for the Prix Masterton, a French literary award for SFF and horror (mainly geared towards horror and dark fantasy if the list of past winners is to be believed). The shortlist includes China Miéville’s The City and the City, and Gail Carriger’s Soulless (opening novel of a series which, amusingly, I’m reading right now) Er, wow? (and yes, the irony of being listed under “Fiction translated into French” has not escaped me).
-Couple Obsidian and Blood spottings: Cynthia Ward mentions both Servant and Harbinger in her end-of-year recap for Acqueduct Press, Harbinger gets noted by Duncan Lawie in his end-of-year review for Strange Horizons; Jacob at Drying Ink (who did this amazing interview with me a while back) ponders why you should read Historical Fantasy in front of a rather fetching cover of Master of the House of Darts
-hum, did I mention “The Bleeding Man” was going to be in Ian Whates’ Dark Currents, an anthology debuting at Eastercon which includes Adrian Tchaikovsky, Adam Nevill, Tricia Sullivan, Rod Rees, Nina Allan, Andrew Hook, Finn Clarke, Lavie Tidhar, Jan Edwards, Emma Coleman, Rebecca J Payne, Sophia McDougall, Una McCormack, Neil Williamson, V.C. Linde? No, I don’t think I did (I’ve known for a bit, but it wasn’t public).

I’m working on an SF story involving probabilities, and finally got in my nominations for the BSFA (short fiction, since I didn’t actually read any 2011 novels except for the aforementioned Gail Carriger (Heartless, which technically I haven’t started, having just downloaded it to my ereader).

Actual content to come, including mini-reviews of Elizabeth Bear’s Range of Ghosts (short version: you have to pre-order this book now), and David Gemmell’s Troy.

And, on the French side of things, D’Obsidienne et de Sang gets reviewed by Blackwolf. And appears to have been longlisted for the Prix des Blogueurs Planète SF (a Bloggers’ Award; wasn’t shortlisted, sadly, but the longlist’s already pretty nice 😀 ), and to have been a notable work as far as the jury for the Prix Masterton is concerned (the award is for horror and dark fantasy, and the shortlist is out in January 2012 or thereabouts, I think).

And I feel as if someone has neatly struck me between the eyes with a big hammer, so I’m going to bed with a hot tea and a good book… (NOT Le Cinquième Soleil, which requires a bit more energy than I can spare at the moment).

Sorry. Will come back to a more regular (and interesting) blogging schedule when we finally get rid of all the boxes and get properly moved in.

… I have seen the draft versions of the illustrations Larry Rostant did for the French translation of Harbinger of the Storm and Master of the House of Darts.
This would be the point where I go all Gollum and say “my precious” over and over. All I’m allowed to say is that they’re as pretty (or maybe more pretty) than the first one.

In other news, had a pleasant week: saw Chaz Brenchley and his girlfriend Karen Sunday; had dinner with James Patrick Kelly and his wife Pam today; and got my French translation of Harbinger of the Storm to peruse. Also, trying to sort out a synopsis. Almost there…

I haven’t done this for a bit, so here’s me catching up on a few links over the internet:

-Over at Chimeras, Elena Giorgi interviews me on Writing, Science and Language
-Jason Loch interviews me for Toonari Post, and blogs about his love for Obsidian and Blood
-I blog over at Juliette Wade’s Talk to You Universe on French convivial meals such as raclette, pierrade and fondue
-Erin M. Hartshorn posts about me in her A to Z of female SF writers, and in particular about “The Jaguar House, in Shadow”
-Tony’s Thoughts reviews Servant of the Underworld
-A medley of reviews for D’Obsidienne et de Sang (in French): Noosfere, Les Chroniques de Madoka, Mythologica, another one at Mythologica, Kawell of BOOKS EN STOCK at YouTube, Madoka, Dup at Book en Stock , Anesidora at Terre Des Mille Lieux. Mostly all positive, if not outright dithyrambic. Wow.

And because a post like this is missing pictures, here’s the H and I at the Hugo Awards ceremony, courtesy of Richard Man (you can see all his Hugo pictures here):

–“Dom Jaguara pogrążony w cieniu” (“The Jaguar House, in Shadow” in Polish), courtesy of polter.pl. With nifty illustrations, and a complementary author interview! Courtesy of Bartek, Izabela ‘Isabell’ Mazur, Bartłomiej ‘baczko’ Łopatka, and Artur ‘mr_mond’ Nowrot
–בונת הספינות (“The Shipmaker” in Hebrew) at sf-f.org.il. Courtesy of Ehud Maimon, and Ibar Inbar Grinstein (not entirely sure I got the names right, as this is the one page I cannot make head or tail of all fixed now!)
–“Constructorul de nave” (“The Shipmaker” in Romanian) at srsff.ro, courtesy of Cristian Tamas, and Antuza Genescu.
–“Casa Jaguarului, în umbră” (“The Jaguar House, in Shadow” in Romanian) at srsff.ro. Same culprits as above 🙂
–D’Obsidienne et de Sang, of course, the French translation of Servant of the Underworld, courtesy of Eclipse. My awesome pretty pretty softcover edition 🙂
-and a forthcoming French translation of “Jaguar House” (“Quand l’ombre se répand sur la Maison Jaguar”) in Galaxies, courtesy of Pierre Gévart and Camille Thérion, which I’m currently rereading…

Still holding out for a Spanish translation, which would amuse me (because of the Mexico connection, and also because I speak the language…) But pretty darn happy with all of these.

There will definitely be an Imaginales report (I even sent the H with the camera to take pictures of the setup, which is unusual by Anglophone con standards), but right now I’m way too tired… So instead, I’ll just scream from the rooftops that my book is out in France (in all good bookstores, can be ordered, yadda yadda. You know the drill 🙂 )

It’s kind of odd that this feels more real than the English publication; most likely because I can see it on shelves near my workplace, and hand it to friends and family who don’t happen to speak English. With the English version, all I could do was watch amazon, and the odd English-language bookstore in Paris. Not quite the same, somehow…

On bookshelves at my local bookstore

(cut to spare you from further book porn)
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If you fancy neat wallpapers, my French publisher has put up the one for the French edition of Servant of the Underworld:

Available in 1024 x 768, 1280 x 768 and 1920 x 1200 here (scroll down, it’s under “Fantasy”, at the very bottom of the category)

And you can check out the wallpapers for their other neat covers, too!

(yes, yes, I will stop displaying the awesome cover at some point… Trust me. If only because my publisher is going to run out of ideas on how to display it in new forms…)

Because, you know, I can’t get enough of it, and also because my French editor was kind enough to send me further pictures, which included the entire book jacket…

Click for further zoom (it’s a bit of a big image, sorry). As you can see, the awesome Priest of the Dead in the front has extra pyramids on the back. The leftmost item is a detachable bookmark, which is a feature of all their books: once you remove it, the inside flaps just have my bio and a longer summary than the bullet-point one at the back of the book. And you are the proud possessor of an Acatl bookmark, of course 🙂

I’m told there will be a feature on the publisher’s blog which details the process of making the cover–further info when I have it.

I feel spoiled.
(and yes, I promise I’ll stop drooling at some point, but it’s hard. Not only is it beautiful, it’s also my native language edition. Which my entire family can read, and which is going to be sold in bookshops near me. It’s a very weird thought)

I think I’m in love…

(more info here, including the French jacket copy. The artist is Larry Rostant, who did a number of other awesome things, and will also be doing the covers for the rest of the trilogy)