Just a quick heads-up that my short story “The Dragon’s Tears”, originally published in Electric Velocipede, is now up at Lightspeed Magazine. I wrote this as a homage to Chinese/Vietnamese fairytales: you can read more on the genesis on this in the interview I had with Christie Yant, here.

Snippet:

Huan Ho sealed the last window, leaving only a crack in the shutter. Tonight, he thought, his eye on the empty streets, the neighbours’ barred shutters. Tonight he had to pass the door on the hill, or let the sickness take his mother.

She had been watching him from her bed. “They ride tonight,” she said, when he was done.

Read more here.

It’s an old and sometimes creaky story but I’m stupidly fond of it, as it always reminds me of childhood.

Also, you can help support the magazine by buying the entire issue (with exclusive extra content), or subscribing? Thank you!

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 massive squeeing….

Got the recent Locus, and Rich Horton recommends “Heaven Under Earth”, and says this in his review:

Best of all is ‘‘Heaven Under Earth’’ by Aliette de Bodard. Liang Pao is the First Spouse of a man on a planet where, for some reason, women are rare. Liang is genetically male, but has been altered to be able to bear implanted children as have his fellow Spouses, but now he must welcome a surprise – an expensive female bride. His first concern is for his own position, but he soon understands that the woman is in a difficult position herself – an aging ex-prostitute who had no interest in this marriage. Again, the hints of the society in the background are very interesting, and the predicament and position of Liang Pao is involving and affecting.

Rather pleased 🙂

My story “Heaven Under Earth” is up at Electric Velocipede:

Husband’s new spouse is brought home in a hovering palanquin decked with red lanterns, its curtains displaying images of mandarin ducks and kingfishers—the symbols of a happy marriage.

First Spouse Liang Pao has gathered the whole household by the high gate, from the stewards to the cooks, from the lower spouses to their valets. He’s standing slightly behind Husband, with his head held high, with pins of platinum holding his immaculate topknot in place—in spite of the fact that he’s been unable to sleep all night. The baby wouldn’t stop kicking within his womb, and the regulators in his blood disgorged a steady stream of yin-humours to calm him down. He’s slightly nauseous, as when he’s had too much rice wine to drink—and he wonders why they never get easier, these carryings.

Check it out here, and tell me what you think.

Author’s notes forthcoming Thursday or Friday, depending how much free time I have.

Electric Velocipede is also having a kickstarter to fund their next year of online fiction, here: if you want to support quirky online fiction, this is the place!

ETA: edited this slightly to save my comments on the story for the author’s notes.

A few cool news: first, I’ve put together an ebook sampler for my fiction. The idea isn’t to do a short story collection (or even to make money!), but simply to allow people to discover my stuff by browsing through their Kindles and other reading devices. The thing is called Scattered Among Strange Worlds, and regroups my Clarkesworld Chinese/Vietnamese diaspora in space story “Scattered Across the River of Heaven” and my IGMS apocalyptic mermaid tale “Exodus Tides”. Due to exclusivities, etc., it will be available end of July (or possibly a bit later if I have to fight to upload a book on amazon…). Price should be the lowest I’m allowed to set, so 99 cents?

The cover and ebook design is by the ultra amazing Patrick Samphire, who recently launched his own ebook cover and ebook design business over at 50secondsnorth. He blogs about the design and the choices he had to make here, on his blog.

Isn’t it fabulous? Many thanks to Patrick, who’s got a very sharp eye for what works for books covers, and does absolutely freaking gorgeous stuff (and his rates are pretty darn affordable, too). You know you want an ebook this summer 😀

Also, my Chinese-y story “Under Heaven” will be available in Electric Velocipede issue 24, in which I share a TOC with Ken Liu (then again, who doesn’t share a TOC with the ever-prolific Ken? 🙂 ) and Ann Leckie. You can find the full list of stories here, and their publication date should be available soon.

Finally, I’ve sold my short story “Ship’s Brother”, set in the Xuya continuity, to Interzone for their next or after-next issue. Featuring a ship named after a fairytale character (Mị Nương, aka The Fisherman’s Song. If you’re read the fairytale, you’ll know why). Many thanks to Chris Kastensmidt and the ever-awesome Rochita Loenen-Ruiz for reading it and offering very cogent suggestions!

Snippet:

You never liked your sister.

I know you tried your best; that you would stay awake at night thinking on filial piety and family duty; praying to your ancestors and the bodhisattva Quan Am to find strength; but that it would always come back to that core of dark thoughts within you, that fundamental fright you carried with you like a yin shadow in your heart.

I know, of course, where it started. I took you to the ship–because I had no choice, because Khi Phach was away on some merchant trip to the Twenty-Third Planet–because you were a quiet and well-behaved son, and the birth-master would have attendants to take care of you. You had just turned eight–had stayed up all night for Tet, and shaken your head at your uncles’ red envelopes, telling me you were no longer a child and didn’t need money for toys and sweets.

In other news, packing for Romania in a bit of a panic. More later, but a small reminder you can find me in Bucharest Friday 17:00, at the Calderon Cultural Center, 39, Jean-Louis Calderon Street, sector 2, for the Society of Romanian Science Fiction’s ProspectArt meeting. I’ll be interviewed by the tireless Cristian Tamas, and will read from “Immersion”, a full two weeks before it’s published in Clarkesworld!

Electric Velocipede are revamping their website to prepare for their launch as a e-zine. In the runup to that, they’re republishing fiction from their previous issues online. Among which is “The Dragon’s Tears”. Probably the best description of this is that I wrote as a homage to the Chinese fairytales I read when I was a child–I wasn’t very up to date on historical research then, but I think I nailed the feeling I got when I was six or seven, and immersed in a big fat book of wonderful stories with dragons, immortal carpenters, and crabby Iron-Crutch Li, where everything and everyone could turn out to be magical (and possibly deadly. That’s part of the deal with magical people).
Also, as Anne S. Zanoni points out, she sent me one of the sweetest mails ever after she proofread this–I’m a big Patricia McKillip fan, so being compared to her while I still felt like a raw newbie was, well, pretty magical…

Huan Ho sealed the last window, leaving only a crack in the shutter. Tonight, he thought, his eye on the empty streets, the neighbours’ barred shutters. Tonight he had to pass the door on the hill, or let the sickness take his mother.

Read more here, and do check out the rest of the cool stuff while you’re there.

John Klima let me know this afternoon that he was accepting “Heaven Under Earth”, a sort-of-Chinese SF novelette for Electric Velocipede. Yay! Very much thrilled to be in such a lovely magazine again.

This was very much a group project given the number of rewrites it went through… Many thanks to everyone who took a look at it: Justin Pilon, Marshall Payne, Patrick Weekes, Oliver Dale, Pam L. Wallace, and the VD gang: Ben Rosenbaum, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Floris Kleijne, Stephen Gaskell, Sara Genge, John Olsen, Jeff Spock, Ruth Nestvold, Chance Morrison, and Deanna Carlyle

Snippet:

Husband’s new spouse is brought home in a hovering palanquin decked with red lanterns, its curtains displaying images of mandarin ducks and kingfishers–the symbols of a happy marriage.

First Spouse Liang Pao has gathered the whole household by the high gate, from the stewards to the cooks, from the lower spouses to their valets. He’s standing slightly behind Husband, with his head held high, with pins of platinum holding his immaculate topknot in place–in spite of the fact that he’s been unable to sleep all night. The baby wouldn’t stop kicking within his womb, and the regulators in his blood disgorged a steady stream of yin-humours to calm him down. He’s slightly nauseous, as when he’s had too much rice wine to drink–and he wonders why they never get easier, these carryings.

With gender changes. And babies. Also, red kites.