-A rather lovely review of Servant of the Underworld by Keith Harvey, discussing its relation to the cozy mystery (anything that compares Brother Cadfael with Acatl is awesome, check it out!)

-The evolution of Vietnamese clothing, via lilsuika and Jhameia (amazing to see all the different styles together like this).

–China Miéville on racism and the Belgian decision to publish Tintin in Congo without acknowledging its racist clichés. For the record, Tintin was also a part of my childhood. I have very fond memories of some of the BDs in the series (mainly the later ones), but I don’t think they’re books I could enjoy today, and I’m not really sure they’re books I’d hand to my children. Every single nationality around the globe basically got skewered in a racist fashion (including but not limited to Africans, Arabs, Asians, Gypsies–you name it, he skewered it), and it’s very much boys’ adventures–wimmen need not apply. There are other BDs from my childhood that are far, far better than those.
Also, this quote?

there is a distinction between having the legal right to say something & having the moral right not to be held accountable for what you say

Smartest quote about freedom of speech, ever.

–The New York Times on Explaining Londoners. Definitely worth a laugh. I would like to point out that although the French do greet each other by kissing cheeks, we only do the one-on-each-cheek in Paris (every area of France basically has its own idea of how many kisses you should give)

-Fellow VDer Stephen Gaskell has started a new blog, Creepy Treehouse, aimed at educating the young-ish crowd better than dry school lectures. He’s running a series of posts on how to survive the apocalypse that are rather fab.

Mostly catching up on post-VN stuff…

-The cover of the omnibus edition of Obsidian and Blood has now been released: remember the uber-cool Larry Rostant cover that graced the French edition? Well, now it can be in your living room, with the complete Acatl novels. We’re currently discussing what will go in the omnibus beyond the text of the three novels, but I expect there’ll be bonus extras.

-My Nebula Awards interview (from last year) by John Ottinger III, is now up at the SFWA website–I talk about cooking, diversity in genre, and my fave bools with fabulous settings. Thanks to the tireless Charles Tan for organising everything, and to John for the perceptive questions.

-I will be Guest of Honour at the British Science Fiction Foundation/British Science Fiction Association AGM/mini-convention, on June 9th in London, at the Royal Astronomical Society. The other GOH is astronomer Marek Kukula. I’m also likely to hang around in London for the weekend (basically, I want to avoid getting up early and returning late, so I’m looking into being there Sunday as well). More details as I have them.

(PS: as some of you on FB and Twitter know, I jammed my right hand in a steel-reinforced door. I’m currently typing with my left hand and an index finger, so I’m not exactly fast on my feet at the moment. It’s much better than it was Tuesday night though, and I don’t think anything is broken. But apologies if I owe you long mails or edits, I can’t handle those well at the moment)

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)

-More “Scattered Along the River of Heaven” linkage: Two Dudes in an Attic (in an analysis that is not only gushing but starting to rival the story in length, wow), Jonathan Crowe, and Marina
-Warpcore SF reviews Master of the House of Darts
-Jim Hines tries to duplicate female poses on genre covers, and posts pictures. Hilarious. (even though, yeah, women do move a little more easily at the hips than men, it’s true that none of those poses look exactly comfortable for men). genreviews does the same thing comparing male and female poses on covers.
-Related: Fantasy Armor and Lady Bits, or why boob plates are the most impractical idea ever.

So, last week, the post office sends us a message saying that they tried to deliver a bulky package to our home, but couldn’t because the mailbox was too small. I’ve been burnt before at this game, so I cajoled the H into going to pick it up at the post office.
Best idea I ever had, because this is what the package looked like:

After a lot of fighting the thing with scissors, I opened it, and behold:

I have my contrib copies of Master of the House of Darts!

To celebrate, I’m giving away ten copies of the book. 5 are up at Goodreads (and I’ll note the giveaway is available worldwide). Another 5 are up for grabs here: the difference with the Goodreads ones is that I’m trading those for a review of the book posted on your blog or on amazon (I have a slight pref. for amazon because the book hasn’t been getting a lot of signal boost, but do post wherever you want on the Internet, and whatever you feel about the book–more than a few sentences, of course–and you’re obviously free to say if you didn’t like it). First come, first served. I’ll sign and personalise them if you so require.

Memo: you don’t have to have read the previous books in the trilogy to make sense of this one; it’s a standalone like an episode of a crime series, though obviously character arcs get wrapped (last book of the trilogy, yadda yadda). Post here or in the LJ mirror if you want to give a copy a good home.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Master of the House of Darts

by Aliette de Bodard

Giveaway ends January 08, 2012.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

ETA: wow, thanks everyone! All copies offered through aliettedebodard.com are gone now, but you can still get the ones from goodreads by entering the giveaway, as indicated above (you have until January 8th).

First off–hats off to Nathan McKnight, who has produced an Obsidian and Blood glossary for the Kindle, which you can use to call up characters’ names and special meanings. If you’ve always wanted to dip into the books but found the names too troublesome, the glossary is your friend! Download it here.

Oh, and, now that AR has officially announced it: there will be an Obsidian and Blood omnibus! Called Obsidian and Blood, it will gather all three books in one handy paperback (or ebook), and will be released in July 2012. More details here (not much for the moment other than ISBNs, but there should be some cover art at some point).

Costs £13 or $16, depending on whether you’re in the US or UK, and £8 as an ebook, about or less than the price of two volumes–so, if you’ve got fewer than 2 Obsidian and Blood books and want a complete set in a nice package, you know where to head…

Meanwhile, if anyone’s read Master of the House of Darts and wants to post a few reviews on amazon, I’d be very grateful, ’cause I can’t say the book’s getting a lot of attention at the moment…

-The World SF blog has relaunched as a brand-new website, and merged operations with The Portal to provide short fiction reviews. I signed up as article writer, and I hope to do a series on Franco-Belgian comics, much like I did for Yoko Tsuno. Will keep you posted as I write 🙂 They’re running fiction on Tuesdays, the most recent being “Dancing Together Under Polarised Skies” by Milena Benini (do note that the fiction has been professionally translated–the poor vocabulary and grammar are deliberate). Also, couple of interviews, one with Sayuri Ueda (author of The Cage of Zeus published by Haikasoru), and one with Hannu Rajaniemi (who needs no presentation–if you feel you need one, read the awesome Quantum Thief).
-Over at Kaaron Warren’s blog, I speak of Master of the House of Darts–using history as inspiration, and how to let your characters have at each other (which should always be your top priority 🙂 )
-Stomping On Yeti selects his pick of books for October–and I’m more than a little flabberghasted to find out that Master of the House of Darts ties with David Anthony Durham’s The Sacred Band for release of the month. Er, wow?

In other news, finished a short story (which ended up being called “Breath of the Nine Dragons”), about a Japanese-funded project in the Me Kong delta–which probably has the dubious honour of mangling both the Vietnamese and the Japanese culture in the same 7000 words…
And got my UPS package (a self-printed cookbook from Lulu, which has already started falling apart. As you might guess, I wouldn’t advise using Lulu for hardcovers, or maybe I’ve been very unlucky in my particular copy…)
Next up: novella revisions, and some desultory research into the history of Paris for a novel project.

First off, a big round of thanks to everyone who entered–reading all those Aztec recipes was awesome (and made me really hungry), and it was really interesting to see who your favourite Obsidian and Blood characters were. I hadn’t expected Acatl to be quite so popular, but I guess it makes sense because his is the only POV within the book… At any rate, thank you so much. You made me so proud 🙂

So, the sorting hat has performed its magic, and the winners are:
1st prize: Lee Hallison
2nd prize: starlady38
3rd prize: Cécile Cristofari, who hit about every way to get points 🙂

I’ll be in touch with the winners to get them their prizes.

(with a few that are a bit old, but I’d missed them before…)

–Keyan Bowes on “Why I write American”, chiming in on the differences between Asian (where she used to live) and American fiction as she perceives them
-Amal El-Mohtar on “Towards a Steampunk Without Steam”, a great discussion on why imposing Victorian values on steampunk is a bad idea (and yes, it’s an old post)
-Gabrielle Gantz interviews me for The Faster Times
-Lawrence M Schoen interviews me for his feature Eating Authors
-Val’s Random Comments weighs in on Master of the House of Darts (aka, thank God, the book is working)
-Jaoob at Drying Ink reviews Master of the House of Darts

In other news, huge congrats to the Angry Robot overlords Marc Gascoigne and Lee Harris for winning the World Fantasy Award last night! (even though a bit sad there wasn’t a Bragelonne win, as this would have been the very first win of a non-Anglophone) The complete list of winners is here.

And Happy Halloween everyone–we don’t celebrate here, so I’m going to stick to some phở…

Just a reminder that you have until Nov. 1st to enter the Master of the House of Darts competition, which comes with lots of neat prizes . You can enter via a comment or a repost, but for the best chance to win, don’t forget you can make up an Aztec recipe! So far, we’ve had prickly pear juice, chicken mixiotes, Aztec brownies, poultry with spicy fruit sauce, and gummy hearts that look like real hearts (not a recipe per se, but good enough as Aztec food 🙂 ). Come and join in the fun, either here or here!

(the less experiences cooks can also tell me who their favourite character in Obsidian and Blood is 🙂 )