• 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.

My story “Desaparecidos” is now available in the June 2010 issue of Realms of Fantasy. This was actually the one that got me pulled from the slush, so I’m very pleased to see it published (with Realms closing for a while, it did end up feeling like forever…). Like the other writers in the issue, I’ve written a piece on the origin of the story, which you can read here (and be sure to check out the other background pieces–sounds like a set of fascinating stories). And the table of contents is here. (as an aside, isn’t mine the best story description ever? Kind of sums up a lot of my fiction…)

Snippet:

Caldera de los Angeles (Crater of the Angels)
About 15 km (10 miles) from downtown El Águila. Count about three hours of a fairly taxing climb to reach the top, but the inside of the caldera–with its magnificent lake and forest–is well worth the exertion.
Legend has it that the Crater marks one of the numerous places where the rebellious angels fell down from Heaven–hence its name.
From A Traveller’s Guide to the Acamba Valley

In other news, I was pleased to see that “The Lonely Heart” (published in Black Static, to be reprinted in Panverse’s Eight Against Reality), garnered an Honorable Mention in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year, and that “After the Fire” (published in Apex, podcast on StarShipSofa), is a notable story of 2009 for the Million Writers Award

Mostly of the short fiction kind:
-Lois Tilton reviews “Melanie” (in the February 2010 issue of Realms of Fantasy) and “Safe, Child, Safe” (an Acatl story in the last issue of Talebones). She thinks the learning displayed in glowing symbols on the arms in “Melanie” is “A Neat Idea”, and mostly likes the other story as well.
(she also lists her Top Ten for 2009, among which are several friends such as J.Kathleen Cheney, Sarah L. Edwards, and Lavie Tidhar. Go f-list!!)
-K.V Taylor mentions “In the Age of Iron and Ashes” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #33) over on her blog, as having this “killer South Asian influence”–quoting, in particular, the Shiva concept, the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita (all of which were used at some point in the story, though more as a layer of pseudo-Hinduism over “traditional” fantasy tropes. This wasn’t meant to be authentic Indian, by a large margin). Neat. [1]
-Over at Fantastic Reviews Blog, “By Bargain and By Blood” (Hub issue 108) is Aaron’s Story of the Week:

This makes Aliette de Bodard only the third author to receive two different story recommendations on this blog, joining Paolo Bacigalupi and Catherynne M. Valente.

Er, wow? That’s some company…

[1]The particular setup of “In the Age of Iron and Ashes” refers to the Muslim invasion of India in the 13th Century. I read a series of elegiac texts about the loss this incurs, one of which featured a dancer on the walls of some Indian city, as a symbol of the beauty that was going to be lost in the carnage that followed. I can’t find the text for the life of me. I think it’s back at my parents’ place.

Part II of Nicholas Seeley’s conversations with the Apex Book of World SF contributors, dealing with local markets, national preoccupations and the universality of SF. Fascinating stuff.

Realms of Fantasy launches their new website–and their electronic edition. To celebrate, you can download the February 2010 issue for free (and read my short story “Mélanie” as well as Ann Leckie‘s awesome “The Unknown God”, a cool tribal-ish fantasy about gods and their powers, which reminded me of Greg Keye’s The Waterborn and Blackgod).

Angry Robot has gorgeous covers for Kaaron Warren‘s Walking the Tree, Colin Harvey‘s Damage Time and Andy Remic‘s Soul Stealers. I especially love the cover for Kaaron’s novel.

They’re also holding the 12 days of Christmas over at the website, with authors contributing a different blog post every day. So far we’ve had Chris Roberson and Colin Harvey–stay tuned for more goodies.

And Stephanie Burgis is holding an ARC giveaway contest for her novel A Most Improper Magick, a Regency YA novel about a girl dressing up as a boy to save her family from impending ruin. Oh, and it’s got highwaymen, too.

The December 2009 and February 2010 issue of Realms of Fantasy both turned up nearly simultaneously in my mailbox. The reason for the delay, insofar as I can ascertain, is that the January issue had been mauled in transit, resulting in a missing lower-right-hand corner that looked like it had been nibbled by rats (I’m pretty sure that’s not the explanation, but it did look very much like it). On the plus side, the February issue arrived in a neat USPS protected envelope, contained a folded check (which I almost lost when opening the issue, as I’m still not used to checks being folded half-inside the magazines), and, of course, my story “Melanie”, complete with illustration by Frank Wu.

w00t.

Here’s the obligatory teaser:

March in Paris: the trees in the school’s courtyard have bloomed in the mild weather, tumbles of white and pink flowers hanging just out of reach.

The boarders sit in small clutches under the arcades of building B, their notebooks open on their knees–making their last, frantic revisions before the competitive exams.

“Three weeks left,” Richard says, tapping his pen against a mathematical formula.

“Yeah,” Erwan says. He’s staring at the other students–all shining, all gorged with light: the light of numbers and curves, the endless dance of the formulas that rule the world. And, as it always does, his gaze fastens on Mélanie.

Meanwhile, I’ll be off to write some more Harbinger (regained the 2500 words I’d cut, plus some, bringing me to almost 46k. Also, the character with the longest-ever name has walked on-stage, and looks to be taking over the scene if not the plot).