aliettedb: (utena)

If you still need ideas/stuff to read at the last minute I’ve collected my recommendations here.

The short version: please consider Likhain (sample above) for your Best Fan Artist ballot, and Tade Thompson for the Campbell. And because I’ve repeatedly had the question: insofar as I can tell, the Xuya universe series is eligible in the Best Series category (meets the total wordcount and had 3 new volumes released in 2016: take your pick between “A Salvaging of Ghosts” , “A Hundred and Seventy Storms”, and “Pearl” in the excellent anthology The Starlit Wood–you can read the first two free online, or you can check out the Cheat Starter Guide to Xuya)

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

Hadn’t gotten around to this yet, but here’s the cover for The Citadel of Weeping Pearls, my Xuya novella that was a finalist for the Locus Awards in 2015.

It will be available March 28th 2017 from all major retailers (and in print through Createspace) thanks to the JABberwocky Books Programme.

Art and cover design by Maurizio Manzieri.

The Citadel of Weeping Pearls was a great wonder; a perfect meld between cutting edge technology and esoteric sciences—its inhabitants capable of teleporting themselves anywhere, its weapons small and undetectable and deadly.

Thirty years ago, threatened by an invading fleet from the Dai Viet Empire, the Citadel disappeared and was never seen again.

But now the Dai Viet Empire itself is under siege, on the verge of a war against an enemy that turns their own mindships against them; and the Empress, who once gave the order to raze the Citadel, is in desperate needs of its weapons. Meanwhile, on a small isolated space station, an engineer obsessed with the past works on a machine that will send her thirty years back, to the height of the Citadel’s power.

But the Citadel’s disappearance still extends chains of grief and regrets all the way into the fraught atmosphere of the Imperial Court; and this casual summoning of the past might have world-shattering consequences…

A new book set in the award-winning, critically acclaimed Xuya universe.

More info about the book, including excerpt!

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

Just a quick note that my Xuya short story “The Shipmaker” is now reprinted at Clarkesworld. This was the first of the mindship sequence (AIs incubated in human wombs and becoming part of human families). Bit of nostalgia for this one: it won me my first major award (British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Short Fiction), and was also the first story I wrote that had actual Vietnamese characters (more accurately, Vietnamese immigrants in a Chinese-dominated society. But still).

Also, my longer Xuya novelette, “Pearl”, a retelling of Da Trang and the Pearl, is available as part of The Starlit Wood, Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe’s anthology of retold fairytales. More info here.

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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Quite happy to announce that my Xuya BCS story “A Salvaging of Ghosts” is going to be reprinted in Jonathan Strahan’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year (complete TOC here), and in Gardner Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy (complete TOC here courtesy of Lavie Tidhar).

It was originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies for their science fantasy issue: you can read it online here.

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

My Xuya short story “A Hundred and Seventy Storms” has been published online as part of Uncanny Magazine‘s July/August 2016 issue. Aka “wow I hadn’t actually used Kepler’s Laws in a long, long time” (I needed to do some quick and dirty planetary design. Was very proud I remembered most of them °_°).

Snippet:

This is the room where The Snow Like a Dancer dies, year by year and piece by piece.

When they wheel in the cradle where she rests, she always thinks—for a bare, suspended moment—that it will be all right, that it will all end well—and then nausea tightens around her, and the white and stark walls seem to press down on her, unbearably sharp, a faint memory of Third Aunt and Cousin Lua asleep, and the incessant noise of machinery monitoring her, drips and feeds hooked into her broken, disconnected limbs.

You can read it here.
You can also buy the issue it’s part of (which has Cat Valence, Sabrina Vourvoulias and many other fine folk) here.

Many many thanks to Stephanie Burgis who read it in record time, as well as to everyone who suggested life changing events when I asked on Facebook (I needed something against which to set the story)–particularly Kari Sperring who came up with large weather events.

And yeah, this is based on my experience of giving birth to the Librarian, at least the bit where I was lying down, tethered to an IV and in pretty strong pain (epidural came too late so I essentially gave birth on a light dosage of painkillers. There were… a couple of really not fun moments).

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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My novelette “Memorials”, originally published in Asimov’s,  has been reprinted in Apex Magazine‘s June 2016 issue, alongside fiction by Mary Pletsch, Douglas F. Warrick, and a novel excerpt from the awesome E. Catherine Tobler.

Virtual realities, powerful aunties, and trafficking in the dead. Also, three-colour chè. Because.

Snippet:

Cam finds Pham Thi Thanh Ha in her house, as she expected. By now, she doesn’t question the aunts’ knowledge or how they came by it. She does what she’s told to, an obedient daughter beholden to her elders, never raising a fuss or complaining– the shining example of filial piety extolled in the tales her girlfriend Thuy so painstakingly reconstitutes in her spare hours.

You can read it here.

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

Pleased to announce my Xuya short story “A Hundred and Seventy Storms” will be published in Uncanny Magazine. Mindship and perihelial storms on a particularly unpleasant planet. This is the story for which I brainstormed important life milestones on Facebook–many thanks to everyone who answered, and especially Kari Sperring for coming up with the “huge climatic event” that inspired this story. Thanks as well to Stephanie Burgis who helped me fix the ending.

Also, I hadn’t actually thought I’d ever dust off Kepler’s Laws for short fiction :p (as in actually jotting down numbers and doing calculations. I’ve used them for rough estimates but never actually done proper maths with them)

Snippet:

This is the room where The Snow like a Dancer dies, year by year and piece by piece.

When they wheel in the cradle where she rests, she always thinks–for a bare, suspended moment–that it will be all right, that it will all end well–and then nausea tightens around her, and the white and stark walls seem to press down on her, unbearably sharp, a faint memory of Third Aunt and Cousin Lua asleep, and the incessant noise of machinery monitoring her, drips and feeds hooked into her broken, disconnected limbs.

 

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

Two new Xuya stories (no, I’m not chain-writing them! Just haven’t had a chance to blog about writing lately).

“A Game of Three Generals” (to be published in a forthcoming thing)

Every day is the same: Song Ha gets down to the refectory and spoons rice porridge into her mouth, feeling the salty taste of fish sauce against her palate–there used to be something subtly wrong with it, wasn’t there? But now it’s a familiar beat like a syllable in a poem–a daily counting out–she’s not sure exactly what, but it’s important that she doesn’t lose count.

“A Hundred and Seventy Storms”

This is the room where The Snow like a Dancer dies, year by year and piece by piece.
When they wheel in the cradle where she rests, she always thinks–for a bare, suspended moment–that it will be all right, that it will all end well–and then nausea tightens around her, and the white and stark walls seem to press down on her, unbearably sharp, a faint memory of Third Aunt and Cousin Lua asleep, and the incessant noise of machinery monitoring her, drips and feeds hooked into her broken, disconnected limbs.

And my brain has also decided that what I really need is a dark thriller story featuring Asmodeus and Samariel from The House of Shattered Wings/The House of Binding Thorns. I’m 1200 words into it and wondering why the heck I signed up for it (but the words are cool though! Small mercies…)

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

Just a heads-up that Athena Andreadis’s fabulous anthology of female scientists, To Shape the Dark, is now available from Candlemark and Gleam.

Contains my Xuya short story “Crossing the Midday Gate”, about intergalactic plagues, vaccine developments, and the cost of pride and principles…

Buy Now

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

Writer & friend Rochita Loenen-Ruiz is currently going through a tough patch–I can’t go into specifics because it’s not my story to tell, but right now she and her family could really use some financial help.

We’ve set up a fundraiser here:

And, hum, I know people have been asking about hard-to-obtain Xuya stories? If you donate to this, you’ll have access to an exclusive ebook which features three Xuya stories which aren’t online: namely, “Fleeing Tezcatlipoca”, “Two Sisters in Exile”, and “Memorials”.

(Apologies for the generic cover, I put that together in ~1h yesterday evening. I can guarantee you that the text content is prettier!)

And also to printable colouring sheets by Likhain. And you’ll be entered into a draw for more prizes including signed books, ebooks, and magazine subscriptions.

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

Have been up to a number of things (including baking and preparing for the upcoming Nebula Awards, aka “eep, my first over-the-pond flight in 2 years! [1]). BTW, I don’t know how much I can publicy say about that, but there’ll be shiny book-related stuff at the Nebulas, so if brace yourself if you’re attending :p (also me in a Gothic tailcoat, looking snazzy. And jetlagged).

Not much book stuff, but I’ve been focusing on shorts: answering proofreader’s queries to the upcoming “The Citadel of Weeping Pearls” (in the Oct/Nov. issue of Asimov’s (the short version of this is that one should never put the simu-ghosts of 24 dead emperors in the same story unless one is prepared to do a lot *more* work to keep them straight and separate), and writing a couple new pieces!

Among them is this one, which is, er, mostly a retelling of this legend as a Xuya story (it’s always fascinated me. Mostly because I can’t imagine wasting away on an obsession, I guess).

Snippet:

In Da Trang’s nightmares, Pearl is always leaving­­–darting away from him, towards the inexorable maw of the Sun’s gravity, going into a tighter and tighter orbit until no trace of it remains­­–he’s always reaching out, sending a ship, a swarm of bots­­–calling upon the remoras to move, sleek and deadly and yet too agonisingly slow; to do anything, to save what they can.

Too late. Too late.

Yes, there are remoras. And crabs. And er. Angst. A lot of angst :)

Also, a brief reminder that today is the last day for getting a signed ARC of The House of Shattered Wings, my Gothic dark fantasy of a devastated Paris, fallen angels and political intrigues (and dead bodies, because this is a Bodard book :p): enter here!

[1] I think of it as prep for this summer, where I’ll be flying to Spokane on a *much* longer journey aka 3 connecting flights and 17 hours of zombie-inducing state…

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

Quite pleased to announce I’ve sold my novella “The Citadel of Weeping Pearls” to Asimov’s for their Oct/Nov 2015 issue, aka “Xuya meets time-travel”. More info (including rough cover copy) here.

It’s about the same length as On a Red Station, Drifting, so more of a short novel, really (34k words); with four POV characters and a fairly complex plot that includes an entire imperial court, thirty-two dead emperors emulated on complex hardware, and a science laboratory in a derelict tea-house; and a lot of familial relations and moral quandaries. Basically, if you liked On a Red Station, Drifting, you’ll probably love this one (and it has a cameo from Linh, too!). And if you didn’t like it–it’s a way more ambitious piece with a bigger scope, so maybe more to your taste *g*

This blog will now lapse back into darkness while I sort out my childcare and my copy edits simultaneously (hint: neither of them are particularly efficient…)

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

I shared this on twitter recently, but I thought I’d repost here for those who weren’t around on Sunday.
A few years ago, I started the custom of naming Xuya mindships after literary allusions or metaphors–because, in a society where literary culture is still very important and scholars drive the creation of mindships, it felt like a natural process. Of course, if you’re not familiar with Chinese/Vietnamese culture, a lot of these probably fall flat–so accordingly, I’ve provided a summary of those references I can remember.

“The Frost on Jade Buds” (in “The Frost on Jade Buds” in Solaris Rising 3) comes from a proverb that I can’t remember exactly. I think it’s beauty cold enough to shatter jade.
“The Tiger in the Banyan” (in “Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight”): the tiger in the tale of Cuội, who uses banyan leaves to heal her dead cub (in the version I remember, the tiger lays her dead cub in the hollow of the banyan tree, which always made more sense to me when you consider what a banyan looks like
“The Dream of Millet” (in “Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight”): a dream Lã Động Tân/Lü Dongbin had while his millet cooked, which convinced him to renounce the world and become an Immortal.
“The Sea and Mulberry” (in “A Slow Unfurling of Truth”, in Carbide-Tipped Pens: in Vietnamese, “sea and mulberry” means a big upheaval in the affairs of men (from a Chinese legend where every thirty years, the sea turned to mulberry fields, and the mulberry fields to the sea).
“The Turtle’s Citadel” (from “The Waiting Stars” in The Other Half of the Sky): Âu Lạc, a citadel that was built with the help of the Golden Turtle Spirit (the walls kept collapsing until the king called for the help of the Golden Turtle, who led him to an evil spirit nearby). The citadel was also defended by a magical crossbow made with one of the claws of the Golden Turtle, and could not fall so long as the crossbow remained there (there’s another reference to this tale in “The Citadel of Weeping Pearls”, where a mindship is called “The Turtle’s Golden Claw”).
“The Cinnabar Mansions”(from “The Waiting Stars” in The Other Half of the Sky): basically a creative English translation of 紅樓 “Red Chamber” (from “Dream of the Red Chamber”).
“The Fisherman’s Song” (from “Ship’s Brother” in Clarkesworld Magazine): the song of Trương Chi, which earned him the love of a mandarin’s daughter, and later her tears after his death. I was this close to making it “The Fisherman’s Lament”, but I thought it was a bit pessimistic a name to give a midship :)

NB: In On a Red Station, Drifting, of course all the stations are named after the Three Blessings in Vietnamese/Chinese: Longevity, Prosper(ity) and Felicity (Good Fortune).

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

My story “Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight”, is now out in Clarkesworld for their issue 100 (and big congrats on this milestone). The TOC looks fabulous, with stories by Tang Fei, Naomi Kritzer, Kij Johnson, Zhang Ran, Catherynne M Valente, Jay Lake, Damien Broderick, and Karl Schroeder. Read the story here (there’s also an audio version read by the fabulous Kate Baker, here).

Author’s notes here.

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

Just a quick note/reminder that my novelette “A Slow Unfurling of Truth” is now available for sale, as is the rest of Eric Choi’s and Ben Bova’s hard SF anthology Carbide-Tipped Pens. It’s a Xuxa story about my field of expertise (well, OK, I have many such. But what I graduated in was Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, with a strong focus on probabilities). If you want to know how to do robust authentification when changing bodies, look no further :)

(also, wow that TOC)

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

(well, second, really. The rewrite pushed it from a slight 6k to a solid 7k words. With thanks to fabulous betas Victor Fernando Campo and Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, who didn’t blink at the quick turnaround time and provided very valuable insight on what wasn’t working so well with it)

I settled on “Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight” as the title; and here’s a snippet:

Green tea: green tea is made from steamed or lightly dried tea leaves. The brew is light, with a pleasant, grassy taste. Do not over-steep it, lest it become bitter.

#

After the funeral, Quang Tu walked back to his compartment, and sat down alone, staring sightlessly at the slow ballet of bots cleaning the small room–the metal walls pristine already, with every trace of Mother’s presence or of her numerous mourners scrubbed away. He’d shut down the communal network–couldn’t bear to see the potted summaries of Mother’s life, the endlessly looping vids of the funeral procession, the hundred thousand bystanders gathered at the grave site to say goodbye, vultures feasting on the flesh of the grieving–they hadn’t known her, they hadn’t cared–and all their offerings of flowers were worth as much as the insurances of the Embroidered Guard.

Yes, it has tea!

(picture: Tea leaves steeping in a zhong čaj by Wikimol, used under a CC-BY-SA2.5, via Wikimedia Commons)

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

In related news: there will be a print edition of On a Red Station, Drifting, published through Createspace. I haven’t publicised it because I’ve been sorting out admin stuff, but here’s the cover, courtesy of Rhiannon Rasmussen-Silverstein (and many many thanks to Colin F Barnes, who in addition to giving me tons of advice on self-publishing, covers and print publishing, also did my interior design).

Hopefully by MIRCon I can sign copies of it ^^

ETA: it’s live! Go buy it from amazon [US|UK|Fr].

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

Pretty pretty cover (link here if you’re reading the LJ/DW mirrors).

Upcoming from Fata Libelli, end of the year. The artist, Omar Moreno, is also working on a cover for the Xuya collection, “El Ciclo de Xuya”.

PS: I’m not *quite* back online full time. The household has caught the crud, and we have a few RL problems (scheduling issues with the snakelet, our childminder and the H. Nothing serious!) which means this blog will get toned down even more than usual while we sort them out. Posts this week thanks to WordPress automatic scheduler ^^

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

Meant to post about this earlier, but ran into a few website problems (now fixed, thank God, but had a pretty unfunny 24 hours on Thursday where I seriously contemplated complicated tech manoeuvres).
Very pleased to announce that “The Waiting Stars” is a finalist for the 2014 Locus Awards in the “Best Novelette” category. Many thanks to everyone who voted for it! (also, wow. The other people on the ballot kind of make me want to crawl up somewhere and hide).

Also, a very nice writeup of the story over at Tor.com by Niall Alexander.
The full list of finalists is as follows:

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

  • MaddAddam, Margaret Atwood (McClelland & Stewart; Bloomsbury; Talese)
  • Abaddon’s Gate, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
  • The Best of All Possible Worlds, Karen Lord (Del Rey; Jo Fletcher UK)
  • Shaman, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
  • Neptune’s Brood, Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)

FANTASY NOVEL

  • The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Morrow; Headline Review)
  • NOS4A2, Joe Hill (Morrow; Gollancz as NOS4R2)
  • River of Stars, Guy Gavriel Kay (Roc; Viking Canada; HarperCollins UK)
  • Doctor Sleep, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton)
  • The Republic of Thieves, Scott Lynch (Del Rey; Gollancz)

YOUNG ADULT BOOK

  • Zombie Baseball Beatdown, Paolo Bacigalupi (Little, Brown)
  • The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Holly Black (Little, Brown; Indigo)
  • Homeland, Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen; Titan)
  • The Summer Prince, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Levine)
  • The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, Catherynne M. Valente (Feiwel and Friends)

FIRST NOVEL

  • The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic, Emily Croy Barker (Dorman)
  • The Golden City, J. Kathleen Cheney (Roc)
  • Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
  • A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar (Small Beer)
  • The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker (Harper)

NOVELLA

  • Wakulla Springs”, Andy Duncan & Ellen Klages (Tor.com 10/2/13)
  • “Black Helicopters”, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean)
  • “The Princess and the Queen”, George R.R. Martin (Dangerous Women)
  • “Precious Mental”, Robert Reed (Asimov’s 6/13)
  • “Six-Gun Snow White”, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)

NOVELETTE

  • “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”, Ted Chiang (Subterranean Fall ’13)
  • “The Waiting Stars”, Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky)
  • “A Terror”, Jeffrey Ford (Tor.com 7/24/13)
  • “The Sleeper and the Spindle”, Neil Gaiman (Rags and Bones)
  • “The Prayer of Ninety Cats”, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean Spring ’13)

SHORT STORY

  • “Some Desperado”, Joe Abercrombie (Dangerous Women)
  • “The Science of Herself”, Karen Joy Fowler (The Science of Herself)
  • “The Road of Needles”, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales)
  • “A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel”, Ken Liu (F&SF 1-2/13)
  • “The Dead Sea-Bottom Scrolls”, Howard Waldrop (Old Mars)

ANTHOLOGY

  • Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells, Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, eds. (Tor)
  • The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin’s Griffin; Robinson as The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 26)
  • Unnatural Creatures, Neil Gaiman & Maria Dahvana Headley, eds. (Harper; Bloomsbury)
  • Old Mars, George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds. (Bantam)
  • The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Seven, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Night Shade)

COLLECTION

  • The Best of Joe Haldeman, Joe Haldeman (Subterranean)
  • The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean)
  • Kabu Kabu, Nnedi Okorafor (Prime)
  • The Bread We Eat in Dreams, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)
  • The Best of Connie Willis, Connie Willis (Del Rey)

MAGAZINE

  • Asimov’s
  • Clarkesworld
  • F&SF
  • Subterranean
  • Tor.com

PUBLISHER

  • Angry Robot
  • Orbit
  • Small Beer
  • Subterranean
  • Tor Books

EDITOR

  • John Joseph Adams
  • Ellen Datlow
  • Gardner Dozois
  • Jonathan Strahan
  • Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

ARTIST

  • Bob Eggleton
  • John Picacio
  • Shaun Tan
  • Charles Vess
  • Michael Whelan

NON-FICTION

  • Here Be Dragons: Exploring Fantasy Maps and Settings, Stefan Ekman (Wesleyan)
  • Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler, Rebecca J. Holden & Nisi Shawl, eds. (Aqueduct)
  • The Man From Mars: Ray Palmer’s Amazing Pulp Journey, Fred Nadis (Tarcher)
  • Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction, Jeff VanderMeer (Abrams Image)
  • Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, Ytasha L. Womack (Lawrence Hill)

ART BOOK

  • Hannes Bok, Hannes Bok: A Life in Illustration, Joseph Wrzos, ed. (Centipede)
  • Margaret Brundage, The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage, Stephen D. Korshak & J. David Spurlock, eds. (Vanguard)
  • Spectrum 20: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner, eds. (Underwood)
  • Maurice Sendak, Maurice Sendak: A Celebration of the Artist and His Work, Justin G. Schiller, Dennis M.V. David & Leonard S. Marcus, eds. (Abrams)
  • Shaun Tan, Rules of Summer (Hachette Australia; Hodder Children’s; Levine ’14)

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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aliettedb: (utena)

Rich Horton:

Aliette de Bodard’s “The Breath of War” has a really neat science-fantasy premise: women in this world breathe people into life from stone, people who then become their companions and are necessary to breathe life, in turn, into children. Rechan is a somewhat rebellious woman, who abandoned her stone brother in the mountains as war broke out – and now that the war is over she climbs back to the place she left him. There’s a secret, of course: the true nature of the Stoneperson she gave life to, and it’s an interesting secret leading to a moving resolution. This, I suppose, is science fantasy at its purest: a rational-seeming world with mostly SFnal imagery, with a thoroughly implausible, but very fruitful, central conceit.

Gardner Dozois:

The best story in this issue is probably Aliette de Bodard’s “The Days of the War, As Red As Blood, As Dark As Bile”, another in her long series of Xuya stories, taking place in the far-future of an alternate world where a high-tech conflict is going on between spacefaring Mayan and Chinese empires. This one is a direct sequel to her 2013 novella ‘‘On a Red Station, Drifting’’, taking place on an embattled and somewhat rundown space station whose inhabitants are faced with the prospect of evacuating in the imminent threat of an advancing alien fleet. It centers on a young girl struggling against but finally being forced to accept a peculiar kind of apotheosis; the scene where refugees are trying to escape the station during an attack is quite harrowing, so be warned.

*happy writer* (and a shout-out to Benjanun Sriduangkaew, who gets called an “exciting new writer” and gets her story “Autodidact” recommended by Rich Horton. It is excellent, you should go read it–Benjanun is a finalist for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer this year, and stories like this are an excellent showcase as to why). Meanwhile, I shall go back to knocking my head against the wall to work out my novel ending.

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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