My Gothic Paris trilogy with Fallen angels and Vietnamese dragons is re-releasing March 10 in new editions with bonus content and new covers by Tara O’Shea.

And here’s the preorder campaign: buy any of the three books in any format and you will get an ebook of “Of Birthdays, Fungus and Kindness”, a short novel that, up to now, has only been published as part of my short story collection. Aka “birthdays shenanigans–it’s always tricky to throw a birthday party when Fallen angels decide to meddle and make this all about politics, and your party room is infested by a decidedly clingy magical fungus”.

(if you’ve already read the books: this is the “Emmanuelle throws a party for Selene and ends up in more trouble than foreseen when Asmodeus shows up. And Morningstar is… helpful in a “setting fire to things” way)

Here are the preorder pages:

• The House of Shattered Wings
• The House of Binding Thorns
• The House of Sundering Flames

More info about the books here.

(Cover image: © Masood Aslami on Unsplash, used with Unsplash license

Cover design: © Aliette de Bodard)

Submit your proof of purchase here.

Thank you so much!

PS: it’s been a super rough couple of years on my end with major mental health crises involving a close family member. I’ve wondered more than once if it was still worth doing this writing thing, especially when I was struggling with energy and spending way more time than I’d like in emergency departments and in psychiatrist meetings. I really really appreciate any support you can give those books, and preorders really help.

If you can’t buy them (and I understand it’s difficult for everyone right now), please consider spreading word of mouth–recommending them to friends and family etc. That helps a ton too.

I’m completely underwater with various family matters (sadly of an urgent nature), but I wanted to make a quick awards eligibility post, and to have a placeholder for those 2023 things I loved and wanted to recommend (I will update with recommendations as I catch up).

Eligibility
-First things first, “The Universe of Xuya” is eligible again in Best Series Hugo: more than 240,000 words have been published in it since it last was nominated (Seven of Infinities at 40k, The Red Scholar’s Wake at 82k, A Fire Born of Exile at 117k, “Mulberry and Owl”” in Uncanny Magazine at 7,9k, and “Rescue Party” in Mission Critical at 9,5k). The 2023 work that makes it eligible for Best Series is A Fire Born of Exile.

-“The Mausoleum’s Children”, my Wild Hunt/evil architects/broken spaceship story, is also eligible for Best Short Story: you can read it here.

Recommendations
-Best Novelette: “Ivy, Angelica, Bay” (Tor dot com) by CL Polk, a heartrending and heartwarming story of bees, changing neighbourhoods and witching.
-Best Novelette: “Six Versions of My Brother Found Under the Bridge” by Eugenia Triantafyllou, Uncanny Magazine : a story of a lost brother and his resourceful sister, and a family’s deal with the devil…

-Best Short Story: “The Sound of Children Screaming” by Rachael K. Jones. I read this and basically can’t get it out of my head. The brilliance of the two universes, the mice, the crowns, the magic… Searing and amazing.

Vote here for the Hugos and at the Members’ bit of the SWFA website for the Nebulas.

Finally, I got around to an awards eligibility and recommendations list which includes things by other people, so here it is:

My stuff:

–The Red Scholar’s Wake (Gollancz in the UK, JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc. in the US) is eligible for Best Novel.

–Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances from JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc. aka “the murderbirds go babysitting” is eligible for Best Novella.

–“Sword of Bone, Hall of Thorns” in The Sunday Morning Transport, is eligible for Best Short Story.

If you enjoyed my work, I would love if you nominated it for awards: these always help visibility, and it’s been a rough few years in terms of that (thank you not thank you divorce, pandemic and the apparent implosion of twitter, sigh).

Both The Red Scholar’s Wake and Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances are on the BSFA longlist, and voting for that closes Feb 19th; meanwhile, Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances is on the Nebula Recommended Reading list. Voting is this way for the BSFA, and this way for the Nebulas.

-The artwork by Alyssa Winans (UK cover of The Red Scholar’s Wake) is eligible for Best Artwork, and it’s notably on the BSFA longlist. Would love to see that one recognised because Alyssa has been doing stellar work. See above for the voting link.

Things I liked from last year:

–“12 Things A Trini Should Know before Travelling to A Back In Times Fete ™”, RSA Garcia (Strange Horizons, short story): time travelling, slavery, and a sharp look at the dangers of the past.

-“can i offer you a nice egg in those trying times”, Iori Kusano (Uncanny Magazine, short story): portal stories, PTSD, and grief. Short and powerful.

–“Lily the Immortal”, Kylie Lee Baker (Uncanny Magazine, short story): simulations after death, bittersweet and poignant.

-“Papa Legba has entered the chat”, DaVaun Sanders (Fireside, short story): police brutality, technology and old dark magic.

–“Elsewhere, Elsewhere”, L. Chan (Giganotosaurus, short story): time magic, timeless love and timeless betrayals.

-The Sunday Morning Transport ed Julian Yap and Fran Wilde is eligible for Best Semiprozine. If you’d like to see what they publish: aside from my own “Sword of Bone, Hall of Thorns“, you can check this Yoon Ha Lee story they published last year which I absolutely loved.

Would also recommend checking out Sara A. Mueller’s The Bone Orchard for Best Novel which is court intrigue + Gothic decadence + whodunit!

I am pleased and a bit shocked that my story “The Inaccessibility of Heaven” has won the Ignyte Award for Best Novelette.

This is the prepared text of my acceptance speech: I’m not sure what I actually delivered given that I was scrambling and trying to stay coherent.

Thank you all.

You can read the story here if you haven’t already.

Well, it was a year.

I didn’t expect 2020 to go the places it did (it’s fair to say that no one did).

In no particular order:

-a painful but necessary divorce

-a lot of changes as a result of above

-a pandemic and two lockdowns

-publication of two books (Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders, Seven of Infinities)

-sale of a book (Fireheart Tiger))

-writing of a bunch of things (mostly the queer pirate story, and two short stories)

-publishing of a bunch of things (“The Long Tail” in Wired, “The Inaccessibility of Heaven” in Uncanny, and “The Scholar of the Bamboo Flute” in Silk and Steel, and “The Last Hunt” in The Book of Dragons).

I’m glad to still be here, and I’m even gladder that 2020 is over. Bring on 2021.

*exhausted fireworks*

Awards eligibility

2020 was a bit of a year for me (as it was for quite a few people, I’d wager). I did manage to publish a few things, mainly due to having written them before the pandemic started.

Out of these all, the one thing I’m proudest of is the latest Xuya novella, Seven of Infinities , an f/f murder & heist & romance with two Vietnamese main characters.

It’s eligible in the best novella category for the Hugos, Nebulas and BSFA. If you enjoyed it, I would really appreciate if you nominated it.

There’s also a lengthy sample available, courtesy of Subterranean if you want to check out if it’s your thing: you can download it here.

More info here.

People have been asking, so I thought I’d also point out that the publication of Of Dragons, Feasts, and Murders makes Dominion of the Fallen eligible again in Best Series. If you have space in your ballot for an alternate Belle Epoque that deals with queerness, colonialism, oppressive power structures, survival and rebellion (not to mention dragons under the Seine and the best disaster bi dragon prince/fallen angel diplomacy/murder pairing!), I’d be overjoyed if you considered it.

And now the part where I recommend other people’s stuff I loved.

Graphic novel
The Magic Fish, Trung Le Nguyen: a story of immigration, fairytale retellings and a young boy struggling to come out to his family. This just hit me hard in the feels and never let go.

Short Story
“An Explorer’s Cartography of Already-Settled Lands” by Fran Wilde: a gorgeous, evocative story of maps and what they mean to different people.

Novella
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo. Nghi had two releases this year in the novella category. Empress of Salt and Fortune is good, but When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, which received less attention (due to its late release in December and being edged out by her upcoming novel), is really amazing. It’s about the scholar Chih, stuck in the mountains with three tigers, but also about the sapphic courtship of a tiger and a scholar. It’s about history, and stories, and who gets to tell what, and it absolutely nails down the oral form while managing to hit all my buttons. It sounds like the grown-up version of the tales my bà ngoại told me as a child, and that’s the highest praise.

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, by Zen Cho. When a bandit walks into a kopitiam (coffee shop), everything goes downhill for the waitress-not to mention the bandit. Hilarious, pointed and heartbreaking. I blurbed this and laughed so much when I was reading it.

Novel
Black Sun, by Rebecca Roanhorse. A dark and gritty epic fantasy inspired by Mesoamerican culture, this just swept along. It’s a tale of revenge and politics, and godhood, and the consequences of belief systems. It’s a tale of families and clashing views on the world, and I cannot wait for the next book in the series.

Unconquerable Sun, by Kate Elliott. A genderbent version of Alexander the Great, in space, where Alexander is an indomitable young woman named Sun who is the heir to a vast, sprawling galactic empire. But there are other powers, as well as political infighting within the court, and Sun’s companions are soon thrust into a fight for their survival. Amazing worldbuilding, deep characters, and a place that really feels lived in–such a great book. Special mention for Perse (Persephone) who is just the best.

The Midnight Bargain by C.L Polk. I read this at precisely the right time in my life, in a deep reading slump where I hadn’t touched a fiction book in a few months. I devoured it in a few days because it was so good. In a universe where women are magically prevented from practising magic once they get married, Beatrice dreams of becoming a magician. When her path intersects that of two siblings with their own interest in bucking the gender system, they are drawn together–but will this tenuous alliance hold as Beatrice is pressured to marry? Not Regency and not set in Great Britain, but this feels like Regency all the same–along with a smart discussion of power, gender, social expectations and how magic would be used in a gender-rigid system. Such a great read.

Tor.com has revealed the cover of my upcoming book Fireheart Tiger, an f/f postcolonial The Goblin Emperor meets Howl’s Moving Castle. Look at it, isn’t it amazing?

Cover art by Alyssa Winans

Some small details you might not have noticed:

• the dragon on the pillar behind the woman (the flag of the country in the story is the dragon and pearl)
  the object catching fire in her hand is a teacup, referring to a story scene
  the guns in the lower right-hand corner, both propping up and threatening the palace
  the pavilion in the gardens, a crucial story location
  the markings on her skin near the flame evoke a tiger’s skin
  the large building in her sleeves is Cửa Ngọ Môn, the Noon Gate in the imperial citadel in Huế. The fact that she’s transporting things in her sleeves is a reference to Vietnamese (and Chinese) garments having sleeves large enough to be used as pockets

You’ll be wondering why the title: it refers to a Vietnamese folk tale about how the tiger got his stripes: they’re the marks of a rope when man burnt him with fire, and explains that the resentful tiger now seeks to eat men. I took the fire, the tiger and the idea of imprisonment, and ran with it.

And here’s the official summary

The book will be out Feb 9th 2021.

You can preorder now—a small reminder that preorders help books a lot, because they indicate enthusiasm, and that in turn influences visibility and thus the attention given to the book (and many many thanks to everyone who’s already preordered, you rock).

Out today!

Dragons, court drama and relationships…

An unlikely duo of a bookish dragon prince and his ruthless Fallen angel husband have to cooperate with each other to navigate political intrigue and solve a murder. A combination of Asian court drama (think Nirvana in Fire) and Gothic comedy of manners; a fun and fluffy (*) book involving a mismatched couple, dollops of embarrassing moments, and the occasional kiss.

(*)”fluffy” for Bodard values of fluffy. It still involves a murder investigation, and ideas of consent and rulership and change, because, well–
*helpless shrug*
*hashtag on-brand*

(Art and cover design: Ravven)

Official blurb:

I’ve had to sit on this one for a while, but I’m pleased to have sold my novella Fireheart Tiger to Jonathan Strahan at Tor.com. I’m absolutely thrilled, as I’ve loved a great deal many books published by the imprint (and I can’t wait to see the cover art).

The blurb is below. This is a f/f story of politics, magic and resilience in the face of trauma as well as overwhelming odds. It went some rather dark and unexpected places when I was writing it (story of my life lol). It’s set in a universe heavily inspired by Nguyễn Cochinchina in the 18th Century (prior to the actual dynasty, the unification of Vietnam and the French colonisation), but draws a bit from a bunch of other time periods in Vietnamese history. It will be out in 2021 (I know, so far away!).

(Photo by Nguyen Kiet on Unsplash)

More info at Tor.com!

And if you feel minded to preorder:

Amazon US  | Amazon UK | Kobo

At a time where a lot of you are in lockdown in circumstances that aren’t exactly great for productivity, I thought I’d point out a few things from me that are available free of charge:

-my story “In the Lands of the Spill” is now available in the Avatars Inc anthology, an anthology about telepresence that includes works by Tade Thompson, Pat Cadigan, Ken Liu, Nino Cipri…

-and I’ve made available a bundle of three of my Xuya stories that aren’t easy to find through my Patreon (this is a public post but do feel free to join my Patreon if you want the exciting paying stuff: this is much much appreciated). Go download them here.