Bit of a wash today, due to a truncated lunch break.

Wordcount: 10,500/100,000

Awesome title ideas: no further ones.

Body count: 1, 3 in progress. Oh, and 1 owl.

Best moment of the day: autopsy from really, really far away (just to be sure there’s no contagion)

Unexpected moment of the day: the warrior with a Zen outlook on things.

Missing research: have to check where the blazes Metztitlan is and what happened there–which would be easier, had I not lost the Hassig book.

Missing bits: we’re down to extra bits, with a little scene that I mean to use at the beginning of chapter 4.

Ok, so apparently the reason [1] I can buy physical books from, say, waterstones.co.uk, and not ebooks is because, when I buy physical books, the place of sales is Waterstone’s servers (ie in the UK), and they then ship it to me (incurring import taxes and whatnot). When I buy ebooks, the place of purchase is my computer–which is firmly in France, where Waterstone’s isn’t licensed to sell English books per their agreement with the publishers. But of course, no one but the UK resellers are authorised to sell UK editions…

*goes bang head against wall*

Why am I suddenly reminded of Kafka here?

[1]I have no idea whether it’s true, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Wordcount: 9,500/100,000

Awesome title ideas: no further ones.

Body count: 1, 3 in progress. Oh, and 1 owl.

Best moment of the day: Acatl being called in to examine a sick man (yup, he only does autopsies 🙂 )

Unexpected moment of the day: throwing in a further autopsy, just for the heck of it. Oh, and a character turning abruptly responsible.

Missing research: well, a missing book, really. I forgot Ross Hassig’s Aztec Warfare on the bus Thursday evening, and just realised it. Darn. I had to forget the expensive research book…

Missing bits: we’re down to extra bits, with a little scene that I mean to use at the beginning of chapter 4.

To whom it may concern:

I have an ebook reader (the bebook mini), and I find it comfortable and convenient. I embrace the digital revolution, and would gladly buy most of my books in eformat and save myself bookshelf space.

Except…

Have I mentioned the term “geo-restrictions” yet? The little thing that means places like WHSmith, Waterstone, the Sony Store or Amazon won’t sell me anything but their “authorised” catalog (ie, appropriate to the country I’m in)?

The official argument is something like “wait for the publisher to release the book in your country”. Well, guess what. My country is France. The ebook I want is in English (or Spanish. Or Vietnamese. Or whatever). Chances of the ebook being released in my country in that language? Close to nil, the market is too small for most SF/F books.

So, I have two choices. I can fake a US/UK IP address and a US/UK credit card to buy where I want; or I can pirate the book. None of them are really legal; and one of them involves way too much hassle for what should be a legit purchase (while actually leaving me still open to prosecution for fraud). I’ll leave you to contemplate what I’m most likely to do on the day I lose patience with the system…

In the meantime, I buy legit books at Baen’s webscriptions; I admire my publisher at Angry Robot, who sell DRM-free worldwide books for a reasonable price.

PS: and yes, as a writer, I know it’s a rights problem. But, quite frankly, as a customer, I still think it borders on the insane. Cracking down on people who buy English books from non-English countries is tantamount to pushing people into the arms of pirates, as far as I’m concerned.
PPS: if there’s a source of non-geo-restricted legit SF/F books I’ve missed, I’d be glad to be pointed in the right direction.

Wordcount: 8,000/100,000

Awesome title ideas: meep. None. Temp title is Gatherer of the Slain, which sucks.

Body count: 1, 1 in progress. Oh, and 1 owl.

Best moment of the day: Teomitl helping Acatl change boats–causing the grandmother of all traffic jams in the canal.

Unexpected moment of the day: inverting two chapters in the book for dramatic effect.

Missing research: still need to find out more about coronation wars.

Missing bits: 3 AA batteries for my Neo, so I can type on my bus journey.

Oh, BTW, my nano page is here (updated irregularly, but I’m making an effort).

A new French webzine has launched here: its inaugural issue has stories by Laurent Kloetzer and me (“Coeur Flétri”, the English-language translation of “Blighted Heart”). With extra texts by Xavier Mauméjean and Daryl Gregory, which you can get when you buy the whole issue (2.99 euros), or you can wait a bit for them to be posted.

Thanks to Seb Cevey, Florence Dolisi, and the whole Angle Mort team for the honour of opening up the shop 🙂

(and wow, it sure feels weird to be published in my native language…)

Also, for an encore, my second French translation will soon be published in Galaxies, courtesy of Pierre Gévart and Camille Thérion. It’s “Chute d’un Papillon au Point du Jour”, in which the astute will recognise the French version of the Xuya story “Butterfly Falling at Dawn”.

And for the encore of the encore, here’s the webpage of my French publisher, Eclipse.

Couple interesting discussions/rants/funny stuff about steampunk courtesy of Charles Stross, Cat Valente and Cherie Priest–echoing some of the stuff I was saying earlier about what the 19th century really looked like.

Guess I picked a fine time to write Aztec steampunk… (seriously, though, I’m sticking with it for the moment, because it might not be rigorous science or rigorous history, but it makes me broach lots of interesting subjects. Don’t really read enough Victorian steampunk to comment on the above links, but it certainly makes one think. Giving me lots of story fodder, if nothing else).

Mainly for the UK people, or anyone who’s already read SoU (it’s got minor spoilers for SoU, so read at your peril): you can read chapter 1 of book 2, Harbinger of the Storm, here.

4000 words on the draft of book 3 today. Chapter 1 dusted and done.

Body count: 1, 1 in progress
Best moment of the day: Acatl trying to sacrifice an uncooperative owl. Many scratches ensued. Good thing blood is magical…
Missing research: need to find out if a character (Nezahualpilli) took part in the coronation war of the new Aztec Emperor. Will hit the history books.

Also, my birthday gift is apparently that I get to see my French editor to talk book, translation, promotion etc. (well, I had to place the meeting somewhere, might as well be on a nice day :=) )

Saw this interesting article this morning by the very smart Daniel Abraham on his urban fantasy books (written as MLN Hanover):

I think — as I’ve said elsewhere — that urban fantasy is a genre sitting on top of a great big huge cultural discomfort about women and power. The typical UF heroine (as I’ve come to understand her) is a kick-ass woman with a variety of possible lovers. (…) She’s been forced into power — either through accident of birth or by being transformed without her permission — and is therefore innocent of one of the central feminine cultural sins: ambition.

OK, that last sentence? Scares the heck out of me. Because, when I think about it, it applies to so many women characters (and not all in UF). And it’s wrong. Women should have the right to be ambitious and stand up for themselves and not have stuff forced upon them.

Gah.