So, it’s been a thoroughly uninteresting weekend in the Bodard household, with activities ranging from movies (Robin Hood, surprisingly better than expected, although a lot of it was sheer nonsense), to cooking (chocolate and orange scones with a dodgy recipe that resulted in burnt things tasting vaguely of chocolate), ironing (aka tackling the pile of laundy that’s not been touched for a few decades) and writing (finished up one short story, subbed it).

Also watched a bunch of Bones episodes in Spanish, in an effort to revive my flagging command of the language. It’s not always optimal, because they do the dubbing and the subtitles separately, and the text on the bottom of my screen seldom coincides with what the characters are saying. A good bonus of this, though, is that when I don’t understand what they’re saying, chances are I’ll know the vocabulary in the subtitles and vice versa. Am learning a lot of useless vocabulary with this, such as a bunch of synonyms for “skulls”, or how to say “hanged” in Spanish.
(alas, the fun will have to stop soon, because for some weird reason they only released season 3 as a French/English/Spanish set of DVDs, all the others are in French/English. Of course it had to be the shortest season they picked. I’m contemplating Veronica Mars next, if I can borrow them from my sis).

Tomorrow, back to the grind.

Your daily Three Kingdoms progress: Kongming attempts to conquer the Man people for the Second Emperor, Liu Bei’s successor. Interesting visions of the south of China/North of Vietnam, with a bunch of amusingly racist stereotypes (I’m cutting the book a lot of slack here, in case you have a doubt). By the looks of it, I’m nearing the end.
BF has started Ian M Banks’ Against a Dark Background, and spends a lot of time chuckling to himself. I imagine I’ll have to try it at some point, after I finish all the books I had at Eastercon.

So, up to vol 3 of the Three Kingdoms. Liu Bei is close to declaring himself Emperor, at the rate things are going. It’s interesting to see that the Daoists (Kongming et al.) are the ones being utterly ruthless and practical, almost without honour by the standards of the novel, and that Liu Bei himself seems completely detached from the realities of the world (ie, trying to establish his own kingdom without resorting to trickery…).

In other news, did some light editing on “Shipbirth”, a short I’d written a while about about Aztecs in space (well, sort of). Working on another short involving steampunk and fallen gods, and my brain’s currently trying to decide between three different short stories. Also edited a Sekrit Project, and another story–and have another set of edits I need to have a look at, probably later on.

But right now, I’m off to see Robin Hood, and then onto a nice helping of phở.

All is well. (and I have Pentecost Monday off, yipee).

I was asked to take part in a Mind Meld over at SF Signal: name Science Fiction Books That Should Be in Every Fan’s Library. Go check out my answer, as well as that of the other worthy folks who’ve participated.
(I’d have put more recent books in the pile, if I’d actually read them. In SF, I’m still catching up on years of not really reading…)
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Currently in the middle of Romance of the Three Kingdoms (right after the battle of Red Cliffs, which is interestingly not at all like the movie version…). You know that Chinese proverb that says the young shouldn’t read Water Margin because it teaches disobedience, and the old shouldn’t read Three Kingdoms because it teaches guile? Well, after almost 60 chapters, I get it… Three Kingdoms is just this long list of people shifting sides, trying to find the best way to betray each other, kill each other, deprive each other of influence. Very, very pragmatic view of war and power struggles–a giant free-for-all…

Also, this blog is currently under massive attack by spammers for a reason I can’t pinpoint (I choose popularity, but I’m not convinced…)

More later. Right now, I need some sleep.

My friend T.L. Morganfield has written a series of awesome posts on Using Critiques:

Using Critique: Part 1: First Things First
Using Critiques: Part 2: I’ve got a pile of critiques, but what do I do with them?
Using Critiques: Part 3: Where to get critiques, and how to develop lasting professional relationships through them.
The final part is forthcoming.

Well worth a read. Go check them out!

So, the big news here: Angry Robot has left HarperCollins and is setting up shop with the backing of Osprey Publishing. An interesting move, more towards a publishing niche (as Osprey is known for military history books and wargaming stuff). Will obviously have to see how that works out, but I have every confidence those AR overlords know what they’re doing and that they’ll successfully take over the SF world–away a big group that might not have the flexibility and enthusiasm needed for a venture like this. Wishing Marc and Lee and Chris a hefty helping of good luck with the change.

Other assorted consequences: the US release date for Servant of the Underworld has now been pushed back to November 2010 (Harbinger of the Storm is still up for a January 2011 release in the UK, and February 2011 in the US). Also, SoU is going to quietly go out of print before (hopefully) being relaunched at the same time as the Harbinger of the Storm debut (to be confirmed, as AR is still reviewing their options at the moment). So hurry up if you want a HarperCollins edition of SoU 🙂

Next post up should be (finally) a review of my Bebook Mini, the ereader I bought a couple of months ago.

…slowly recovering from post-novel ennui. Showed Matthieu one story I wrote back in April, and wrote a zillion addresses on wedding invitations (my hand, it hurts). Also made some nice spring rolls involving salad, coriander and a variant of a cha siu/xa xíu (aka reddish BBQed pork). I’m starting to get the hang of this cooking thing.

Also worked on a Sekrit Project, which I should be allowed to make public soon.

Finally, look at this: the TOC for the July 2010 issue of Asimov’s, which includes my Xuya novelette “The Jaguar House, in Shadow”. I can haz pretty cover (with my name on it, w00t).

Courtesy of my grandmother…

Apparently, the Vietnamese word for “vampire” is “ma cà rồng”. It’s unfortunately close to the word “macaron“, aka the Italian meringue-based confectionery. Cue much hilarity when my grandmother described Edward Cullen as a macaron…

(and yes, my grandmother has read Twilight, which she refers to as the macaron novel… *helpless laughter*)

My short story “Blighted Heart” can now be found in the anthology The Best of BCS, along with tales from wistling (Tony Pi), snickelish (Sarah L. Edwards), and therinth (Erin Cashier). If you feel like trying out stories about creepy corn-men, Russian witches and a homonculus forced to do an alchemist’s dark bidding, then here’s the place :=)
Available in a variety of ebook formats including Kindle and epub.

Also, a belated nod to a joint interview with Gareth L. Powell (courtesy of the tireless Charles Tan) about our collaboration, “The Church of Accelerated Redemption”, now available in the Shine Anthology.

So, as I’m trying to get this %% manuscript out the door…
I have this character. His Nahuatl title is cihuacoatl, and I’m not planning to use it lest I give people headaches. So I have a choice between two translations: the Snake Woman, or the Female Snake.

Although the first one is the traditional, correct Nahuatl translation, I’m afraid it will have also everyone thinking he’s a woman. But I’m not 100% up-to-date on connotations, and for all I know the second one also strongly implies a woman, too…

What do you think–Snake Woman or Female Snake/Female Serpent?

EDIT: what about “She-Snake”?

The April Villa Diodati workshop, aka Volcanic Dust workshop, has been successfully rescheduled for June.

*happy writer*

I will now go back to the trenches of impending-deadline novel-writing…