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.

(yes, I know, I should be watching Red Cliff 2. We seem to have hit a technical snag, so I’m lazing about on the internet instead)

Found this quite by accident, while browing in a bookshop: they’re reissuing Horowitz’s Power of Five as Raven’s Gate, Evil Star, Nightrise and Nekropolis. Basically, it’s the story of five children, who a long time before, sealed an ancient evil away from the world. Now eons have passed, and the children have reincarnated in the 20th-century world, where they have forgotten their powers–and it’s a bad time, too, because what they sealed away wants out, and it’s sending a number of unpleasant people after them. It’s way less cutesy than it seems, at least in the versions I read, which scared the crap out of me when I was twelve or so.

What I remember reading were books with different titles, namely The Devil’s Doorbell, The Night of the Scorpion The Silver Citadel, and The Day of the Dragon. From the Wikipedia summary, there seem to be a fair amount of differences between the books and the ones I read, not least that a lot of the characters seem to have changed names (and, in some cases, genders: I remember the hero of book 4 was an English guy named Will, but now he seems to be a Chinese girl going by Scarlett). Going by the summaries, the plot of book 4 seems to be radically different, too…

Not sure whether to order them or not–if Horowitz gets around to writing book 5, I would love to finally read the end of that series, which has always left me frustrated–but I’m afraid they’re going to be too radically different from those books I remember and treasure…

So, 74k words into Harbinger, with the longest chapter yet. The small incoherences (which I keep noting at the end of the book in order to fix them) are running to more than a page now. But on the plus side, the end is nigh. I can feel it–we’re entering the climax at the end of this chapter, and boy is it going to be huge fun.

Meanwhile, Blue Tyson reviews Servant of the Underworld over at Not Free SF, and mostly likes it:

Generally speaking in a fantasy novel you will find that the priests of the Death Cult are not very nice people. Or, at least the antagonist or people to be removed as obstacles. See Graham Masterton’s Pariah for example of the exact same god our protagonist here is the Servant of.

Not so here. Of course, your average fantasy novel is rather more likely to not be set in an Aztec city redolent with quetzal birds and jaguar spirits as opposed to ponies and pointy-hatted prestidigitators.

So, points for giving something different a shot.

Read the rest.

A very nice review of my Asimov’s story “The Wind-Blown Man” here on Tangent Online by Carl Slaughter, as well as some discussion over on the Asimov’s forums (some good, some bad). The upshot is mainly that it reads like a fantasy, which doesn’t surprise me: it’s actually SF, but it’s hard to prove it when the science developed along an alternate timeline which has nothing to do with our own, with biology and genetics developing far more efficiently than mechanics and mathematics[1]. It’s kind of interesting how everything ends up sounding like magic when you don’t have familiar technological landmarks. Mm. There’s got to be something I can take out of this…

That’s all for today. I’m off to watch Red Cliff 2 (I have to say the long version makes a lot more sense than the awful truncated version they showed in the French cinemas)

[1]Yup, I know maths are integral to science as we know it now. But if you choose to view science as a system to explain the world, it’s conceivable that another civilisation might come up with a completely different system that would also explain the world and allow us to predict some of the things that would happen. Then it would do exactly the same thing science does today. Our science was mostly shaped by Western/Greek/Indian thought, which gives a place of honour to mathematics–but the Chinese have always been more interested in biology and how the human body was a microcosm of the world, so I went ahead and used that as a basis for developing the new science. Feel free to argue with me; I’m well aware this isn’t the standard belief by any means…

So, back to the semi-regular schedule… Today’s fun thing: the BF’s internet provider apparently upgraded their antivirus system with a faulty patch, which classified 90% of all incoming mail as spam, notified the sender that the mail was spam, and erased it from the servers.
(yes, go figure).

Several mails have been eaten past recovery. Hopefully nothing too important. The BF is (understandably) fuming; I’m left wondering how on earth they thought an antivirus that erases mails would be a good idea. They’re trying to throw up a smokescreen by saying that they don’t keep viruses for security reasons, but that still leaves the question of what happens when the antivirus is wrong. I suspect you’re screwed. What a great concept…

Mind you, my own internet provider puts spam in an “undesirable folder” which is only available through their clunky online email software, so it’s only marginally better.

Well, that’s it. I would seem to have become a published novelist. Today, my Aztec fantasy-mystery Servant of the Underworld hits the UK and Australia, courtesy of Angry Robot.

I can’t help flashing back to that time ten years ago, in London, when I first thought it would be awesome to write a fantasy in English–and all but killed the thought because my cynical self had just pointed out that fantasy was horribly complicated to write because of all that research, that English wasn’t my first language, and that I was bound to bungle it all. It took me ten years and a lot of wordage, but I’m awfully glad I decided to ignore the obstacles and go ahead anyway. Sometimes, things work out a zillion times better than you’d ever expected.

Year One-Knife, Tenochtitlan – the capital of the Aztecs. The end of the world is kept at bay only by the magic of human sacrifice. A priestess disappears from an empty room drenched in blood. Acatl, high priest, must find her, or break the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead. But how do you find someone, living or dead, in a world where blood sacrifices are an everyday occurrence and the very gods stalk the streets?

And there’s a new review over at Candyman:

…the author has thoroughly researched the language, customs, and such but uses it just enough to flavor her narrative, not over power it. The book reads more like a mystery rather than dark fantasy; either way, it’s very hard to put down. (…) This book is beautifully written and a pleasure to lose oneself in. (…) Please see for yourself and pick up a copy!!

Celebrating tonight with BF. Now all I need is an actual spotting of the book in the wild for it to feel real…

Dario Ciriello, the founder of my writers’ group Written in Blood, is interviewed by Charles Tan on Panverse Publishing, genre fiction, and writing. Go Dario!

Fantasy Magazine is having an annual fiction poll (with prizes!) Go here for more information.

(my story “Golden Lilies” is eligible, should you feel like voting for it; but I also recommend Rochita Loenen-Ruiz’s sweet and hilarious “Teaching a Pink Elephant to Ski”, Jean-Claude Dunyach’s atmospheric “Birds” “Offerings”, among many others).

OK, so it’s time to shake up things a bit. 4 days left until the UK/Australia release of Servant of the Underworld, my Aztec murder-mystery with blood magic (and ghostly jaguars, and fingernail-eating monsters).

So what I figure out is that I’m going to set the stage a bit, by doing a series of posts on setting. The first will be on the Valley of Mexico and the Aztec Empire; the second on the city of Tenochtitlan; the third on religion and the Sacred Precinct, and the fourth and last on my main character Acatl and his patron Mictlantecuhtli, aka Lord Death. First one should run tomorrow.

Stay tuned :=)

My Lansara (aka pseudo-Hindu) short “By Bargain and by Blood” is in the 108th issue of Hub Magazine, courtesy of the awesome Lee Harris. Here’s a snippet from the beginning:

The blood empath came when my niece was eight.

I should have suspected something like that–but my sister Aname had told me little about the begetting of her daughter, little beyond her certainty that everything would turn out right in the end. Her death in childbirth had left my questions forever unanswered.
Nevertheless, when Aname told me about her child to come, she spoke of a bargain struck. And thus I should have known someone would come to honour it–that someone would walk through the rice paddies and the forests until he reached our jati, our small community isolated from the affairs of the world.

But, just as you know about death but do not think about it, so I did not think about him.

A mistake. Perhaps I would have been better prepared, had I thought of his coming.

Read more. (free download at the Hub website)

Many many thanks to Marshall Payne for his help on this one, as well as tlmorganfield, tchernabyelo, and everyone else who took a look at it on Liberty Hall (the crits date back to before I got smart enough to record who had critted my stuff for later thanks). And to Lee for prodding me into submitting it and accepting it for publication.

(and arg: D-4 until release date…à

Saw a couple of reviews trickle in during the holidays:
-Liviu Suciu at Fantasy Book Critic:

The novel fits most comfortably under the heading of “dark fantasy” with the tropes of contemporary urban fantasy – magic, sorcerers, powerful supernatural beings – called Gods here – lots of blood and violence, mostly urban setting – but is set in the Aztec Empire at its peak in the late 15th century.
The world-building is exquisite and we *believe* we are transported to the 15th century Tenotichtlan and together with the superb voice they formed the main reason I enjoyed this book so much… Highly recommended; Ms. de Bodard is a writer to watch.

-Nik Butler at Loudmouthman:

The mystical Aztec setting had every opportunity to become a tongue twisting and convoluted mish mash of vowels and golden thingies. Fortunately none of this occurs as day to day temple life and the duties of its citizens are described you can feel the richness of this bloody empire without once tripping over some unpronounceable God or location.
This is Book 1 in a trilogy and I am eager to get my hands on the next book when it is released.

*happy writer*