The nominations for the 2012 Hugo Awards have been announced just in time for Easter with lots of “What the fuck?” nominations mixed in with the good choices.
First of all, the good thing is that there are women nominees in all writing categories, even though the men are slightly overrepresented. The writer of colour quota does not look so good this year, though I did spot a couple (and of course, there are writers whose race and ethnicity I simply don’t know). Continue reading
I’m taking a day off from the photo posts, because I just spent quite a bit of time finishing the first draft of a short story. So instead of Yorkshire photos, you get a bunch of (hopefully interesting) links: Continue reading
While Leeds was a bit underwhelming with its unabashed love for highrise buildings, York was more like it. A medieval city located on a spot inhabited since pre-Roman times with Britain’s largest gothic cathedral and narrow streets lined with timbered houses and all sorts of interesting and unique shops. I found a great magic/esoterics shop in one of those streets that caters not just to the usual New Age crowd but also to genuine practicing magicians. I also found a shop that sold stunning costume jewelery.
So here are some photos of York behind the cut. They’re a tad misty, because it just happened to be misty on the day I visited: Continue reading
Leeds is, to put it politely, not the most beautiful city you’ll ever see. There are some nice Victorian buildings in the city centre (I saw hardly anything that predated the 19th century), but the city suffered badly from a combination of war damage and postwar building boom (more on that later). The sad results of the postwar building boom are now gradually being torn down and while the replacements look somewhat better, they are still highrises.
And now a bunch of photos behind the cut: Continue reading
Yorkshire photos will follow later this week, but for now I have a couple of links on the current discussions of the day: Continue reading
No, this is not an April’s Fool joke, I really have a new novelette available. I actually planned to announce it yesterday, but Amazon was slow to make it available.
This story is called Seraglio and it’s another of the stories I wrote for Man’s Story 2 once upon a time, though I have rewritten it and changed the ending, because I was never happy with the original.
And now, without further ado, I present you Seraglio:
The peaceful life of sisters Naira and Margarid is shattered when their Armenian village is raided and their family slaughtered. Sold into slavery, the sisters are separated. Naira eventually ends up in the harem of the mighty Sultan Abdul Selim, ruler of the vast Ottoman Empire. Here, even the slightest hint of disobedience is punished with utmost severity, as the sadistic head eunuch assures her. And indeed the torments that await a disobedient slave in the Sultan’s harem are manifold. But with her sister in mortal danger, Naira is willing to face even death and worse to regain her freedom and save Margarid’s life.
Warning: There is quite a bit of violence and cruelty in this story, so sensitive readers should tread carefully.
For more information visit the dedicated Seraglio page.
But it for the low price of 2.99 USD or EUR, 1.99 GBP at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, DriveThruFiction, OmniLit/AllRomance e-books and XinXii.
More formats coming soon.
I’m rather tired right now, though Amazon willing there will be another update later tonight.
However, today my Mom celebrated her 70th birthday (her actual birthday was on Wednesday), which meant a lot of talking to a lot of relatives and acquaintances and dodging people telling me to get married, to have children (mostly when I was running after the two and a half year old grandson of my cousin) and to lose weight.
My parents’ house looks like they’ve opened a flower shop over night and of course there’s the inevitable mystery azalea (it’s always an azalea) that someone must have given us, but we have not the slightest inkling who it was.
Anyway, here is the birthday invitation I designed. I’m rather proud of the design, though I don’t think a whole lot of people appreciated the punk/grunge look. So I post it now, since my parents forbade me to post it before the party, since they heard stories about 500 people showing up for birthday parties announced on the internet. The photo is my Mom’s confirmation photo, by the way. It’s big, so I’m putting it behind the cut: Continue reading
Yesterday’s post about the latest genre dust-up involving Christopher Priest’s very vocal criticism of this year’s Clarke Award shortlist has been linked by John Scalzi at Whatever, which has sent my stats shooting up since Scalzi gets as many visitors in a day as I get in a year.
Meanwhile, everybody and his dog (and this is not a reference to Charles Stross) is weighing in as well: Continue reading
While I was away, the nominations for the Clarke Award have been announced.
I’m very pleased to see Jane Rogers, whom I ferried around in my ancient Volkswagen Jetta during a visit to Bremen a couple of year ago, on that list. China Mieville was pretty much a no-brainer, though I haven’t read Embassytown. I like Sherri Tepper, though again I haven’t read the nominated book. Charles Stross has legions of fans, even though I am not one of them. Greg Bear regularly gets nominated for major genre awards. The only headscratcher for me was Drew Margary, whom I must admit I’ve never heard of.
In short, it’s a pretty regular SFF awards shortlist – and mind you that I rarely agree with more than one or two of the nominations anyway. Continue reading
I’m back from Yorkshire. Well, actually I got back yesterday, but I was too tired to blog or do more than catch up with my e-mails.
There will be photos in the next few days, but for now here are a few interesting links: Continue reading
sending...