Can you see us waving?

So last Thursday, we went out of the classroom and waved vigorously at Saturn, and the charming Cassini probe took a photo just of us, and here it is:



I'm the tall one at the back.

I want it all and I want it now

It rained last evening. Just a spatter, but even so and nevertheless: it's late July, O weather. Rain? Does not happen here. Plz to get with the program, kthx.

In news that may or may not be interconnected with broken seasons, our orange tree is doing everything all at once. It still holds the residue of last year's crop, that I have not yet eaten or juiced; this year's crop is green and present, ping-pong-ball sized, give or take. Which is all fine and normal. Except that this morning? I noticed a few new blossoms popping out, a second round of potential fruitfulness. *shrugs* I have no idea if it will or indeed can set fruit again, but I'm very happy to see it try. And I shall give it more water, in an encouraging kind of way.

Kitchen diary, 23/07/13

I haven't cooked for a week. More than a week. My fingers grew twitchy for the touch of a knife; I came home and wanted to cook all the things, all at once.

The fridge is full of stuff, but that's not all: the gardenstuff is coming through. Lunch today was a salad of roast chicken and spinach and bacon, dressed with mustard/balsamic vinaigrette enriched with the bacon drippings from a pan deglazed with red wine vinegar; brussels sprouts roasted whole with a splash of balsamic; and a tomato.

This tomato:



I think it's a Love Apple. I know it was utterly delicious. And I grew it. I'm very pleased.

And Karen says I can cook Chazfudz for dinner, as we had all salads and stuff for lunch. I'm thinking curry, probably. Possibly with a chilli or two from the garden.

What you should be reading (I)

If you're in the US and you want a copy of The Garden and you don't mind dealing with Megacorp, it's on Amazon here as hard copy and here in the Kindle edition.

If you're in the UK, then this link should bring you to the Kindle edition and this one to the hard copy.

Go forth and clickify...

What you should be reading (II)

In further fabulous news, my SF novel(la)* Rotten Row is now out in e-book formats, from my beloved Book View Cafe. I'll get it up on Amazon shortishly, but you can buy it direct from BVC (which we prefer for all manner of reasons) right now, and here is the link to do so. Mobi for your Kindle, Epub for other formats, DRM-free for those who care and you can always download another copy for another device.

And it has this utterly fabulous cover, courtesy of Mark Ferrari:




*Technically a novel, by the bizarre length-standards of the SF awards moguls, but it's a novella in every way that actually counts.

Rotten Row: the origin story

I know I've told this story before; I may have told it here, or hereabouts. If so, bear with me. Or just scroll on. I am at that time of life; I am in my anecdotage.

So a few years back, I was staying with m'friend Juliet McKenna in Oxon, and there was a one-day SF con in London; and furthermore m'other friend Liz Williams was signing in an SF bookshop on t'other side of the Smoke. So two birds, one stone: I hopped on a train and spent the morning at the con, and then at lunchtime set off to walk across town to find Liz.

First thing that happened, I discovered that I was walking along Rotten Row. [For those not bothering to click through: this is a parade through Hyde Park, a broad avenue where high society used to disport itself on horseback and in carriages. For more information, read Georgette Heyer.] I'd known about it since I was a kid, but never been before. I was quite pleased to find that even in the absence of horses, people do still gather there to display; lots of rollerbladers and the like, showing off their skills and their physiques, their slick garb, their desirable selves. Just as people always have, really.

So I was kind of thinking about that, and science fiction, and so forth; and I debouched onto the streets of London again, and suddenly there was my first-ever bicycle rickshaw; and the one thing melded with the other, and both into a different context, and lo. That, children, is where I get my ideas from.

And by the time I came to the bookshop Liz was gone - to the convention, as it happens, in search of me - so we missed each other utterly. But I went back to Jules' with a whole lot of thinky in my head, and some little time later there was a novella, and this is it in its new incarnation:



It's about paranoia, and identity, and art. But what isn't?

Oh, and betrayal. Ditto ditto.