Fran Wilde's Blog, page 32

The My Little Jhereg & Lunch of Locke Lamora Bartender’s Guide

In the worlds of Steven Brust’s My Little Jhereg and Scott Lynch’s Lunch of Locke Lamora, it’s always five o’clock somewhere. To help you keep your own cabinet stocked, Lynch and Brust, along with able assistant Jennifer Melchert, have teamed with Cooking the Books to unearth a very rare copy of: The My Little Jhereg and Lunch of Locke Lamora Bartender’s Guide.

Only one copy exists, and it is of no use trying to bribe any of us for access. None whatsoever.

To whet your appetite, enjoy these ten...

Gratitude: Ghost

Now and then, I interrupt the digital media nattering, writing how-tos, and food-in-fiction posts for some old-fashioned gratitude. It’s that time again.

The mobile of my childhood is 34 feet long and weighs 225 lbs. It spins irreverent between medieval tapestries and Saint-Gauden’s sculpture of Diana, itself originally conceived as a weathervane.

Wind. Movement. Change. Even indoors, Alexander Calder’s Ghost rings the changes each second.

To see it properly, you have to stand beneath it, then r...

Strange Horizons Readers’ Poll

Thanks to everyone who voted in the Strange Horizons readers’ poll! The results are in and there are many winners – from fiction to poetry, from columns to reviews, and articles. Readers voted the notorious Cooking the Books Roundtable the third most popular article last year – which is pretty amazing. Thanks again to the authors who participated, Elizabeth Bear, Gregory Frost, Nalo Hopkinson, and Scott Lynch; the great editorial team at Strange Horizons, and most especially, everyone who rea...

Short Fiction 2013: January – March

Some of the online short stories I’ve read so far this year, and liked a whole bunch:

Lettie Prell, “The Performance Artist,” Apex.
AC Wise, “With Tales in their Teeth from the Mountain They Came,” Lightspeed.
Sofia Samatar, “Selkie Stories are for Losers,” Strange Horizons.
Adam Calloway, “Sate My Thirst with Ink and Blood,” Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
Kij Johnson, “Shrodinger’s Cathouse” (reprint), Galaxy’s Edge.
Jake Kerr, “Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince,” Lightspeed.
Genevieve...

Their Words, Her Test Kitchen: Cooking the Books with Chelsea Monroe-Cassel

Chelsea Monroe-Cassel, with friend Sariann Lerher, taught herself to cook in order to make the dishes in George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire. Before long, they were posting their progress online, at The Inn at the Crossroads, and found themselves with a cookbook deal, and a forward by GRRM himself.

Chelsea’s branched out since then, with Food Through the Pages. There, she recreates fictional food from many authors, including Saladin Ahmed, Scott Lynch, Steven Brust, Suzanne Collins, and...

Apex Books Blog & SF Signal Mind Meld

Last week, onSF Signal’s Mind Meld on food in science fiction and fantasy, I joined authors Laura Ann Gilman, Sherwood Smith, A.M. Dellamonica, Bryan Thomas Schmidt, Bradley Beaulieu, Leah Peterson, Kat Howard, Joanne Anderton, Aliette de Bodard, Rose Fox, Linda Nagata, Michael Martinez, and Judith Tarrin answering the following question: “Food and Drink in science fiction sometimes seems limited to replicator requests for Earl Grey tea and Soylent green discs. Why doesn’t do as much food as...

Short and sweet: What’s in a Bio?

The author, revealed.

“Please send us a short biographical statement and, if relevant, a few words about your story.”

Words that ring joy and fear in any writer’s heart. You see that line when you’ve sold a story to an editor – that’s the joy.

Then you realize: you now have to talk about yourself. To an audience. Ah. There’s the fear.

So what’s a joyfearful writer to do?

Behold: several advice-snippets from writers and editors who’ve been here before. (The words ‘funny’ and ‘cheeky’ came up more t...

What Heroes Eat: Cooking the Books with Saladin Ahmed

While fighting and magic are central to the action in many of Saladin Ahmed’s stories, he never makes the mistake of letting his characters go to battle on empty stomachs. Whether the 2013 Nebula Nominee is describing a tavern’s spiked beer or the mess caused by thousand-layer pastries, food is an important part of Ahmed’s worlds, as seen in the collection Engraved on the Eye and in his first novel Throne of the Crescent Moon.

Fresh from a recent NPR column on worldbuilding and fantasy, and th...

Proof of Concept: Flying!

Ah. Flying. Who knew? Jumping into a wind tunnel = hilarious fun and some ridiculous photos.

Things I learned that will benefit the novels I’m working on and probably some short stories as well:

In a lot of vertical wind, a body doesn’t operate exactly like a sail, unless you’re wearing a wingsuit, and even then probably not.It operates like a lot of little sails: any small movement of fingers or hands can turn you this way or that. A bent leg can send you flipping.
The more you spread out and r...

Flying! aka: Proof of Concept

Ah. Flying. Who knew? Jumping into a wind tunnel = hilarious fun and some ridiculous photos.

Things I learned that will benefit the novels I’m working on and probably some short stories as well:

In a lot of vertical wind, a body doesn’t operate exactly like a sail, unless you’re wearing a wingsuit, and even then probably not.It operates like a lot of little sails: any small movement of fingers or hands can turn you this way or that. A bent leg can send you flipping.
The more you spread out and r...