First, of all , Chosen Spirits things. Finally back on the Kindle store! (US) (UK) or do search in your local store.
Next, the mighty Aishwarya Subramanian and Gautam Bhatia (The Wall, novel debut, fantasy/specfic, out soon) discussed growing up in Delhi, the times, speculative fiction and Chosen Spirits in Strange Horizons.
Very kind, and I'm delighted and grateful. The idea that the people discussing/reviewing my work in one of the world's top SFF magazines (they’re having a fundraiser, please contribute if you can) would both have grown up in Delhi and know the setting of my novel better than I do is also strange and wonderful and very, very new.
Also, thanks to Chosen Spirits I now have my finest author photo ever:
Which means, I will be doing an event in Second Life soon. Which couldn’t be more perfect, given that about a fifth of Chosen Spirits is set in virtual meeting environments, future versions that were inspired, among other things, by Second Life. I don’t know if any of you are in SL, but if so, please do teleport to the Second Life Book Club, put together by award-winning digital artist Draxtor. A most interesting way to do book events, and also you get to see some of the most dignified people in the world, like Ken Liu, talk out of pirate-hatted tiger heads and so on.
I may or may not post the video of my upcoming event here. It depends on how many times I stand in some conspicuous wrong place or sit on some household name, or leave my mike on because I don’t know how to mute it, all of which are things I did when I went to attend an event there last.
But damn, do I look good. This much talent and work, and that face too? I finally understand how Tishani Doshi must feel all the time.
Reading and other brain-improving activities
Slowly making inroads into my TBR pile and have decided to add a few rereads to it - some of you read Indra’s book from last issue and wanted more, so here are two more lovely books that were not pushed anywhere like they should have been: Achala Upendran’s The Sultanpur Chronicles: Shadowed City and Tashan Mehta’s The Liar’s Weave. Please read, and encourage the authors with word and gesture to finish their second novels quickly.
Today, though, one book has leaped straight to the downloaditrightnow and startreadingitgogogo category, because Zen Cho’s The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water is out! (link is to the Indian Kindle edition, search your local stores etc) and I have been waiting to read this since I first heard of it. (Read it, and loved it)
What happens to your brain when you read
Colson Whitehead discussing his novels, racism and the pandemic.
Thought forms, the 1905 Theosophist book that inspired abstract art
Tor has a list of must-read short specfic for summer 2020
Finished What We Do In The Shadows S2. Loved. They keep finding ways to keep the monster flatmates idea alive, which is magical. I wish I could do a whole Guillermo book, he’s just my kind of protagonist.
Finished Normal People. Also loved. If they take the perfectly reasonable decision to not do a Season 2, I wish they would do the same story again but as a 90s American multicam sitcom, a sort of Horsing Around take on it. Alternatively, a lot of 90s sitcoms should have Sally Rooney remakes, a sort of Schumacher-Nolan arc with a lot of obviouslehs and yeh, buts and tobehonests thrown in.
Finished Downton Abbey. It’s been a while since I’ve watched such a completely soapy soap. Ridiculously fond of the characters, so I get it.
Finished The Last Dance, which is really the greatest Asshole Male Protagonist story I’ve seen since Bojack Horseman ended. But it’s so interesting, in this land of hagiographies, to see that M.Jordan’s production company was behind this very brutal/honest look at the man.
They’ve revealed Darkseid in the Snyder Cut. Have we talked about the Snyder Cut? Maybe we should. Every time I sit down and wonder whether/when to go back to the Simoqin universe, and then start reading the books again, I want to rewrite the whole series entirely - presumably this is an indication that I learned some new things since last time, for better or worse. But I don’t think it’s right to wholly recreate something you did and released - of course it’s flawed, but you really have to let it go. Of course, I say this, but I cut around 40k words from the trilogy for what is now the international ebook edition in 2012, largely because I just couldn’t help it. So I’ll probably watch the Snyder Cut, but how sad that all those top-of-the-line resources couldn’t have been put into creating something… new? Constant remakes are bad enough, but a director remaking something he couldn’t finish because of huge fan campaigns is very (good, because non-lethal) 2020.
Will sex scenes survive the pandemic? I’m sure they will eventually, but while Americans make do with dolls for sex scenes, thus moving CGI choose-your-actor adult entertainment forward by at least two decades, in France they’re kissing again.
Recently saw people laughing on Twitter how everyone was mad at the Jurassic Park sequels for saying people would keep going back to reopened dinosaur parks despite all the previous disasters, but post-lockdown human behaviour has demonstrated that that is exactly what people would do. It is fitting, therefore, that the first major Hollywood film to resume production is a Jurassic Park sequel. They’re going back in.
A spike in randomness
This is the kind of empire politics news I want to see: Tiktok teens and K-pop stans ruining Trump rallies. With quotes like: “Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York tweeted in response to Mr. Parscale, who had tweeted that “radical protestors” had “interfered” with attendance.
Possibly inspired by those Marine Drive policemen doing minor North Korea parades on Segways, the actual Segway inventor is now working on replacement human organs.
Maysa Talerd builds custom pop culture face shields.
Anil Menon asks a question you’ve often asked yourself: How did 84 cubes with Devanagari inscriptions end up at the bottom of an English river?
More about Ip Man, Bruce Lee’s martial arts teacher.
Here is a duck I enjoyed
Back in a bit
To support this newsletter, do buy a book! My new novel, Chosen Spirits, is now out in hardback and internationally in several ebook stores.
If you haven’t yet, do sign up to this newsletter to receive new instalments in your inbox, along with occasional only exclusives.
Meanwhile, do join me on Twitter, FB or Instagram, or drop in at my website. Enjoy this New Zealand government message, see you later.