Indrapramit Das

A drawing of Anne Bonny the pirate that I did for Neil Gaiman’s blustery, memory-salted ‘March Tale’ (one of my favourites in the collection) for A Calendar of Tales. Read the whole collection here.

Graphite pencil on paper.

The Knife - A Tooth for An Eye

Off their upcoming album, Shaking the Habitual. Wasn’t thrilled about the last song they released from it, but I love this one, and love the video too. Aptly for today, it’s a video of a young girl (and woman-to-be) leading a bunch of men on a dance.

Also, It’s a gorgeous, sunny proto-spring day, and while I wish we didn’t live in a world which requires an ‘International Woman’s Day’ to assert the fact that hey, maybe women should have rights too, I do wish all the women in the world a fine, lovely day and hope the whole thing makes a few more people aware of the sorry state of our affairs when it comes to the rights of women (and various minorities, sexual and otherwise).

I review [Rec] co-director Jaume Balagueró’s latest film, Mientras Duermes (Sleep Tight), at Vancouver Weekly. Despite the misleading poster, it is not a subversive adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The BFG which takes the eponymous beloved giant and turns him into a voyeuristic monster.

David Bowie - The Stars (Are Out Tonight)

Someone needs to do a feature-length film starring David Bowie and Tilda Swinton as siblings or lovers or different versions of each other who are also supernatural entities of some sort, but for now this is a lovely surprise.

Solaris (1972)

destroyangels:

Listen to the new How to destroy angels album Welcome oblivion in its entirety and browse visuals, on Pitchfork Advance. Pre-order Welcome oblivion direct from HTDA.

Pretty damn good so far. Liking the side-scrolling streaming page format.

tentacular:

1. The demolition is sponsored by Burger King. Everyone is used, now, to rotvertising, the spelling of company names & reproduction of hip product logos in the mottle & decay of subtly gene-tweaked decomposition - Apple paying for the breakdown of apples, the bitten-fruit sigil becoming visible on…

The BSFA-nominated short story ‘Three Moments of an Explosion’ by China Mieville. It takes but a few minutes to read, and is worth it.

Since the Nebulas voting period ends tomorrow, I thought I’d put up my awards eligibility post, in case some voting member of the SFWA feels the need to trawl the internet for last-minute stories to toss in the basket. There’s also the Hugos, of course, for which the voting period ends later.

I have three stories eligible for the Hugos/Nebulas this year.

The first is ‘Weep For Day,’ published in Asimov’s (August 2012 issue). It would fall under ‘Best Novelette.’ It will be reprinted in Gardner Dozois’ 30th Annual Year’s Best Science Fiction anthology. Here’s a preview of it (about half of the story) on the Asimov’s website. It’s also available in full for free at the SFWA forums (only for members).

If you want to read it to consider it for the Hugos, just send me an email and I’d be glad to send you a PDF of the full novelette.

The second eligible story is ‘muo-ka’s Child,’ published in Clarkesworld (September 2012 issue). It would fall under the ‘Best Short Story’ category. Click here to read the full story for free at Clarkesworld Magazine.

The third is ‘Sita’s Descent,’ also in short story category, published in the anthology Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana (Ed. Anil Menon and Vandana Singh, published by Zubaan Books, India). That one might be harder to find if you’re not in India, but here’s the book’s page.

Thank you for your time!

spitkitten:

In celebration of the legacy of Octavia E. Butler, local Seattle-area writers Vonda N. McIntyre, Nisi Shawl, Dennis Y. Ginoza, Erik Owomoyela, Caren Gussoff, and Rashida Smith will read work inspired by their time with Octavia Butler, or stories included in Blood­children: Stories by the Octavia…

neil-gaiman:

Lots of you out there want to be better writers. The Clarion SF Workshop is the oldest and best thing of its kind: 6 Weeks of intensive writing and learning. It’s basically boot camp for beginning writers. It’s June 23-August 3rd, in two different locations. It’s taught by legendary and awesome…

Bloodchildren: Stories by Octavia E. Butler Scholars is now available. It’s an anthology that gathers stories from the recipients of the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship (including me) to attend the Clarion and Clarion West writers’ workshops.

For 8.01 dollars, you get the e-book, edited by Nisi Shawl, and with an introduction and memoir by Nalo Hopkinson and Vonda McIntyre, respectively. Those dollars all go to the Octavia E. Butler Scholarship Fund, which will help future aspiring writers of colour to attend Clarion and Clarion West, and help diversify the genres within sf/f (and in turn, modern literature as a whole).

Alex D. MacFarlane has announced the TOC and posted the cover of her upcoming anthology, Aliens: Recent Encounters, on her blog. The anthology is being published by Prime Books in June 2013. I’m excited, and honoured, to be included in it, alongside a myriad bright talents from sf/f.

The book (which I can’t wait to read) will carry ‘muo-ka’s Child,’ which first appeared in the September 2012 issue of Clarkesworld Magazine. My great gratitude to our editor Alex, and to Neil Clarke, who first bought the story. And, as always, to everyone involved with Clarion West, where the story was conceived in the company of seventeen people who are not just wonderful writers, but perfect friends.

Following is the TOC:

An Owomoyela – Frozen Voice
Ken Liu – The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species
Catherynne M. Valente – Golubash, or Wine-Blood-War-Elegy
Zen Cho – The Four Generations of Chang E
Vandana Singh – The Tetrahedon
Paul McAuley – The Man
Ursula K. Le Guin – Seasons of the Ansarac
Molly Gloss – Lambing Season
Desirina Boskovich – Celadon
Genevieve Valentine – Carthago Delenda Est
Caitlín R. Kiernan – I Am the Abyss and I Am the Light
Jamie Barras – The Beekeeper
Robert Reed – Noumenon
Elizabeth Bear – The Death of Terrestial Radio
Sofia Samatar – Honey Bear
Karin Lowachee – The Forgotten Ones
Jeremiah Tolbert – The Godfall’s Chemsong
Alastair Reynolds – For the Ages
Brooke Bolander – Sun Dogs
Nisi Shawl – Honorary Earthling
Samantha Henderson – Shallot
Sonya Taaffe – The Boy Who Learned How to Shudder
Eleanor Arnason – Knacksack Poems
Gitte Christensen – Nullipara
Indrapramit Das – muo-ka’s Child
Jeffrey Ford – The Dismantled Invention of Fate
Karin Tidbeck – Jagannath
Pervin Saket – Test of Fire
Nancy Kress – My Mother, Dancing
Greg van Eekhout – Native Aliens
Lavie Tidhar – Covenant
Yoon Ha Lee – A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel

snowce:

Adrian Tomine

A beautiful poster to remember that first, and wonderful trilogy. The first movie especially. It seems beautifully restrained after watching the over-branded, over-stuffed, CG-candied digital Denny’s breakfast that is the newly begun The Hobbit trilogy (which I actually enjoyed more than I thought I would, and has some worthy aspects, visuals and performances, but lacks any of the grace and dignity of the originals while playing up their flaws).

flavorpill:

Mondo’s released a beautiful new Lord of the Rings poster

Seraph (2012) by Dash Shaw, written by Shaw and John Cameron Mitchell. A hand-painted, animated short film set to two songs from Sigur Ros’ new album Valtari. Mysterious, ominous and seething with crude beauty.

Via Twitch.

Death by Chris Bachalo

All-Star Superman #6 cover by Frank Quitely

ratak-monodosico:

Wax vanitas, Europe, 1701-1800

Vanitas are works of art intended to remind the viewer of the shortness of human life, the uselessness of vanity and the certainty of death. This example features many symbols typical for this type of object, such as a skull and insects that feast on decaying flesh. The other side of the model shows the face during life. The verse scratched on to the front is from the biblical book of Ecclesiastes and reads “vanity of vanities, all is vanity”.