Category: Uncategorized

Did I say a winner?  I meant three winners.  Wow!

Since we unveiled the Chronicle of Sorrows puzzle game last year, over a hundred people have sought to rummage through the files on John Stephenson’s desk.  I’ve received many hint and clue requests since last spring.  And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take a slightly sadistic pleasure in doling them out.  But I’m a bad person; we already knew that.

The prizes have been claimed, but the game is still available for those that feel inclined to play!  It starts here…

I’ll post a complete walkthrough later.  Today, below the cut, I’ve posted the winners and their prizes.

Like most people in the northern hemisphere this time of year, I find myself coming and going during the darkest parts of the day.  And, like so many northerners, the short days and long nights of winter have me departing for the bus stop before sunrise and back outside, waiting for the bus to take me home, just as the sun is falling behind the mountains.

My days are full of sunrises and sunsets.

Gosh, this is a nice way to round out the year. 

The venerable Pat of Hotlist fame has posted his year-end Hottie awards.  (That’s a play on the blog name, you see, not a reference to attractiveness.  Though I’m sure my trademark “just woke up in a damp haystack” look would win big.)  He calls Bitter Seeds “the crème de la crème of SFF debuts” this year, and also had some nice words for the author.  I’m extremely honored.

Meanwhile, the Yeti Stomper has posted his 2010 recommended reading list.  Bitter Seeds is included among the four novels he recommends.  Hooray!

Well, this is nice. 

Apex Book Company has posted a very positive review of Bitter Seeds on their blog.  Jenn Brozek’s review also includes an interview with me about the Milkweed books, demonology, and other sundry topics.  I met Jenn at LAX in August, while we were both waiting for our flight to Melbourne en route to Worldcon.  I was flattered by her interest in my book, and I’m deeply pleased that she enjoyed it.

Meanwhile, over at Locus Online, short fiction reviewer Lois Tilton lists two of my stories in her roundup of the year in short fiction!  (Tilton’s original review of “What Doctor Gottlieb Saw” can be found here, and her review of “Still Life (A Sexagesimal Fairy Tale)” can be found here.)

And the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel lists Bitter Seeds among 2010’s “Transporting Book Successes”: personal recommendations from their reviewer, Jim Higgins.  Wow!  That’s my book listed alongside fiction from Connie Willis, Kim Stanley Robinson, Alan Furst (!), and Emma Donoghue (a Man Booker Prize finalist, no less).  What a compliment.

I’m very happy to see these things here at the closing of the year.