Special Guest ~ Aliette de Bodard
Aliette de Bodard lives and works in Paris, where she has a day job as a System Engineer. She studied Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, but moonlights as a writer of speculative fiction.
Recent works include the Dominion of the Fallen series, set in a turn-of-the-century Paris devastated by a magical war, featuring witches, alchemists, Fallen angels, dragons in human shape and magical and political intrigues: it comprises The House of Shattered Wings (Roc/Gollancz, 2015 British Science Fiction Association Award, Locus Award finalist), and its standalone sequel The House of Binding Thorns (Ace/Gollancz).
She also published The Citadel of Weeping Pearls, a book set in a Galactic Empire based on Vietnamese culture, which follows four characters in search of the titular citadel, a marvel of technology which mysteriously vanished on the eve of a war. Previous works are the critically acclaimed Obsidian and Blood, a trilogy of Aztec noir fantasies featuring priest-cum-investigator Acatl (starting with Servant of the Underworld), and On a Red Station, Drifting (shortlisted for the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Awards), a space opera focusing on the stormy relationship between two women aboard a decaying space station.
Her short stories are frequently set in the Xuya universe, an alternate history continuity where the Mexica (Aztec) and Asian cultures have reached space ahead of the West, and where the familial structures include mindships, artificial intelligences incubated in human wombs. Such short fiction has appeared in a variety of professional magazines and anthologies.
Aliette has won two Nebula Awards, a Locus Award and three British Science Fiction Association Awards.
She lives in Paris with her family, in a flat with more computers than warm bodies, and a set of Lovecraftian tentacled plants intent on taking over the place. In what little is left of her spare time, she wrangles a small toddler and cooks Franco-Vietnamese food. Hobbies include board games, tai chi/chi gong, and devouring books.