As announced over the weekend, Aliette de Bodard has racked up yet another well-deserved award nomination. Aliette’s THE BREATH OF WAR has been nominated in the short story category. The story originally appeared in the March 6th, 2014 issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies (#142). The story is also free to read online, here.

But you wouldn’t know, Rechan thought, chilled. You’d be quite happy, either way. That’s what you were carved for, to give your breath to Akanlam’s babies, and even if you hadn’t been born knowing it, everyone in our society has been telling you that for as long as you can remember. How much responsibility did people have for their carvings? How much of themselves had they put into them; and how much had they taught them?

Aliette de Bodard is the multi-award nominated and winning author of a great many short stories. She is also the author of the Obsidian & Blood trilogy, published by Angry Robot Books; and the upcoming, highly-anticipated new novel THE HOUSE OF SHATTERED WINGS, which is due to be published in the UK by Gollancz and the US by Roc Books, in August 2015.