Sadly, I just got the news that Kage Baker has died. Just a few days ago, I wrote pretty much everything I could say about it - there isn't really anything else to say, except praying.

If you don't feel like praying, go read one of her books. You will like it.

I just found out, via Cheryl Morgan, that The storySouth Million Writers Award is open for business again.

The award is for stories published in 2009, so that means some of my first stories published in English are eligible as of now. I published the whole list of stories here, but (quoting the site here) "the award is for any fictional short story of at least a 1,000 words first published in an online publication during 2009." So I'm listing below my stories over 1000 words:

. The Arrival of the Cogsmiths (oil on canvas, by Turner, 1815) - Everyday Weirdness, April 27th 2009 - (also featured in StarShipSofa - Aural Delights #102)

. Who Mourns For Washington? - Everyday Weirdness, May 16th 2009

. Ganesh, in the Afternoon - The Nautilus Engine vol 2 number 4 (May 2009 issue)

. Edgar Can´t Stand It - Semaphore Magazine (December 2009 issue)

Hope you like the stories. You can make nominations (even if you don't like my stories, that's okay, just go and nominate the stories you liked best in 2009) here.

The Translation Lag - on how the lack of translations of contemporary SF is affecting the output of Brazilian writers of the genre.

A few days ago, The British Science Fiction Association has announced its shortlist: this year there are only four nominees in the Best Novel category, and six nominees in the Best Short Fiction and Best Artwork categories due to ties for fifth place. The Awards will be presented at this year's Eastercon, Odyssey.

Novel

The City and the City, China Mieville (Macmillan) - my review here
Ark, Stephen Baxter (Gollancz)
Yellow Blue Tibia, Adam Roberts (Gollancz)
Lavinia, Ursula Le Guin (Gollancz)

Short

The Beloved Time of Their Lives, Ian Watson & Roberto Quaglia - The Beloved of My Beloved, Newcon Press
Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast, Eugie Foster - Interzone
The Assistant, Ian Whates - The Solaris Book of Science Fiction Volume 3
Vishnu at the Cat Circus, Ian McDonald
Johnnie and Emmie-Lou Get Married, Kim Lakin-Smith - Interzone
The Push, Dave Hutchinson - Newcon Press

Art

Adam Tredowski - covers of Interzone issues 220, 224 and 225
Nitzan Klamer - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, cover, art project published online (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kipizki/3753443748/in/set-72157621759215456/)
Stephanie Pui-Min Law - Emerald - http://www.shadowscapes.com/image.php?lineid=23&bid=512
Stephan Martiniere - Cover of Desolation Road by Ian McDonald: http://www.angel.org/will/site/files/ian-mcdonald-desolation-road.jpg

Non-Fiction Mutant Popcorn, Nick Lowe - Interzone
Canary Fever, John Clute - Beccon
Ethics and Enthusiasm, Hal Duncan
I didn't Dream of Dragons, Deepa D
A Short History of Fantasy, Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James

Now I just read in Hal Duncan's blog that he gracefully declined the nomination in favor of Deepa D.

Even so, you must read that piece all the same. I urge you. Hal's attitude has just illustrated the point - you can't be more ethical than that.

Less than two weeks ago, the SF community was taken by surprise by the news of Kage Baker's illness. It turned out that she was battling a cancer for quite a while, but she didn't want to make it public until now. Jeff VanderMeer had relayed a plea for support from her caretaker, adding his own words about Baker, her humor, and her work. He also gave her address (both physical and email), because she wanted to receive mail from friends and fans alike - her caretaker would read it all to her.

I hadn't read almost anything written by Kage Baker - half a dozen of non-Company related short stories and that was that. But I liked her stories, and I had even saw some of her Company novels in my favorite bookstore a while ago, but hadn't bought them. As soon as I heard the news, though, I did three things: first, I send her an e-mail. Second, I
bought every available short story of hers for Kindle (all Company-related) and read them in the same day. Third, I bought all of her books I could find.

Yesterday, more bad news, I'm afraid: I got the news from Green Man Review:

Just in from Kathleen Bartholomew, Kage Baker's sister and care giver:

Kage's doctor has informed us she has reached the end of useful treatment. The cancer has slowed, but not stopped. It has continued to spread at an unnatural speed through her brain, her lungs and - now - reappeared in her abdomen. It is probably a matter of a few weeks, at most.

Kage has fought very hard, but this is just too aggressive and mean. She's very, very tired now, and ready for her Long Sleep. She's not afraid.

We've been in a motel the last week or so, in order to complete her therapy.I'll have her home in her own bedroom by the weekend, though, so end of life care can take place in more comfortable surroundings.

There's nothing we can do or say in such moments that can ease the pain. Watch and pray, the Bible says (It doesn't really matter if you're a Christian or not - I'm a Buddhist but I was raised a Catholic and I still find that the Bible comforts me as much as the Dhammapada). I read Kage Baker and pray for her.

Due to the malfunctioning of the past two weeks, many of you maybe don't know yet, but I was invited by Pablo Defendini to be a part of the team of bloggers of Tor.com.

So far I've published two posts, one about apples and the multitude of names they can have, and other about my experience translating Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange to Brazilian Portuguese. There's more to come, including a series - more on that later.

Thanks to Pablo, and to Ami Greko, Torie Atkinson, and Megan Messinger for all the help, the patience, and the excellent disposition - it'll be fun to work with you and all the great people blogging there (Jo Walton, John Klima, Mur Lafferty, just to name a few - need I say more?)

After 15 absurd days offline here because of a #MAJORFAIL of our servers at Locaweb, I'm back. A huge thanks to Tiago Casagrande for not to give up and fight the good fight for his loyal bloggers here at Verbeat.org. More real soon (have you been following my emergency blog during the crisis?)

That´s the title of the article I wrote for The World SF Blog, in which I talk a little about my novel Os Dias da Peste, and how does it feel to be a bilingual writer. My thanks to Lavie Tidhar for the invitation to publish there.

Sorry, Elvis fans and impersonators all over the world - peace, love and respect to you all.

BUUUT...

Let´s praise a man who not only is REALLY alive but also had many incarnations in only one life! Happy birthday, Mr. David Bowie!

Here is the original clip of Space Oddity, recorded in 1969. (Thanks to Natania Barron for the tip.) Enjoy!

2010 started in a very good mood, under the least sheltering sky possible in Rio de Janeiro (bye bye ozone layer - the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference major FAIL didn´t help, alas), but, hey, I´m not complaining - at least I could go to the beach! And read a lot in the first days of the new year. A healthy mix of Brazilian and American fiction to give me a jumpstart before my major assignments (acquiring stories from all over Latin America for Best American Fantasy 4 and writing my novel) begin.

1. Coraline - Neil Gaiman - I had never read that one, and I liked it hugely. I had already purchased the DVD, but I really wanted to read the story before I saw the film.

2. Leite Derramado - Chico Buarque - The brand new novel of our most celebrated living songwriter. After almost thirty years composing and singing (he also wrote plays for the stage in the seventies), Chico started to write novels. This is his fourth one - all the others have already been translated (my favorite is Budapest).

3. Xochiquetzal - Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro - This novel came as a big, lovely surprise to me. Ribeiro is a longtime friend of mine, and also a successful writer, one of the first Brazilian SF authors to publish stories outside the country (his very first books, two short stories collections, were in fact published in Portugal). Xochiquetzal is Alternate History, a genre of which Ribeiro is an absolute master in Brazil. He won several awards in Brazil and Portugal, and, under the pseudonym of Carla Cristina Pereira, was a finalist of 2000 Sidewise Awards, with Xochiquetzal, a short story which is the prologue of this novel, the story of the Aztec wife of Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama. She follows his husband in his travels and chronicles them, showing us a world where the Empire of Portugal rules all the Americas (or the Cabralias, since they were christened in honor of Pedro Álvares Cabral, the discoverer of Brazil in our timeline, and not Americo Vespucio). A damn fine story - highly recommended.

4. Liberdade Virtual - Sylvio Gonçalves (releitura) - This is a new edition of a YA classic, published for the first time in the mid-nineties. Gonçalves, another good friend of mine (Brazil may be a big country, but the SFF writing world fits easily in a nutshell - everybody knows each other), wrote this cyberpunk tale of teen rebellion and defiance with all the Gibsonian gadgets and Sterling political discussion. Gonçalves is a screenwriter, and a damn fine one - but I wish he wrote more novels.

5. Jubiabá - Jorge Amado - A Brazilian classic. Amado, a best-seller in Brazil and all over the world, began his writing career not writing about sensual women in Bahia, but about the survival of strong men. Member of the Brazilian Communist Party in the 1930s, Amado wrote a series of novels about the exploitation of the working class, especially black men. The protagonist of this peculiar Bildungsroman is Antônio Balduíno, an orphan who lives in the slums of Salvador, Bahia, and grows up learning to survive among famine and extreme poverty: he becomes a thief, then a boxeur, a sailor, a circus strongman, and finally a stevedore who becomes the leader of a major strike. Balduíno is an interesting character, maybe the first real black protagonist in Brazilian literature. (In the sense that he´s not a satirical, stereotyped character.)

6. The Quiet War - Paul McAuley - This novel has been much talked about in the last few months. Many friends of mine, like Larry Nolen, are curious to know what I thought of it, since it portrays a future world where Brazil rules most of Earth. To be frank, I didn´t like it. And Brazil has nothing to do with it. Expect a review soon.

7. Geosynchron - David Louis Edelman - Just started to read it. I loved Infoquake and Multireal, and considered them two of the best SF novels I´ve read in the past few years. I expect no less of Geosynchron.

8. Bone Song - John Meaney - Started it yesterday. I bought both Bone Song and Black Blood because of Necroflux Day, one of the best short stories I read in 2009. I´m finding the worldbuilding quite exquisite and intriguing. Definitely worth reading.

Returning today from vacations, with excellent news from Jeff VanderMeer:

Feel free to spread these guidelines far and wide...

BEST AMERICAN FANTASY #4 NOW READING

The Best American Fantasy series (Underland Press) founded by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer is now reading fantasy short stories up to 10,000 words published or to be published from May 1, 2009 through May 31, 2010 for volume 4.

Stories must be by Latin American or North American residents and published in Latin American or North American publications (or magazine websites) during the May-to-May period. All work must have been published in English to be eligible.

Guest Editor: Minister Faust

The guest editor for BAF4 is critically acclaimed writer Minister Faust. The guest editor for volume 5 will be Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Díaz and the guest editor for volume 6 will be World Fantasy Award finalist Catherynne M. Valente. Each of these guest editors will bring excellence, expertise, and their own unique perspective to the position.

Announcing New Editors

BAF is proud to announce that the new series editor for BAF4 is reviewer and critic Larry Nolen, with translator/writer Fábio Fernandes serving as head of Latin American acquisitions and writer Alan Swirsky serving as first reader for online venues.

BAF founders Ann and Jeff VanderMeer will remain as managers/administrators of the anthology series, while former series editor Matthew Cheney will stay on as an advisor. Clayton Kroh and Tessa Kum will serve as assistant editors for BAF beginning with volume 4.

How to Submit Stories

--All relevant print publications and anthologies published in North America should be sent by the publishers to: Larry Nolen, BAF Series Editor, 151 Few Road, Dickson, TN 37055 USA.

--Editors of online publications based in North America should send relevant URLs to the first reader for online publications, Alan Swirsky (jynxshot@gmail.com).

--Editors of online publications based in Latin America should send relevant URLs to Fábio Fernandes (zeroabsoluto@gmail.com), while editors of print publications based in Latin America should query Fernandes about how best to send in eligible work.

--If you have already sent your print publication or anthology to either Matthew Cheney or Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, the materials will be forwarded to the series editor and do not need to be sent again.

As and when possible, and keeping in mind constraints such as expense and a need for additional personnel, the Best American Fantasy series eventually hopes to consider material published in Spanish and Portuguese.

Visit http://bestamericanfantasy.com/ for the Best American Fantasy 3 table of contents, guest editor Kevin Brockmeier. BAF3 will be published by Underland in mid-February 2010.

More Information on BAF Editors

Guest editor Minister Faust is an Edmontonian writer, community broadcaster and organiser. His second critically-acclaimed novel was the winner of the 2007 Carl Brandon Society Kindred award, and was the runner-up for the Philip K. Dick Award. His first novel was hailed by The New York Times Review of Books, and was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award, the Locus Best First Novel award and the Compton-Crook award, and made several year's best lists, including those for Amazon, Barnes & Noble, January Magazine, and SFSite.com.

Series editor Larry Nolen is a history and English teacher who devotes much of his spare time to reading and translating interviews and articles from Spanish into English. Since 2004, he has been blogging at the literary fantasy site, OF Blog of the Fallen. He also has had his reviews, interviews, and columns published at the Nebula Awards site, Strange Horizons, and Omnivoracious. In addition, several of his interviews and columns have been translated into Spanish and Portuguese and published in Spain and Portugal.

Latin American acquisitions editor Fábio Fernandes is a writer living in São Paulo, Brazil. Also a journalist and translator, he is responsible for the Brazilian translations of several prominent SF novels including Neuromancer, Snow Crash, and A Clockwork Orange. His short stories have been published in Brazil, Portugal, Romania, UK, New Zealand, and USA.Fernandes also published a non-fiction book on the work of William Gibson, A Construção do Imaginário Cyber, and an SF novel, Os Dias da Peste (both in Portuguese). In 2008, he created the SFF review blog Post-Weird Thoughts.

Spread the word!

2009 is coming to an end, and, if I had thought 2008 had been the busiest, craziest, best year in my life, that is certainly something of an understatement today. I didn´t read and reviewed as many books - work and health issues didn´t help much, though I can´t complain: 2009 was the year I started publishing in the English language market, with no less than eight nine stories (six seven flash fictions, two short stories), and two of those podcasted. They are:

. The Boulton-Watt-Frankenstein Company - Everyday Weirdness, February 23rd 2009 - (also featured in StarShipSofa - Aural Delights #92)

. The Use of Knives - A Short Tutorial - Powder Burn Flash # 167 (03/16/2009)

. The Arrival of the Cogsmiths (oil on canvas, by Turner, 1815) - Everyday Weirdness, April 27th 2009 - (also featured in StarShipSofa - Aural Delights #102)

. Who Mourns For Washington? - Everyday Weirdness, May 16th 2009

. Ganesh, in the Afternoon - The Nautilus Engine vol 2 number 4 (May 2009 issue)

. Cold Sleep - The Human Genre Project

. Semiotic Smoke - Everyday Weirdness, November 4th 2009

. Ghosts - Everyday Weirdness, December 9th 2009

. Edgar Can´t Stand It - Semaphore Magazine (December 2009 issue)

Thank you who have been reading me so far, with a special thanks to (in no particular order):

. Jacques Barcia

. Richard Diegues

. Gianpaolo Celli

. Larry Nolen

. Lavie Tidhar

. Charles Tan

. Ann Vandermeer

. Jeff Vandermeer

. Matt Staggs

. Natania Barron

. Christopher Fletcher

. Cesar Torres

. All the team of The Outer Alliance

. Eugie Foster

. Robert Thompson

. Cindy Hannikman

. Mihir Wanchoo

. Liviu Suciu

. Pablo Defendini

. Torie Atkinson

. Ami Greko

. Lou Anders

. Jeffrey Thomas

. David Louis Edelman

. Jeff Carlson

. Rhys Hughes

. Flávio Medeiros

. Mark Newton

. Cheryl Morgan

. J.J.Adams

. John Klima

. Octavio Aragão

. Harry Markov

. Nathan E. Lilly

. Marie Hodgkinson

. Fabio Cobiaco

. Roberto Mendes

. Tiago Casagrande

. Leandro Gejfinbein

. Aurora Barbosa

Have an EXCELLENT New Year!! May 2009 be a better place in the space-time continuum for us all!

This list is a very short one, especially in comparison with last year´s, but those are the very best books I read, and I can do no less - I started reading other very interesting novels which seemed really good, but since I didn´t get to finish them, I didn´t want to put in the list, so here you are.

Neal Stephenson, Anathem

Cory Doctorow, Little Brother

Richard Kadrey, Sandman Slim

Jeff VanderMeer, Finch

China Miéville, The City & The City

Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, The Strain

Patrick Ness, The Ask and the Answer

My personal Best of 2009. Now, for the novellas.

The Erdmann Nexus, Nancy Kress (Asimov´s, Oct./Nov 2008 - you can read it for free)

True Names, by Benjamin Rosenbaum and Cory Doctorow (Fast Forward 2, 2008 - listen to the podcast here)

Truth, Robert Reed (Asimov´s, Oct/Nov 2008 - you can read it for free)

My personal Best of 2008, in the Short Story category (as I did in my lists last year, some of the stories were originally published in 2008, but I just read them in 2009 so I´m counting them in):

The Fixation, Alastair Reynolds (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Three )

Necroflux Day, John Meaney (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Three)

One of Our Bastards is Missing, Paul Cornell (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Three)

A Soul Stitched to Iron, Tim Akers (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Three)

Utriusque Cosmi, Robert Charles Wilson (The New Space Opera 2)

Boojum, Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette (Year´s Best SF 14)

Exhalation, Ted Chiang (Year´s Best SF 14)

2009 was a busy year. Very: I read far less than in 2008. Even though I read many more books than the ones that made it to the final list, one thing or other (mostly work and health issues) got me stuck. Never mind: 2009 was a good year all the same - and 2010 will be better.

The list below doesn´t feature any specific order, neither chronological nor alphabetical.

1. Time´s Eye, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter

2. Sunstorm - Arthur C. Clarke e Stephen Baxter

3. Putas Assassinas, Roberto Bolaño (in Portuguese)

4. Tendeléo´s Story, Ian McDonald

5. O Contrabaixo, Patrick Süskind (reread - in Portuguese)

6. Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone, Ian McDonald (reread)

7. Firstborn, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter

8. A Diet of Treacle, Lawrence Block

9. Desabrigo e Outros Trecos, Antonio Fraga (reread - in Portuguese)

10. Griffin´s Egg, Michael Swanwick

11. On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan

12. New Light on Drake Equation, Ian McLeod

13. Emissaries From The Dead, Adam Troy-Castro

14. Poe, ed. Ellen Datlow

15. Poe - a Life Cut Short, Peter Ackroyd

16. The Poe Shadow, Matthew Pearl (reread)

17. Complete Stories, Edgar Allan Poe

18. City of Pearl, Karen Traviss

19. The First World War - An illustrated History, A.J.P.Taylor

20. Edgar Allan Poe - Poems and Poetics (ed. Richard Wilbur)

21. O Professor de Botânica, Samir Machado de Machado (in Portuguese)

22. Crossing the Line, Karen Traviss

23. Anathem, Neal Stephenson

24. Jacquard´s Web, James Essinger

25. The Good Body, Eve Ensler

26. Fragilidade, Jean-Claude Carrière

27. The Steampunk Trilogy, Paul di Filippo

28. Extraordinary Engines, ed. Nick Gevers

29. The Gods Themselves, Isaac Asimov (reread)

30. The Difference Engine, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (reread)

31. Moscow Rules, Daniel Silva

32. Conversas com Woody Allen, Eric Lax (in Portuguese)

33. Eon, Greg Bear (reread)

34. Der Tod in Venedig, Thomas Mann

35. Eu, Cláudio, Robert Graves

36. The Gambler - Butler´s Wager, Robert J. Randisi

37. The Exile, Richard S. Wheeler

38. Westward of the Law, Matt Braun

39. Shadow Rider - Blood Sky at Morning, Jory Sherman

40. The Engines of God, Jack McDevitt

41. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein

42. Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories, Elmore Leonard

43. Civil War, John Stanchak

44. Deepsix, Jack McDevitt

45. Parable of the Sower, Octavia E. Butler

46. Parable of the Talents, Octavia E. Butler

47. Napoleon, Paul Johnson

48. Anacrônicas, Ana Cristina Rodrigues

49. The Maker of Universes, Philip José Farmer

50. Star Wars - Death Star, John Perry

51. The World Before, Karen Traviss

52. Matriarch, Karen Traviss

53. Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait, K.A.Bedford

54. Ally, Karen Traviss

55. Judge, Karen Traviss

56. Terminal Mind, David Walton

57. Superheroes, Robert J. Schwartz

58. Storm Front, Jim Butcher

59. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami

60. Predator: South China Sea, Jeff Vandermeer

61. Flashforward, Robert J. Sawyer

62. Wake, Robert J. Sawyer

63. Fast Forward 2 (ed. Lou Anders)

64. Carrie, Stephen King (reread)

65. Terminator: Salvation, Alan Dean Foster

66. The Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole

67. The City & The City, China Miéville

68. The Dying Animal, Philip Roth

69. Escape from Hell!, Hal Duncan

70. Enemies and Allies, Kevin J. Anderson

71. The Strain, Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

72. Steal Across the Sky, Nancy Kress

73. The New Space Opera, vol. 2 (ed. Jonathan Strahan and Gardner
Dozois)

74. Slumdog Millionaire, Vikas Swarup

75. Silverfin, Charlie Higson

76. Mind Over Ship, David Marusek

77. Everyman, Philip Roth

78. Blablablogue (ed. Nelson de Oliveira)

79. Darwin´s Radio, Greg Bear

80. Little Brother, Cory Doctorow

81. Saturn´s Children, Charles Stross

82. Steampunk (org. Gianpaolo Celli)

83. Todas as Guerras (org. Nelson de Oliveira)

84. Star Trek, Alan Dean Foster

85. Sphere - Michael Crichton

86. Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson (reread)

87. Paul of Dune, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

88. Sun of Suns, Karl Schroeder

89. The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction Vol 3 (ed. by George
Mann)

90. City of Saints and Madmen, Jeff VanderMeer

91. Shriek - An Afterword, Jeff VanderMeer

92. Finch, Jeff VanderMeer

93. The Song is You, Arthur Phillips

94. A Invenção do Ar, Steven Johnson (in Portuguese)

95. Fool Moon, Jim Butcher

96. Stalker (magazine) (ed. Nelson de Oliveira) (in Portuguese)

97. The Postmodern Mariner, Rhys Hughes

98. Joseph Fouché, Stefan Zweig

99. Sandman Slim, Richard Kadrey

100. Fundação (Revista) (ed. Nelson de Oliveira) (in Portuguese)

101. The Ask and The Answer, Patrick Ness

102. Fora do Lugar, Rodrigo Rosp (in Portuguese)

Going to Rio to a much deserved break, with lots of Brazilian tropical sun. No snow here, not at all, on the contrary. A massive heat wave is coming, with temps starting from 30o Celsius (86o F) to a predicted 40o C (104o F) by mid-January.

Lots of love and sunshine to my North-Hemisphere friends (I´ll try to post some pictures later). Happy holidays!

This should have been the Hugo winner in 2009.

There is no other way to put it.

Nobody is disputing Gaiman´s absolute mastery of the genre. Which genre? Every genre he decides to write, of course. From the great fantasy-cum-mythology mix he first presented to us with the Sandman series to the revamping of Rudyard Kipling´s Mowgli with 2009 Hugo Award-winning novel The Graveyard Book (read my review here). What I´m saying, however, is that Anathem should have won the Hugo.

Why? Because Anathem is a major undertaking at worldbuilding - it´s many novels in one. The story of Fraa Erasmas, an avout of an order of mathematicians and scientists in the world of Arbre, and the dangerous times in which he lives, is a melting pot of genres. What starts at a rather slow pace, like a 21st-version of A Canticle for Leibowitz (without the nuclear holocaust), takes us in a mathematical-astrophysical-philosophical journey, many times by means of dialogues not dissimilar to those written by Plato, and that´s a compliment - for those of you who may by any chance be yawning at that, rest assured that these dialogues are everything but boring: they are intriguing and mind-boggling. They recapture the sense of wonder that not every SF novel manages to transmit to the readers these days.

But not everything in the 900+ pages of Anathem is reduced to dialogue - there´s also plenty of action and destruction. There´s road trips through arctic regions, there´s high-tech, there´s intrigue, space travel, and also lots of jargon specific of the world of Arbre - a world similar to Earth in many things, but not the same.

And there´s surprises all along the story. For Anathem is a page-turner, despite its size. It´s weird to write so small a review in order to describe a novel of this magnitude, but the truth is: there´s only two ways one can write about Anathem properly: via a short review with no spoilers or a big scholarly paper analyzing the complexity of Stephenson´s prose. This novel deserves it. And you, reader, deserves to read it.

(And, come on, how could we have missed the opportunity to listen to Neal Stephenson read the acceptance speech in Orth (one of the major languages of the people of Arbre)?

Via Ken McLeod:

Canadian SF writer Peter Watts is in serious legal trouble, after making the mistake, on his way back to the free world, of asking US border guards why they were searching his car. His friends and colleagues are rallying round, and so can you, via the PayPal button on this page and of course by spreading the word.

Cory Doctorow is what we could call a "comfortable cyberpunk" (does that sound an oxymoron to you?): he is pretty much knowledgeable about the major tropes of cyberpunk, and he uses them as easily as someone who was born right in the beginning of the cybernetic revolution and came of age a few years before the advent of the Web. Co-editor of Boing Boing, Doctorow is also a major activist of Open Rights (he´s the former European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group), and he was the first SF writer (maybe the first writer everywhere in any genre) to give ALL his novels for free in his website.

His novels display a freshness similar of William Gibson´s. Where Gibson is influenced by noir fiction, in its literary and cinematic form, however, Doctorow´s approach happens more via comics and games. The result is also great: from Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, an approximately-near-future look at utopian communities (talk about Disneyfication of society!), through Eastern Standard Tribe and smart mobs, to the recently published Makers, which explores, in Doctorow´s own words, "people who hack hardware, business-models, and living arrangements to discover ways of staying alive and happy even when the economy is falling down the toilet." (Just downloaded it, expect a review early next year.)

(Some scholars can argue that what he does is in fact post-cyber fiction, or post-cyber SF; but it doesn´t really matter, except academically, does it?)

In Little Brother´s case, that experience begins in a far too obvious manner, by an appropriation of George Orwell´s 1984 and his protagonist, Winston Smith - Doctorow´s protagonist, Marcus Yallow, goes by the typically hacker handle "w1n5t0n". Also like in 1984, this Winston becomes an enemy of the State - but this is an entirely different State, surrounded by very different circunstances. This is not Orwell´s socialist Eurasia, but all-capitalist America in the early 21st Century, an America frightened by terrorism, an America that will do everything in its power to fight this threat to society - even terrorizing its own people, among which Marcus and his high-school friends. Marcus is only 17 years old, and after a terrorist attack he will be arrested because of his proficiency with computers and instant messaging systems. He will suffer - and, if he wasn´t a terrorist before, then he may seriously consider the possibility of becoming one. But his holy war won´t be religious - it will be for freedom.

Is all of this justifiable? Doctorow manages a very hard, accurate criticism of how far a state can go in its search for terrorists. The political and military doctrine which justifies this "search and destroy" approach (and maybe it´s why 24 has become a so successful series in and out the US) has also been criticized - by America and the Americans before the 9/11. When it happens in your own backyard, however, the matter is quite different. Or is it?

One of the things I like the most about the recent wave of so-called YA novels (Patrick Ness´s The Knife of Never Letting Go is another brilliant example - see my review here) is that they are everything but infantile - they are really novels for everyone to read, for they are well steeped in the tradition of the German Bildungsroman - the coming-of-age novel. And there is no coming of age without pain.

This novel was a finalist for the Hugo Award 2009 - and, with Neal Stephenson´s Anathem (to be reviewed in the next few days), it was my best bet for winning the award. Unfortunately, none of the two did - more on that later.

UPDATE 12/15

Two months ago, I was in Rio for a series of speeches on games and technology. I was having dinner in a restaurant, and I got an email on my iPhone. it was Editora Record, one of the biggest publishing houses in Brazil. They were asking if I was interested in translating Little Brother to Brazilian Portuguese. How could I say no to such an offer? I´m already on it. Reading for the third time and loving it. It´s a pleasure and an honor to translate Cory Doctorow.