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New story: A Very vN xMAS Special

New story: A Very vN xMAS Special

I have a real love for Christmas specials. Or, to be more accurate, Christmas episodes. If you gave me the choice between an unknown Christmas movie and a Christmas episode of The West Wing, I’d choose the latter every single time. I watch “A Very Supernatural Christmas” every year around this time. I like what a specific seasonal, cultural, emotional context can do for characters. Putting them through a regular event that your audience has a visceral understanding of is…

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iD: something from the butcher’s block

iD: something from the butcher’s block

Over the last few days, Twitter has been all, well, a-twitter about diversity in science fiction. Most of that has to do with this piece in The Guardian, which begins thusly: Science fiction loves a good paradox. Here’s one for you: how can a genre that dreams up alien cultures and mythic races in such minute detail seemingly ignore the ethnic, religious, gender and sexual diversity right here on the home planet, here in the real world? In other words,…

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iD: a functional Kindle edition, and some reviews.

iD: a functional Kindle edition, and some reviews.

It’s true! You can buy it here without issue. Enjoy. The reviews seem to say that you might. Tor.com liked it: The world that Ashby envisions is fascinating, filled with strange ideas, nifty technology, and some rather mature implications. Asimov might have given his robots the Rules, but Ashby doesn’t shrink back from exploring a world where disposable, artificial, life-forms who must obey or die, have become relatively commonplace. Where they can be enslaved or killed at a whim, where…

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Kindle users: here’s a copy of iD just for you.

Kindle users: here’s a copy of iD just for you.

For some reason, Amazon is holding back copies of iD from its Kindle store. My paranoid, conspiracy-minded brain says they don’t like the content; what vN delivered in violence, iD delivers in sex. (Spoiler alert.) And, Amazon has a shitty record of randomly screwing with their Kindle editions. My editor, however, says it’s a production delay. Either way, it’s a bit Kafkaesque. Especially since Amazon has yet to give us any details on when my book will be released on…

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iD drops today!

iD drops today!

Today sees the launch of my second novel, iD: The Second Machine Dynasty, from Angry Robot Books. If you’d like to get a jump on reading it, there’s a massive excerpt over here at Tor.com. I’ve also blogged quite a bit about the process of writing this book. If you’re curious, you could check out my Big Idea piece at Whatever, where I talk about how losing my passport and PR card prepared me to write iD, and an interview…

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iD: an excerpt, and a giveaway!

iD: an excerpt, and a giveaway!

So, if you were at all curious about what iD: The Second Machine Dynasty is like, you could go read this excerpt over at Tor.com: Javier had enjoyed his share of organic virgins. Because he was synthetic, they enjoyed him even more. His failsafe meant that his memory would corrupt and his mind would fry if he went too fast and hurt them too much. So he went slow. He tickled. He teased. He got them wet and wild and…

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Rape, and a glimpse into the future

Rape, and a glimpse into the future

“He thought I was a baby-raper,” he said. “I explained that we were just friends.” “Rape?” “When you fuck someone without their wanting it,” Ignacio said. “Sex is like a game. It takes two people – or more, I guess, if you want – to play, and both players have to agree to the rules ahead of time. Anything else is cheating.” That’s a little snippet from iD, in case you were curious. Javier is having a flashback to his…

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iD has a cover!

iD has a cover!

And it has Javier on it! This cover was created by the talented Martin Bland, who also created the cover for vN. This time, we chose to focus on Javier, since he’s the protagonist of this book. I really love how warm and soft he seems in contrast to the machine elements on this cover, and how warm the colours are compared to the cooler tones on the cover for vN. Seen together, I’m sure they complement each other (just…

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“vN” is on the Kitschies shortlist

“vN” is on the Kitschies shortlist

No, really. The 2012 finalists for the Golden Tentacle: Madeline Ashby’s vN (Angry Robot) Jenni Fagan’s The Panopticon (William Heinemann) Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina (Doubleday) Karen Lord’s Redemption in Indigo (Jo Fletcher Books) Tom Pollock’s The City’s Son (Jo Fletcher Books) I really should have blogged this earlier, but, to my credit, I did share it on Twitter. The Kitschies (which I had never heard of, until this point), “reward the year’s most progressive, intelligent and entertaining works that contain elements…

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