Oh, hello. Were you curious about what your psychotic grandmother the distributed AI was doing? Well, wonder no longer! Portia is happily causing havoc in America’s airports, using widely-available, mostly-insecure data from wearable technologies, purchasing records, and surveillance networks. You can read more of Portia’s exploits later, especially if you pre-order. In this scene, Portia is trying to create a…
Tag: vN
Sugoi! The Japanese vN cover is here!
Aren’t they gorgeous? I’m not sure who the cover artist is, but I’m working on finding out. I really love this cover, and someday I’ll get a poster of it for my half of the office. (And one of the Company Town cover, once it has a Tor logo. Note to self.) What I like most about it is how…
The Kindle edition of vN is on sale!
Yes! For For a whopping $1.79, according to my Amazon. (American browsers might see $1.99.) If you have not read vN already (and I know there are a lot of you), this would be the perfect time to pick it up and give it a try. Or if you have a grandmother who you particularly loathe, sending her a copy…
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…
Hey, look at this fan-made cover of vN!
This was Carol Riggs’ third-place contribution to Angry Robot Books’ competition to re-imagine their covers, and as it turns out, Carol also took first place, for illustrating one of Anne Lyle’s novels with an Etch-A-Sketch. An Etch-A-Sketch, people. Your own artistic talents are officially meaningless, in the face of that achievement. (Also, don’t piss off Carol. She clearly has the patience…
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…
How do you know if a robot is female?
Recently, Feminist Frequency recommended vN to its Twitter feed, which caused one follower to ask: “Interesting, how do you know when a self replicating robot is female?” I had to think about this for a second. Or, more accurately, I had to re-enter the headspace I inhabited when I wrote early drafts of vN. The female characters who had inspired…
“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…
La fiesta de vN está llegando
Press “play”: Okay, now you’re in the right mood. Now we can talk about the launch party for vN, which is coming up this Saturday at 3pm at Bakka Phoenix Books on Harbord off Spadina. I will sign books, wipe my eyes a lot, and possibly do a reading. There will also be some other surprises and lots of food.…
Excerpt of vN up at Tor.com
I read from this chapter at the Augusta House earlier this year. Enjoy! The sign on the door read: PORTIA’S WANTED. Amy’s teacher had let her skip ahead to the third grade unit on contractions and possessives, but she remained uncertain whether the sign was a joke or just a typo. Amy had not eaten in five days. She saw…