My story NIMBY and the D-Hoppers was first published in June 2003 in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and subsequently reprinted in Cramer and Hartwell’s Year’s Best SF 9.

Last year, Quebec’s Solaris magazine ran a French translation by the talented sf author Elisabeth Vonarburg, and the current issue of Russia’s ESLI magazine has a Russian translation.

I’ve uploaded both the Russian and the French versions under a Creative Commons license, and they’re joined by the pirate Chinese edition that China’s SF World published last year, which is under a CC license as well.

Поймите меня правильно ─ мне нравится первозданная природа. Мне
нравится, когда небо чистое и голубое, а в моем городе не
громыхают автомобили и отбойные молотки. Я не приверженец
технократии. Но, черт побери, кто бы отказался от полностью
автоматизированного, самозаряжающегося личного оружия с лазерной
наводкой?

Как вам такая фразочка? Я наконец-то выучил ее однажды вечером, в
очередной раз услышав от очередного прыгуна. Когда тот стоял у
меня в спальне, наставив свою “пушку” на другого прыгуна, и
перечислял ее многочисленные достоинства: “Это полностью
автоматизированный, ля-ля-ля… Брось оружие, руки за голову,
ля-ля-ля…”. В тот месяц я слышал подобный диалог почти каждый
день ─ всякий раз, когда прыгуны из другого измерения
катапультировались в мой дом, ранили его, разбивали окно, рыбкой
ныряли на улицу и гонялись друг за другом по моему злосчастному
городку, ломая все подряд, до полусмерти пугая зевак, а затем
перескакивая в другое несчастное измерение, чтобы продолжить это
развлечение уже там.

Next Easter weekend (Apr 14-17, 2006), I’ll be a writer guest-of-honor at Conjure, Australia’s 45th National Science Fiction convention. I’ve never been to Australia before, nor have I been a GoH at a national convention — color me mightily chuffed!

Progress continues on my virtual book launch for my next novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, which will be available in stores and as a free download on July 1. I’m going to be doing a virtual launch in the Second Life massively multiplayer world on Sunday, July 24 at 2pm PDT/5pm EDT/10pm London time.

The Second Lifers have been holding a competition to see who can design the coolest in-game ebook for my launch, and the finalists are in. Each one is amazing, a worthy re-think of what a book means in the virtual world. Just looking at the sketches for these things makes me go crosseyed with futurismicness.

They’re also competing to come up with an avatar for me to wear in-game, which is pretty excitingly weird in and of itself!

Frans Charming’s prototype features a retro-cool chair that’s a little like one of those odd bubble seats from the old “Prisoner” TV series; that’s where the reader sits, because once there, the sitter’s camera is auto-locked into an ideal reading position, with a clickable GUI beneath it, for turning the pages. The contraption itself turns the novel into a conveyor belt of text; pages you’ve just read are sent on their way down a track, while incoming pages are put on the rail, and prepared for instant delivery.

When I lived in San Francisco, I was just down the street from the amazing Borderlands Books, who would take orders for my books with inscriptions. I’d stop in a couple times a week and sign the special orders and they’d ship ’em out. Since moving to London, though, this deal has been a little harder to pull off — a 9,000 mile commute to the shop makes this not very practical.

However, I’ve got the next-best thing: a bookstore in Canada and a store in the UK that are taking special orders for my books with signature and inscription requests, who will ship them out once they’re signed. I’m doing the Toronto signing on July 11 and I’ll be meeting up with the UK seller in late July. Place your orders before then if you want signed copies!

Canadian Store

I’m doing a book-launch for my next novel, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town at Toronto’s BakkaPhoenix on July 11, and the good folks there have graciously agreed to take orders for signed and inscribed copies of any or all of my books. Simply contact them before the 11th of July with your order and I’ll sign it when I swing by the store — they’ll ship out the signed articles shortly thereafter.

Here are the shipping rates:

All shipping rates in $CDN and do not include the cost of the books:

Canada: 1 book $8, 2 books $10, 3 books $12
USA: 1 book $10, 2 books $13, 3 books $15
UK/Europe: 1 book $16, 2 books $21, 3 books $25
Australia: 1 book $22, 2 books $28, 3 books $30.

For larger orders, or destinations not listed, please email them directly.

Here’s all the contact info:

BakkaPhoenix Books
697 Queen St West
Toronto ON
Canada M6J 1E5
inquiries@bakkaphoenixbooks.com
+1.416.963.9993

UK Store

For Europeans — or those who are too late to order with Bakka — your best bet is Iain Emsley’s Aust Gate, in Oxford. Ian’s offering free second-class shipping in the UK, and very reasonable rates to the rest of the world:

UK – First class: £2.00
Europe – Printed Matter Air: £3.00
Rest of the World – Printed Matter Air: £4.00

The Aust Gate
13 Yew Close
Greater Leys,
Oxford OX4 7UX
United Kingdom
+44(0)1865 787948
orders@austgate.co.uk

In a couple hours, I’m leaving for Reboot, Denmark’s annual, spectacular technology conference. This year’s line-up of speakers is nothing less than stellar:

Douglas Bowman, Stopdesign;
Lee Bryant, Headshift;
Paula Le Dieu, BBC;
Jason Calacanis, Weblogs Inc.;
Ben Cerveny, Interaction designer and author;
James Cherkoff and Johnnie Moore of OpenSauceLive;
Régine Debatty, we make money not art;
Cory Doctorow, EFF / Boing Boing;
Anders Bertram Eibye, The Danish Design School;
Jyri Engeström, Aula, blog: zengestrom.com;
Jason Fried, 37signals;
Ben Hammersley, International Man of Mystery;
Thomas Harttung, Aarstiderne;
Chris Heathcote, Nokia;

Michael Heilemann, BinaryBonsai/Kubrick;
David Heinemeier Hansson, Rails/Instiki/Basecamp;
David Helgason, OverTheEdge;
Matt Jones, Nokia;
Stefan Kellner, plazes;
Hugh Macleod, gapingvoid;
Loic Le Meur, Sixapart;
Matthias Müller-Prove, mprove / Sun Microsystems;
Ulla-Maaria Mutanen, Hobbyprincess;
Dragos Novac, Krogos Software;
Tor Nørretranders, Author;
Nicolai Peitersen, Philosopher, Kesera;
Felix Petersen, plazes;
Scott Rafer, Feedster;
Martin Roell, roell.net;
Doc Searls, weblog;
Nils Schneider, The iPodLinux Project;
Robert Scoble, Microsoft;
Malthe Sigurdsson, Skype;
Mikkel Holm Sørensen, Ph.D., design philosopher;
Michael Thomsen, former research director, LEGO/Interactive Institute;
Jimbo Wales, Wikipedia;
Matt Webb, weblog, Mind Hacks;
Harald Welte, gnumonks/gpl-violationsgnumonks;
David Weinberger, weblog;
Peter Lindberg, Oops (weblog)

Says co-organizer Nikolaj Nyholm, “we’re sold out, but we’ll have
some for sale at the door as we’re sure to have some no-pays and unused
sponsor tickets.”

(Thanks, Nikolaj!)

Many people have written to me with the news of Roadcasting, a technology that is very similar to the gimmick in my novel Eastern Standard Tribe wherein cars stuck in traffic form ad-hoc peer-to-peer networks, sharing music among themselves (in truth, this idea came from my pal and former business partner, John Henson). It’s pretty cool to see stuff like this approaching reality, I tell you what.

It is a system, currently in prototype state, that allows anyone to have their own radio station, broadcasted among wirelessly capable devices, some in cars, in an ad-hoc wireless network. The system can become aware of individual preferences and is able to choose songs and podcasts that people want to hear, on their own devices and car stereos and in devices and car stereos around them.

Roadcasting provides a set of methods to transform radio into a community-driven interactive medium. Using collaborative filtering technologies, it enables rich passive and interactive experiences for ‘DJs’ and listeners in a way that has not previously been possible. Roadcasting matches you to radio stations that play the content that you want to hear.