I’ll be giving a free public talk to kick off my Fulbright Chair at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center on Public Diplomacy — hope you can make it!
When: Wednesday, August 30, 2006, 12:00 PM
Where: University of Southern California, Annenberg Center, Room 207, 3502 Watt Way, LA CA
Winner, 2008 Locus Award for Best Novella
This story appears in my collection Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present, 2007
Elsi (Russian translation), Summer 2006
The Infinite Matrix, January 2007
Comic book in Cory Doctorow’s Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now, June 2008
Podcast, Subterranean Press, read by Mary Robinette Kowal, June 2008
Podcast: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9
Listeners to my podcast heard me read this story, After the Siege, as it was written, shortly after returning home from a family trip to St Petersburg. My grandmother was born there, back when it was Leningrad, and she lived through the Siege of Leningrad as a little girl. She’d never talked to us about those years, but then, walking through Petersburg, she opened up and the stories came pouring out, stories that scared and appalled me. After the Siege is a science fictional re-telling of those stories, with much artistic license.
I gave first publication rights to this story to Esli, the Russian sf magazine that had published some of my stories in translation before. In return, Elsi has given me the Russian text to release under a Creative Commons license. The first English publication will come shortly in the online magazine The Infinite Matrix, which published my story I, Robot and other pieces.
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Here’s the conclusionof the podcast of Truncat.
Websense, an Internet censorship company that I’ve criticized here, has apparently decided to punish me by censoring every podcast I’ve ever made. The files are hosted on the Internet Archive, and consist of me reading non-pornographic, award-winning science fiction stories. It’s hard to believe that someone accidentally mistook these files for “free software download” (the category that Websense has used, one that is selected for blocking by many corporate and school customers); as between that explanation and the notion that Websense has sought petty revenge against its critics, the latter is more credible to me.
I spoke with Cas Purdy, the Websense PR manager, but he was unable to provide any information or comment at this time.
(Thanks, Salim!)
Update: Websense added all of archive.org/download to its “free software download” category after this post was published.
Update 2: Websense has reclassified the Internet Archive and my podcast. This morning, archive.org/download was not classed as “Software Download,” but archive.org/download/ (with trailing slash) was, hence the appearance that my podcasts had been singled out. Websense has since reclassified all of the Internet Archive, including my podcasts, as “Search Engines and Portals.”
(Thanks, Salim!)
Here’s part two of the podcast of Truncat — the final part will come next week.
The latest installment of Rick Kleffel’s great tech/sf podcast contains an interview with me, recorded last spring at the Singularity Summit at Stanford.
This year’s World Science Fiction Convention starts a week Thursday, on August 24th, in LA. I’m doing a bunch of programming this year, as well as dusting off my tuxedo for the Hugo Awards ceremony, where I’m a finalist for my story I, Robot. I’m doing several signings, as well, but if you can’t make it to WorldCon, you can pre-order custom-inscribed signed copies (with free US shipping, too!) from Borderlands Books. Hope to see you at the WorldCon!
Thu, Aug 24* 11AM: Sign at Asimov’s table, dealers’ room
* 2PM: Sign at Borderlands table, dealers’ room
* 4PM: Podcasting Science Fiction, with Stephen Eley, Paul Fischer and Evo Terra
Fri, Aug 25:
* 1PM: Bloggers as Public Intellectuals, with Kevin Drum, MaryAnn Johanson, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Teresa Nielsen Hayden and Phil Plait
* 3PM: Autographing
* 5:30: Can Science Fiction Change the World? with David Brin, Sean McMullen, Craig Newmark and Cecilia Tan
Sat, Aug 26:
* 1PM: Open Source Software, with Andrew Adams, Loretta McKibben and Eric S. Raymond
* 4PM: The Singularity — What Is It And Why Should You Care? with Todd McCaffrey, David F. McMahon, MD, Mark L. Olson and Toni Weisskopf
Sun, Aug 27:
1PM: Kaffeeklatsch
2PM: Reading
(Thumbnail of Hugo Award from a larger image on an AwardWeb page)
After a long hiatus, I’ve started up my podcast again with my story Truncat, an indirect sequel to my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Truncat is a parable about warez groups and Napster, about generation war and the trouble with power-laws. In Truncat, the reputation-based Bitchun Society is stagnating, and the birth rate has dropped off so far that only a million kids are alive on the whole planet. These kids have hacked the consciousness-backup system and illicitly copy and load the backups of their elders, treating these backups as a kind of drug.
I did a radio interview earlier this week for CBC radio’s Sounds Like Canada, which was just aired — talking about copyright, creativity, blogging and old vs new media. Joey DeVilla thoughtfully captured an MP3 of the show and posted it, along with tons of notes.
I’ll be attending the World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles from 23-27 August, and I’ve made arrangements with one of the book-dealers, San Francisco’s Borderlands Books, to take orders for signed and inscribed copies of my novels and short story collection and cover the cost of shipping them within the US (you still have to pay for the books, though!).
If you’re interested in a signed, inscribed copy of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Eastern Standard Tribe, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town or my collection A Place So Foreign and Eight More, you can call (888.893.4008), fax (415.824.8543), or email your order to the store, and they’ll get me to sign copies with your inscription. There is no charge for media-mail shipping within the continental US.
Priority mail in the US is $6.00 (that’s delivery within three
days or so). International will be Global Priority for $10 to Canada or
$12 elsewhere.
Books will ship after the Worldcon, in late August.
