Evo Terra and the Podiobooks folks have posted the podiobook of my reading of Eastern Standard Tribe, my second novel.

Podiobooks are free audiobooks that are delivered to your podcast player in installments. Instead of getting a full ten hours of audio in one go, the story is sent to you in manageable chunks, on the schedule you set.

The raw audio for this podiobook came from my podcast, but the Podiobooks people have taken my readings and cleaned them up, cut out the intros, and equalized the levels across all the installments. It sounds dynamite.

The timing on this couldn’t be better — this is just in time for International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, when Internet creators post free material for sharing and enjoying.

What’s more, this book also has the distinction of having been banned by the Mayor of Boston from Boston’s free WiFi network (Boing Boing is also banned!) I’m especially proud of this, since part of the book is set in Boston. I’m lucky to have been censored by the best.

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(Thanks, Evo and David!)

The finalists for the Locus Award for the best science fiction of 2006 have been announced and I’m proud as anything to announce that two of my novelettes made the shortlist, I, Row-Boat and When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth (both are from my new collection Overclocked). The list is filled with really wonderful fiction. As I mentioned before, 2006 was a banner year for sf.

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(via Memoirs of a Vulture Princess)

Ape Lad, who will draw any hobo you care to name for $10, was commissioned to draw a robotic hobo version of me. I am honored!

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See also:
Ape Lad draws Jackhammer Jill as a hobo
John Hodgman’s hobo mosaic

700 imaginary hobo names

700 Hoboes project takes off

Inspired by the /shitlist chat command in my novel Eastern Standard Tribe, Ian modified his IRC client to add similar functionality:

I finished up a set of specially-crafted aliases for irssi that use the trigger.pl plugin to implement shitlist like so:

11:59 -!- annoyingbastard [n=ianmeyer@dargo.trilug.org] has joined #frijole-test
12:00 < annoyingbastard> im so annoying
12:00 < annoyingbastard> blah blah blah
12:00 < annoyingbastard> !list
12:00 < annoyingbastard> wtf no warez?
12:00 [notice(#frijole-test)] annoyingbastard added to frijole’s shitlist
12:00 < annoyingbastard> [shitlisted]
12:00 < annoyingbastard> [shitlisted]
12:00 -!- annoyingbastard [n=ianmeyer@dargo.trilug.org] has left #frijole-test [“fucker…”]

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My latest InfoWeek column is online — it’s a column that asks the question, “Is it possible to have a democratic online game?”

Can you be a citizen of a virtual world? That’s the question that I keep asking myself, whenever anyone tells me about the wonder of multiplayer online games, especially Second Life, the virtual world that is more creative playground than game.

These worlds invite us to take up residence in them, to invest time (and sometimes money) in them. Second Life encourages you to make stuff using their scripting engine and sell it in the game. You Own Your Own Mods — it’s the rallying cry of the new generation of virtual worlds, an updated version of the old BBS adage from the WELL: You Own Your Own Words.

I spend a lot of time in Disney parks. I even own a share of Disney stock. But I don’t flatter myself that I’m a citizen of Disney World. I know that when I go to Orlando, the Mouse is going to fingerprint me and search my bags, because the Fourth Amendment isn’t a “Disney value.”

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The Locus Magazine poll for the best science fiction of 2006 is closing soon — the poll is open to everyone, and invites you to select your favorite works published last year for receipt of the prestigious Locus Award (I’ve won it twice: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom won Best First Novel in 2004, and I, Robot won best Novelette in 2005).

I’m especially excited about the Best Novelette category, where I’m eligible twice: first for my story When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth, about the geeks who babysit the Internet after the apocalypse; and I, Row-Boat about robots who find religion in Asimovism after the humans all leave the planet. Both stories have been picked up for several reprints, including some of the Year’s Best anthologies, and I’ve got Locus Award hopes there, too! If I had to pick one (and I do) I’d pick Sysadmins. I think it’s got a little more heart.

2006 was an incredible year for sf. In the best novel category, we have two books by Charlie Stross; Karl Schroeder’s magnificent post-singularity pirates-in-a-Dyson-bag adventure Sun of Suns, and Vinge’s groundbreaking Rainbows End — along with Rudy Rucker’s sweet, smart Mathematicians in Love. Oh, and Jo Walton’s haunting, blistering Farthing and Peter Watt’s dark and savage Blindsight, his best book to date.

The Young Adult category has three Scott Westerfield novels — and Larbalestier’s wicked Magic Lessons.

I’m also going to have a hard time choosing my pick for the Best First Novel — for me, it’s a toss up between Klages’s Green Glass Sea and Buckell’s Crystal Rain.

In Novellas, I’m torn between Bradley Denton’s “Blackburn and the Blade,” Greg Egan’s “Riding the Crocodile,” and Bill Shunn’s Nebula-nominated Inclination.

In Best Short Story, there’s Gaiman’s How to Talk to Girls at Parties and Rosenbaum’s The House Beyond Your Sky, neck and neck for my vote.

I won’t go into the other categories — but my oh my, what a fine body of work we all managed to field in 2006. A vintage year.

I’m giving four talks in San Diego next week (three versions of a copyright talk, one talk about writing) through my Fulbright and the North County Higher Education Alliance. All the talks are free and open to the public:

Thursday – April 19, 2007

2:30-4:30pm – Cal State San Marcos

Clarke Field House (Copyright talk)

Friday – April 20, 2007

9-11am – Palomar College/Room P-32(Copyright talk)

1-3pm – MiraCosta College/Room 3601(Copyright talk)

Writing talk: Friday, April 20, at 7:30 p.m. in Room 204 of the San Elijo Campus, 3333 Manchester Ave., Cardiff.

Link to copyright talks, Link to writing talk