Este certamen alcanza su tercera edición, consolidado como uno de los referentes de las actividades lúdico-educativas de Gijón. Hoy se ha presentado el volumen recopilatorio de los 18 cuentos premiados e ilustrados, seleccionados por un jurado entre los casi cuatrocientos presentados. Una iniciativa de la que me siento muy orgulloso de formar parte activa, un año […]

Llevo un cierto tiempo hablando sobre el daño que está provocando la falsa consideración de que los jóvenes, por el mero hecho de serlo, son “nativos digitales” capaces prácticamente de “hacer magia” con dispositivos o tener una predisposición para un uso más eficiente de la tecnología, y hoy precisamente me he encontrado con el capítulo […]

Life in a Transparent Society isn’t always easy, especially if you’re a Vampire. As intelligent surveillance proliferated throughout the World, gradually obliterating any darkness, strange things were brought into the light. One of these anomalies is a young woman who claims to be a Vampire. Though she is undeniably inhuman, her body is not beyond the abilities of her era’s biotechnology. Her captors believe her to be an experimental transhuman, and patiently listen to her preposterous story in the hopes of sifting some degree of truth from it. The girl herself though realizes she can no longer remain hidden in the Orwellian surveillance state that the World has become. No darkness remains for her to hide in, and in the light she can only burn.

Desde Manager Focus, que estrena página web, me pidieron una columna sobre “The new digital age“, el libro de prospectiva tecnológica de Eric Schmidt y Jared Cohen publicado hace aproximadamente un año, que además ya me había leído. No es un resumen del libro (ese lo hacen ellos), sino una columna inspirada por su contenido:   […]

Levanoch has been set free. Stranded almost a billion lightyears from Earth, the crew of the Deity search for him desperately, knowing that every instant he is free the entire Human race is in danger. But Levanoch is more cunning and devious than they know. Fervent to return to the Milky Way so that he can claim the vengeance he’s desired for ten thousand years, Levanoch dares to venture into the Great Void to seek the aid of one of the eldest and most powerful beings still in existence. The Deity’s search for Levanoch leads them instead to Amarantos, who has become stranded on a primeval world and threatens cataclysm unless the Deity yields to his demands. As the Deity’s crew race to save an alien world, their engineered altruism may ensure the destruction of their own.

After many generations of self-directed evolution, Humanity believes it has perfected itself. Everyone is brilliant, beautiful, even immortal. More amazing perhaps is that they are also peaceful. Terrified that they would be the cause of their own extinction, Humans re-engineered themselves to be a race of pacifists and altruists, who see violence and egotism as anathema. Though Humans may now resemble Elves more than Men, the Universe they inhabit is still black and cold and cruel. It is ancient and vast beyond comprehension, and these naïve Humans venture into it at their peril. Deep within the eternal and boundless Dark dwell many fell creatures, abominations that Humanity would fall to without hope of salvation. The Meek have inherited the Earth. They may not be able to keep it.

Heretic. Murderer. Captive. Saviour. Romulus is all of these things to the Pananthropic Republic, the society that failed to force him to conform to their ethos, and enslaved him as punishment for their failure. Kept frozen in ice until they have need of him, he is forced to defend the civilization that rejected him. When monsters from the depths of space threaten Human lives, Romulus must protect them by committing the same Eternal Sin for which he was damned. He must kill. He must take lives to save lives, and those he saves revile him as a monster for it. If he is ever free of his chains, they will learn that they were right.

The age of the Transhuman has come. The eldest of us remember a time when Human beings were the only sapient race upon the Earth. Any gods or aliens or monsters that might dwell somewhere out in the unfathomable darkness were terrifyingly silent. But now, men have forged new bodies for themselves, bodies with powers beyond those of mere mortals. These inhuman bodies have twisted their minds into something inhuman, something monstrous. This new race of monsters has nothing but contempt for what they once were. Humanity must either submit to them, or face extinction. Or, we could fight. This is the story of the mere mortals who refused to kneel to their Transhuman oppressors, refused to see Humanity evolve into a race of monsters, and refused to abandon hope.

A Chris Anderson tuve la oportunidad de conocerlo en el año 2006, cuando me tocó presentarlo en una charla en el Recommenders de Bilbao: acababa de publicar “The long tail“, un libro que me parece que ha jugado un papel muy importante en la comprensión de muchas cosas que hemos visto pasar a lo largo de los últimos [...]

Quienes me seguís en Twitter sabréis que el pasado jueves 31 de Mayo asistí a la presentación para bloggers de la nueva novela de Juan Gómez-Jurado, La leyenda del ladrón, una aventura épica en la Sevilla del XVI protagonizada por Sancho, un niño salvado de la muerte por una figura misteriosa, que al crecer se convertirá en [...]