I’m here, I’m alive but I’m incredibly dopey, and I’m horribly SHORT OF KIP.<\/p>\n
It’s my own fault, of course. I sat up late into last night reading<\/strong>, utterly gripped, first by George Pelecanos<\/a>‘ majestic mystery novel HELL TO PAY. And then<\/em>, once that reached its wonderful conclusion, like the story-addicted fool that I am<\/strong> I decided I’d take a ‘quick peek’ at the opening pages of LITTLE BROTHER by Cory Doctorow<\/a>…<\/p>\n Now, in case you haven’t heard of it yet, LITTLE BROTHER is probably the ‘buzziest’ YA novel of the summer, with praise on its back cover from a whole slew of my favourite writers including Neil Gaiman<\/a>, Scott Westerfeld<\/a> and Brian K Vaughan<\/a>. I’ve been a fan of Boing Boing<\/a>, a website to which Mr Doctorow is one of the major contributors, for a long time now – but ever since since hearing him and (the also awesome) China Mieville<\/a> discuss political writing in books for young people at Eastercon<\/a> some weeks back, I’ve been positively RAVENING to get my hands on this book. I was hoping to pick it up while I was in New York, but the launch date wasn’t until a week after I left – and the British edition doesn’t come out for another SIX MONTHS! But I did get one shipped over ‘specially, soon as possible, and it got here just yesterday.<\/p>\n Was it worth the wait and the fuss? Well, let’s just say it looks VERY promising so far. In fact, the story took off at such a good clip that my ‘sneak peak’ turned into a further two-hour binge that – if a certain person in the room with me hadn’t woken up and told me in very strong terms to stop – would probably have continued right through until morning! As it was I only put my head down for about three hours before it was time to get up and work, and folks, I’m an eight-hour type of demon. I’ve had a brain like a wind-sock (like, even more than usual<\/em>) ever since.<\/p>\n