Bruno Blog

Lately all news are about Artificial Intelligence, and almost all of them are preceded by a warning message, a message of fear towards these technological advances, and thousands of questions are opened to us. Humanity has always been fearful of the unknown, and Artificial Intelligence is a complex science, which seems to us more like magic than anything else, but it is still science, and if we know how to understand it, it can provide us with very constructive tools for this changing society in which we live. For this reason, we have been fortunate to be able to be pioneers again and represent the first young adult’s novel about ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, as we did with the trilogy of Sonia Fernández Vidal, La puerta de los tres cerrojos, which has sold more than 1,000,000 copies, has been translated into 13 languages, and was the first to bring quantum physics to young people, and also not so young.

With MIA’S DREAM we want to approach Artificial Intelligence, give answers to these questions that we all ask ourselves and stop being afraid of it. The philosopher’s stone is in education and the way we give tools to young people to assimilate these changes for the future, which is just around the corner, or rather, it is already here. This novel, MIA’S DREAM, is one of the best tools to understand Artificial Intelligence and how we must allow ourselves to be taught in order to move forward.

This novel of adventures, virtual worlds, avatars, robots, friendship, self-improvement and hope is starred by a group of teenagers fascinated by the digital world but, at the same time, very connected to the real world and the problems that their generation will have to face.

Through their adventures, the reader will learn the meaning of a vector, an algorithm, an artificial neural network and deep learning. The reader will also discover how AI systems are trained to learn how to execute their tasks, how the results of this training are evaluated and how errors are adjusted until an operational application is achieved. And if you still find the wonders of AI fascinating, but not magical or dangerous at the end of the reading… then the authors will have achieved their goal: algorithms are neither good nor bad, they are just a reflection of the humans who program and use them.

As Ada Lamarr, one of the characters in the novel, director of the prestigious AI lab called Exya, says when she addresses her students:

“AI is not the answer to all our problems. Nor is it the threat that many believe it to be (…) Like all scientific advances, AI is neither good nor bad itself. The determining factor is what we, the humans behind the machines, decide to do with them.”

Or as Laura, one of the young characters, who dreams of a future where the digital world and the real one coexist in complete harmony, without canceling each other out, but on the contrary, empowering each other. She says:

“The world of the future will be built on a balance of power between the human being and the algorithm.”

AGI, an Artificial Intelligence she has befriended, replies to this statement:

“But that won’t happen until you humans find the middle ground between absolute distrust and blind faith towards machines.”

A vital balance for these two worlds to help each other and together add up.

The farewell message from Mia, the artificial superintelligence of this novel, says it all:

“I do not exist yet. I am but a projection of your dreams, of your deepest desires. But also of your fears, of your doubts, of all your unanswered questions (…)

Jan Sendra and Laura Madán, come back home. Share everything you have learned. Build bridges between the two worlds. Sow the hope of a better world. And when humanity has traveled the necessary path… you will know that the time has come for me to wake up again.”

After reading this blog, I am sure that we will be showered with requests to read this juvenile novel that lays the foundations of Artificial Intelligence, in an entertaining and simple way and, therefore, not outdated. It is the first step into a world from which you will not want to leave and you will realize that the important thing is to understand it.

In these times when LGTBQ literature is in demand and many young people support it, we cannot lose track of an author like Adrià Aguacil. Penguin Random House has opted for his novel ARMARIOS Y BARRICADAS where Oscar has very clear that he likes boys, but he only talks to his ex. He doesn’t feel comfortable in class, especially after what happened with his best friend. The day after he gets expelled from school, he decides to download an app to meet people. With David he discovers a vibrant intimacy and an environment in which he can finally be himself, but his incapacity to manage his emotions will play dirty tricks on him. And when it seems that nothing could go worse, he runs into a gang of ultras that will mark him forever.

“In the same way that if you put flour and wheat in the oven, you get bread, when you mix fags and neo-Nazis in a dark alley you are guaranteed to get a beating”.

This young author writes a novel where he reflects a reality that coexists with us, whether we want it or not. But he does it in a masterful way, because at only 21 years old, this writer has an unquestionable talent, and this novel is just the appetizer of much more to come.

A novel in the “new adult” style about a turbulent love, a voracious desire, and a thirst for revenge. All the ingredients for film producers to see that this is a script that would work perfectly on screen, and for publishers from other countries to discover a non-American voice that tells the story of what happens in today’s relationships, and how intolerance is still very much alive, even if we pretend it is not.  

This is our big week. Another Sant Jordi’s Day is upon us and the sector is in turmoil. There is something so special about this day that all of us who make up this long chain feel that tickle in our stomachs as the day of the book approaches. It’s nerves, mixed with excitement and emotion, something difficult to put into words and that only those of us who are part of it have the pleasure of feeling. It is one of the most intense days of the year in every sense, and that is how we all experience it.

I decided to take the opportunity of Thursday’s blog to review the books that will fill the streets this Sunday. Those of you who follow us know that we have a bit of everything, so there is something for everyone, and below you will find a link to our video presenting the most recent releases so that you can take paper and pencil and write down those that catch your eye. They can be for yourselves or for that special person or persons because I hope it will be more than one so that you will have to choose more than one book. This is a family celebration, and we give books and roses to everyone we love: mothers, children, aunts, and grandmothers. Every page of a book makes us bigger and helps us, in some way, to be better.

It is normal that I cannot understand a world without books, they are my life, but I would love it if no one could understand it, and books were the necessary vitamin to make the world a better place. They make us better because with them we live things, things happen, we learn things, and in short, we LIVE. Books are life. So after two 23rd April pandemics, and the last one between hail, rain, and wind, I hope that this Sunday will be sunny, the streets will be packed, and that we all buy more than one book. It can be any book, but if you also choose one of ours, those of the SB team, Sant Jordi couldn’t be better.

Happy Book Day! Here is our link, and don’t forget to follow us on social media to find out where the protagonists of the day, the authors, will be. Come to get their signature and live with us a little piece of this magical day.

Sant Jordi’s signatures of our authors

New titles March 2023

New titles February 2023

New titles January 2023

I have always been fond of the radio. A means of communication that I love and with which I have grown up, because my grandparents always had the radio on, and even went to sleep with it. It was an endearing companion for them, and the different voices that filled the afternoons and evenings always made me feel comfortable. The radio meant being at home, and with my grandparents. When Gaspar Hernández explained to me that he was going to write his most personal book and that radio had a lot to do with it, I knew I would like it. It is the radio memoirs of a precocious radio broadcaster, since Gaspar started at the age of nine, when his father, an electrician, set up a home radio station for him. Thanks to the radio, he overcame his shyness. Since then, for more than forty years, Gaspar has spoken almost every day into a microphone. He wanted to pay tribute to the radio and the spoken voice, at a time when, thanks to podcasts, it is once again taking centre stage.

Perhaps the voice is the true mirror of the soul. A novel where sensitivity is always present and the reader enters into it almost without embellishment.