Ian McDonald's novel Brasyl has already won a British Science Fiction Association award, and now it's in the running to cross boundaries and win a mainstream literary award, the £50,000 Warwick Prize for Writing. Brasyl intertwines a Jesuit explorer in 1732 Brazil, a present-day story of journalism and Brazillian football, and a tale of quantum engineering in 2032. It's up against 19 other titles on the Warwick longlist, including a Pulitzer Prize-winner, but luckily the Warwick chair is "weird fiction" author China Mieville. [SF Crowsnest]