Cat's Whirld

Ignotus Award 1996, Best Novel

English Translation by Steve Redwood



The neutral Convergence Space Station No. 1, known as the Whirld, is the unofficial but deadly battleground in which several Galactic powers fight, by all means at their disposal, to obtain a certain piece of information that would inevitably determine their whole future. But then an all-powerful malevolent AI, for reasons known only to itself, also enters the game…



Cat's Whirld, a book indispensable for understanding the evolution of Spanish science fiction, is an original fusion of thriller, cyberpunk, and space opera, with unforgettable characters, and a frenetic pace and rhythm that never falter; a hybrid novel in which elements from distinct genres make a surprisingly harmonious whole.



Originally published in 1995, it was the first cyberpunk novel in Spanish; a specially remarkable achievement in that it was also the first of Rodolfo Martínez' many novels, and yet was not afraid to tread new ground, and, moreover, to do so with great narrative confidence. Twenty years later, the story still retains its power, as fresh and exciting as ever.



Rodolfo Martínez (Candás, Asturias, Spain, 1965) published his first short story in 1987, and soon became a key figure in Spanish fan- tastic literature; although if one characteristic defines his work, that is the fusion of genres, as with deceptive simplicity he unashamedly mixes numerous registers, from science fiction and fantasy to the crime novel and thriller, making his books difficult to classify.

Winner of the Minotauro Prize (awarded by Planeta, Spain's biggest publishing house) for Los sicarios del cielo (Hitmen from Heaven), he has won many other awards during his literary career, such as the Asturian Novel Prize, the University of País Vasco Short Story Award, and — several times — the Ignotus Prize (awarded by the Spanish Association of Fantasy, Science Fiction and Terror) in the categories of novel, novella, and short story.

His novels based very loosely on the Sherlock Holmes canon have been translated into Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, and French (in which language several of his short stories have also appeared).

In 2009, with El adepto de la Reina (The Queen's Adept) he began a new narrative cycle which combines elements of the spy novel with some of the themes and settings more characteristic of fantasy.

More recently, he has collected his Drimar cycle (the universe in which Cat's Whirld is set) into four volumes (all published by Sportula), and has also published the fourth novel in his City cycle, Las astillas de Yavé (The Splinters of Yahweh), under the Fantascy imprint of Penguin Random House.