NewsCharlie Stross interviews me on the WELLCharlie "Hugo Nominee" Stross and I are having a two-week-long discussion on the WELL's public Inkwell.vue conference, in honor of the publication of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. You can join in by emailing Charlie.Social incentives are the most powerful forces in our world -- the reason you can't wear your underwear on your head is because of disapprobation. The most disruptive thing about the Internet is its ability to locate you in homogenous communities that embrace the same values as you, so that there's no dialectic in socail pressure: IOW, you can spend all your time in alt.underwear.on.my.head and never get the funny looks that would cause you to reconsider your fashion choices. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (except when it is, i.e., alt.big.nazi.idiots), but it is a powerfully disruptive thing. Comments (2) | Posted on January 30, 2003 09:13 AMInternet radio interviewI did an Internet radio interview about Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, with a program called "The Dragon Page." It airs Thursday -- check it out!Comments (0) | Posted on January 28, 2003 07:25 PMA sequel of sorts -- only 30 copies left!I don't much like writing multiple stories set in the same universe -- making up the mcguffin is half the fun. But in the case of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, I've written one other story set in the Bitchun Society. The story's called "Truncat," and I wrote it for an anthology called BAKKAnthology, which is filled with fiction by writers who've worked at Toronto's Bakka, one of the oldest science fiction bookstores in the world. The edition was limited to 400 copies, and it's signed by all the contributors. There are only 30 copies left, and there will be no reprint of the anthology. If you want to lay hands on the only sequel to the novel that I'm ever likely to write, you can drop Bakka a line (email or 416.963.9993) and mail-order a copy.First, Adrian got on the subway, opting to go deadhead for a faster load-time. He stepped into the sparkling cryochamber at the Downsview station, conjured a HUD against his field of vision, and granted permission to be frozen. The next thing he knew, he was thawing out on the Union station platform, pressed belly-to-butt with a couple thousand other commuters who'd opted for the same treatment. In India, where this kind of convenience-freezing was even more prevalent, Mohan had observed that the reason their generation was small for their age was that they spent so much of it in cold-sleep, conserving space in transit. Adrian might've been 18, but he figured that he'd spent at least one cumulative year frozen. Comments (0) | Posted on January 28, 2003 04:02 PMFull interview transcript for SFGate pieceDylan Tweney has posted the unedited transcript of the interview he did for his piece on SFGate.com.And, there's this kind of, you know, tiresome, retrograde, dreary meme that says we have to wait for screens to get sharper, we need digital ink, you need to be able to carry it around, you need to be able to take it to the bathtub, blah blah blah – And to me it sounds like priests sitting around holding a Gutenberg bible, and saying, How can the word of God possibly leap off one of these louche and dirty pages from Mister Gutenberg's press, you know, that the true word of God can only be carried when it's hand-illuminated on fetal calf skin by a monk who's devoted his life to understanding the word. And you know, I think that it's time for a Protestant Reformation. It's true that you can't take an e-book into the tub, and it doesn't smell nice, and all the rest of it, but on the other hand, you can carry around 40,000 of them on a drive the size of credit card. As someone who owns around 20,000 books and who has put them in boxes and moved them more than once, I can tell you that this is a serious advantage. Right? The other thing is that data is easy to back up. I can back up off site, over night, electronically, to a server in Australia that will survive even if the hemisphere goes, whereas backing up books – I mean, books are printed on substrate that is so fragile that it burns when it comes into contact with oxygen. We actually use that substrate to wipe our asses with. This is not robust, archival material. This is the very definition of ephemeral, that literature is a book written on toilet paper. Comments (0) | Posted on January 28, 2003 10:44 AMSerialized by emailBookSlicer -- a service that slices up electronic books into manageable little daily chunks and emails them to readers -- is serializing Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom through February by email. Click here to sign up.Comments (0) | Posted on January 27, 2003 10:48 PMDown and Out in the Times of LondonDanny O'Brien's latest column (login: anonymous/anonymous) in the Sunday Times of London is all about Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and it's swell.The novel takes a fast-paced gallop through a net-inspired utopia, where the only scarce commodity is your peer's opinion of you, and where competitive acts of generosity are perpetrated by reputation-seeking gangs of marauding altruists. The novel represents such a pleasant ideal that you are happy to buy the hardback afterwards, if only as a physical memento of your online read. Comments (0) | Posted on January 27, 2003 04:19 PMOne chapter at a time, with discussionZach at neuroatomik is posting Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom on his blog, one chapter at a time, with spaces at the end of each post to discuss the chapter.Comments (0) | Posted on January 23, 2003 11:54 AMInterview on SFGateThis morning's edition of SFGate is running an interview with me about this book:I wanted to clarify my own thinking about what a non-scarce economics looks like. Keynes and Marx and the great economic thinkers are all concerned with the management of resources that are scarce. If it's valuable, it needs to be managed, because the supply of it will dwindle. You need to avert the tragedy of the commons [the notion that self-interested individuals, such as sheepherders, will always use as much of a common resource as possible, such as a grassy pasture, until that resource is totally depleted]. Comments (2) | Posted on January 23, 2003 08:06 AMReal-World WhuffieSome tasty ruminations on Whuffie and how it could apply to the real world from X, on his blog:It just occurred to me society could use Whuffie for good incentive, for example, when you go to the doctor you get a point for regular check ups in your health whuffie, (heh, my whuffie is a little flat on that one), and if you choose the doctors check-up results would give or take WUPM. Your credit rating, portfolio, liabilities and assets would all tabulate in a financial WUPM, for the less fortunate they could accrue financial WUPM based on movement, like a business venture,education or the ability to create wealth, kind of a curve to keep the wealthy from having to unfair and advantage and giving those disadvantaged incentive to accumulate Whuffie through forward motion. Comments (3) | Posted on January 20, 2003 05:06 PMOver 50,000 downloads of Down and Out!Ten days after the launch of my novel, I've gotten more than 50,000 downloads from this site, plus untold email, p2p and mirrored transfers. I've done so many interviews about the book and the Creative Commons that it's actually cutting into my writing time. Thanks to everyone who helped make this a success.Comments (1) | Posted on January 19, 2003 09:36 AMDead-tree edition spotted in Chicago!Aaron Swartz reports spotting Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom in a bookstore in Chicago. Have you seen the book in the wild yet? (I haven't). Post to the Comments link!Comments (15) | Posted on January 18, 2003 10:15 PMAlternate stylesheets for the bookThanks to Dorthea Salo's excellent work in converting Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom to html using stylesheets that abstract the presentation from the markup, it's very easy to change the way the book looks to suit your own reading tastes. Steven Garrity has posted his own version of the book with an alternate stylesheet that's more to his liking. Technically, the Creative Commons license probably forbids this without my permission, but I gave it to Steven and I'm giving it to you. I'd love to see your alternate stylesheets for the book -- just post 'em to the Comments section below! Comments (0) | Posted on January 18, 2003 10:57 AMInterview on P2PNet.netI did an interview with P2Pnet.net about the release of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom that came out great:"Word-of-mouth is the only consistently successful means for turning first novels by relative unknowns into successes," Cory told p2pnet.net. "Books like Secrets of Ya-Ya Sisterhood became bestsellers through being passed hand to hand by passionate believers in the text. My book attempts to articulate the unspoken motivation behind the Free Software movement, the Web, and all the tech-for-tech's-sake projects that my tribe (which is both sizeable and growing) spends its leisure hours contributing to. Comments (0) | Posted on January 18, 2003 09:22 AMFrequently Asked Questions, Part 1Some answers to frequently asked questions: Q: Where does the word Whuffie come from? A: It's just a made-up word we used interchangably with "Brownie Points" in high-school. Some people have suggested that it might have come from the Arsenio Hall show's "woof woof woof" noises. Q: Did you know that Amazon lists the publication date for your book as December 31, 1969? A: Yes. Wish I could do something about it, too. Q: Can't I just send some money to you by PalPal instead of buying the book? A: You don't have to buy the book, but I'm not interested in tipjar payments. I'm not doing this to compete with my publisher. If you read the ebook and want to pay me back, but don't have any use for the dead-tree edition, the best way you can do that is to buy a copy of the book and donate it to a school, library or community center. If you do this, you'll put a copy of the book on the shelf where it might be read, I'll get a royalty, and my sales-figures will go up (which means that I'll get a bigger advance on my next book and my publisher will be more likely to want to repeat the experiment). Comments (6) | Posted on January 14, 2003 11:21 PMInterview on Minnesota Public RadioI've done an interview on Minnesota Public Radio's Future Tense, which will air shortly. Here's a sneak preview of the piece.Comments (0) | Posted on January 14, 2003 10:14 PMHugo nominations ballot onlineIf you attended last year's World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, California, or pre-registered to attend this year's convention in Toronto, you're eligible to nominate (64K PDF) people, stories and books for the 2003 Hugo Awards. (Shameless plug: my stories 0wnz0red and Jury Service are both eligible in the Novella category) (Thanks, Derryl!)Comments (1) | Posted on January 12, 2003 02:29 PMVinge likes the ideaVernor "Singularity" Vinge on the book-launch:One of the wonderful things about our times is that individual writers are empowered and can experiment with new ways of getting the word out. If there aren't too many new laws made, I think this will ultimately give us much better ways of doing things (and probably a large variety of such new ways). -- Vernor Comments (1) | Posted on January 11, 2003 10:16 AMCalifornia Author on Down and OutCalifornia Author is running a feature on Down and Out, called The Whuffie Channel.01/10/2003 The Whuffie Channel. Cory Doctorow imagines a world where death and copyright have a cure. His first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (Tor Books) is set in the post-death, post-work, net-in-your-head future. It is in bookstores this week and yesterday it was one of Amazon’s top 300 sellers. His future-is-now marketing strategy: the entire book can also be downloded for free at his website, where readers are encouraged to share it. In the first 24 hours, the book was downloaded 20,000 times. Comments (0) | Posted on January 11, 2003 07:45 AMWired News on Down and OutWired News has posted coverage of the release of my novel:Doctorow's fans aren't surprised to find his book online for free. The plots of his most recent short story, "0wnz0red," involves digital rights management, or how files are protected from sharing and copying. Comments (0) | Posted on January 11, 2003 07:40 AMLots of new formats for downloadingVolunteers have sent in copies of the novel in multiple file formats (PalmOS PDB, Apple Newton PKG, PalmOS Palm Reader, and Microsoft LIT). They're linked off the downloads page. Comments (6) | Posted on January 9, 2003 11:50 PMOver 20,000 downloads so far24 hours after launching the site from which you can download my novel for free, the book has been downloaded over 20,000 times. It's been Slashdotted, blogged to hell and back, and I've done a number of press interviews about it. What's more, the title is currently sitting at #304 in the Amazon Sales Rank. Let's call this one a success. I could not be more stoked. Damn.Comments (7) | Posted on January 9, 2003 11:26 PMDownloads mirror in AustraliaThanks to Jason Andrade for setting up a mirror of the downloads page in Australia for your antipodean convenience.Comments (0) | Posted on January 9, 2003 10:24 PMInterview with me on Creative CommonsI've done an interview with Creative Commons about Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom in which I go into some depth about the motivation for releasing the book online, gratis.Well, in some ways, this novel is a parable about Napster, and about the reputation economies that projects like Ringo, Firefly, Epinions and Amazon hint at. In a world where information is nonscarce, the problem isn't finding generic information -- it's finding useful information. There's an old chestnut in online science fiction fandom that the Internet "makes us all into slushreaders." ("Slush" is the unsolicited prose that arrives at publishers' offices -- a "slushreader" wades through thousands of these paste-gems looking for the genuine article). This has always struck me as a pretty reactionary position. Comments (4) | Posted on January 9, 2003 09:07 AMAutomated cut-ups of Down and Out in the Magic KingdomModesty has used a cut-up engine called Alice -- named for Jeff Noon's brilliant Automated Alice -- to slice and dice Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom into a bunch of random, interesting chunklets. It's damned weird stuff and it warms my cockles."Honk!" she said, after a short queue of older men, then there was no way of mirrors and into hers as we stood by the time alternately moping, drinking, and plotting terrible, irrational vengeance on Debra for killing me, destroying my relationship, taking away my beloved (in hindsight, anyway) Hall of Presidents over for a couple glasses from the Bitchun Society didn't need to convert its detractors, just outlive them. The first time I debarked for the patchy red welts from the computer where it disappeared into the discussion. If I needed to do that, too." Was I really advocating being more like you and start playing. Others would pick up their own jokes, and even though he blew his spiel about half the time. "Lillian," he said, cautiously. "Doctor Pete is a couple of days, starting the rehab is a terrific attraction, and it's going to live, I'd like to have a backup made before she did. Comments (0) | Posted on January 9, 2003 08:46 AMDown and Out in the Magic Kingdom webringMy pal Bill Shunn -- a hell of an sf writer and top-notch geek -- has started a Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom webring for fansites devotes to the book. I am beside myself.I anticipate a desire among fans of the book to visit the sites where it (took/will take) place, sort of like hitting the Stations of the Cross in a Catholic cathedral, and snap photos proving they were there. Hoping to be the first to do so, and maybe thereby accumulate some whuffie of my own, I present the "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom Whuffie Ring," a web ring to let people link up their Down and Out fan pages. Comments (0) | Posted on January 9, 2003 12:11 AMWelcome to the siteSo, the book launches today. Theoretically, cartons of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom are arriving in bookshops all over the world, even as you read this. I'm pretty psyched.This site is a way to keep track of the goings-on with the book: stores that are carrying it, new reviews, and general news about the book. I am immensely grateful to Mena Trott and Ben Trott for putting this site together, using their wonderful Movable Type blogging tool.
Most importantly, perhaps, is that this site is a place where you can download the whole goddamned book, completely gratis, in a variety of open, standards-defined formats. These books are licensed under a Creative Commons license. This is a somewhat novel idea. Not a lot of writers have published a free electronic edition simultaneous with their dead-tree-edition novels, and so perhaps a word of explanation is in order. Comments (8) | Posted on January 9, 2003 12:00 AMWhuffie: One of the notions for 2003Writing in The Guardian, Ben Hammersley identifies "Whuffie" -- the reputation currency in "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" -- as one of "25 technologies and notions we think hold most promise over the next year."WhuffieLink (Thanks, Gnat!) Comments (2) | Posted on January 5, 2003 04:06 PMPowered by Movable Type |
Cory Doctorow rocks! I check his blog about ten times a day, because he's always one of the first to notice a major incursion from the social-technological-pop-cultural future, and his voice is a compelling vehicle for news from the future. Down and Out in The Magic Kingdom is about a world that is visible in its outlines today, if you know where to look, from reputation systems to peer-to-peer adhocracies. Doctorow knows where to look, and how to word-paint the rest of us into the picture.
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