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DOWN AND OUT IN THE MAGIC KINGDOM
DOWN AND OUT IN THE MAGIC KINGDOM CORY DOCTOROW Kelly Link Author Stranger Things Happen
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Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is the most entertaining and exciting
science fiction story I've read in the last few years. I love page-
turners especially when they are as unusual as this novel. I predict
big things for Down and Out -- it could easily become a breakout genre-
buster.
Mark Frauenfelder Contributing Editor Wired Magazine
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Imagine you woke up one day and Walt Disney had taken over the world.
Not only that but money's been abolished and somebody's developed the
Cure for Death. Welcome to the Bitchun Society--and make sure you're
strapped in tight because it's going to be a wild ride. In a world
where everyone's wishes can come true one man returns to the original
crumbling city of dreams--Disney World. Here in the spiritual center
of the Bitchun Society he struggles to find and preserve the original
human face of the Magic Kingdom against the young post-human and
increasingly alien inheritors of the Earth. Now that any experience can
be simulated human relationships become ever more fragile; and to
Julius the corny mechanical ghosts of the Haunted Mansion have come to
seem like a precious link to a past when we could tell the real from the
simulated the true from the false.
Cory Doctorow--cultural critic Disneyphile and ultimate Early Adopter
--uses language with the reckless confidence of the Beat poets. Yet
behind the dazzling prose and vibrant characters lie ideas we should all
pay heed to. The future rushes on like a plummeting roller coaster and
it's hard to see where we're going. But at least with this book
Doctorow has given us a map of the park.
Karl Schroeder Author Permanence
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Cory Doctorow is the most interesting new SF writer I've come across in
years.? He starts out at the point where older SF writers' speculations
end.? It's a distinct pleasure to give him some Whuffie.
Rudy Rucker Author Spaceland
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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.
Howard Rheingold Author Smart Mobs
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Doctorow is more than just a sick mind looking to twist the perceptions
of those whose realities remain uncorrupted - though that should be
enough recommendation to read his work. *Down and Out in the Magic
Kingdom* is black comedic sci-fi prophecy on the dangers of
surrendering our consensual hallucination to the regime. Fun to read
but difficult to sleep afterwards.
Douglas Rushkoff Author of Cyberia and Media Virus!
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"Wow! Disney imagineering meets nanotechnology the reputation economy
and Ray Kurzweil's transhuman future. As much fun as Neal Stephenson's
Snow Crash and as packed with mind bending ideas about social changes
cascading from the frontiers of science."
Tim O'Reilly Publisher and Founder O'Reilly and Associates
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Doctorow has created a rich and exciting vision of the future and then
wrote a page-turner of a story in it. I couldn't put the book down.
Bruce Schneier Author Secrets and Lies
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Cory Doctorow is one of our best new writers: smart daring savvy
entertaining ambitious plugged-in and as good a guide to the wired
world of the twenty-first century that stretches out before us as you're
going to find.
Gardner Dozois Editor Asimov's SF
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Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" tells a gripping
fast-paced story that hinges on thought-provoking extrapolation from
today's technical realities. This is the sort of book that captures and
defines the spirit of a turning point in human history when our tools
remake ourselves and our world.
Mitch Kapor Founder Lotus Inc. co-founder Electronic Frontier
Foundation
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======================= A note about this book: =======================
"Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" is my first novel. It's an actual
no-foolin' words-on-paper book published by the good people at Tor
Books in New York City. You can buy this book in stores or online by
following links like this one:
http://www.craphound.com/down/buy.php
So what's with this file? Good question.
I'm releasing the entire text of this book as a free freely
redistributable e-book. You can download it put it on a P2P net put it
on your site email it to a friend and if you're addicted to dead
trees you can even print it.
Why am I doing this thing? Well it's a long story but to shorten it
up: first-time novelists have a tough row to hoe. Our publishers don't
have a lot of promotional budget to throw at unknown factors like us.
Mostly we rise and fall based on word-of-mouth. I'm not bad at word-of-
mouth. I have a blog Boing Boing (http://boingboing.net) where I do a
*lot* of word-of-mouthing. I compulsively tell friends and strangers
about things that I like.
And telling people about stuff I like is *way* *way* easier if I can
just send it to 'em. Way easier.
What's more P2P nets kick all kinds of ass. Most of the books music
and movies ever released are not available for sale anywhere in the
world. In the brief time that P2P nets have flourished the ad-hoc
masses of the Internet have managed to put just about *everything*
online. What's more they've done it for cheaper than any other
archiving/revival effort ever. I'm a stone infovore and this kinda
Internet mishegas gives me a serious frisson of futurosity.
Yeah there are legal problems. Yeah it's hard to figure out how people
are gonna make money doing it. Yeah there is a lot of social upheaval
and a serious threat to innovation freedom business and whatnot. It's
your basic end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario and as a science
fiction writer end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenaria are my stock-in-
trade.
I'm especially grateful to my publisher Tor Books (http://www.tor.com)
and my editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden
(http://nielsenhayden.com/electrolite) for being hep enough to let me
try out this experiment.
All that said here's the deal: I'm releasing this book under a license
developed by the Creative Commons project (http://creativecommons.org/).
This is a project that lets people like me roll our own license
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to those employed by the Free/Open Source Software movement. It's a
great project and I'm proud to be a part of it.
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--
======== PROLOGUE ========
I lived long enough to see the cure for death; to see the rise of the
Bitchun Society to learn ten languages; to compose three symphonies; to
realize my boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World; to see
the death of the workplace and of work.
I never thought I'd live to see the day when Keep A-Movin' Dan would
decide to deadhead until the heat death of the Universe.
Dan was in his second or third blush of youth when I first met him
sometime late-XXI. He was a rangy cowpoke apparent 25 or so all
rawhide squint-lines and sunburned neck boots worn thin and infinitely
comfortable. I was in the middle of my Chem thesis my fourth Doctorate
and he was taking a break from Saving the World chilling on campus in
Toronto and core-dumping for some poor Anthro major. We hooked up at the
Grad Students' Union -- the GSU or Gazoo for those who knew -- on a
busy Friday night spring-ish. I was fighting a coral-slow battle for a
stool at the scratched bar inching my way closer every time the press
of bodies shifted and he had one of the few seats surrounded by a
litter of cigarette junk and empties clearly encamped.
Some duration into my foray he cocked his head at me and raised a sun-
bleached eyebrow. "You get any closer son and we're going to have to
get a pre-nup."
I was apparent forty or so and I thought about bridling at being called
son but I looked into his eyes and decided that he had enough realtime
that he could call me son anytime he wanted. I backed off a little and
apologized.
He struck a cig and blew a pungent strong plume over the bartender's
head. "Don't worry about it. I'm probably a little over accustomed to
personal space."
I couldn't remember the last time I'd heard anyone on-world talk about
personal space. With the mortality rate at zero and the birth-rate at
non-zero the world was inexorably accreting a dense carpet of people
even with the migratory and deadhead drains on the population. "You've
been jaunting?" I asked -- his eyes were too sharp for him to have
missed an instant's experience to deadheading.
He chuckled. "No sir not me. I'm into the kind of macho shitheadery
...
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