Monthly Archives::
December 2002
scifi.com (with Charlie Stross)
In spring 2002, Charlie Stross and I co-wrote a story called “Jury Service,” an extremely gonzo post-Singularity story whose writing was more fun than any other story I’ve ever written. Charlie and I pitched the manuscript back and forth to one another in 500-1000 word chunks, each time trying to top the other. We have very little “meta” communication — just sent the story around and rewrote what we had, then added our own bits. I can remember chuckling so loudly while considering what I would do with Charlie’s latest challenge in an airport lounge that the security guard came by to ask if everything was all right.
Stross is amazingly fun to write with. We’ve put together another story since and will be writing some short shorts as soon as both of us can take a break from our novels for a couple weeks.
“Jury Service” was published in four pieces — it’s 21,000 words in all! — on scifi.com, weekly through December 2002. The first chunk went live this morning. I think that this is one of the most entertaining pieces I’ve ever worked on, kind of Rucker-meets-Stephenson-meets-William S. Burroughs. Hope you like it.
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Bakkanthology
Salon, August 2003
German translation by Magnus Wurzer, Schnipsel, Oct 2005
Slovakian translation (Pavol Hvizdos)
I’m not really big on sequels. For me, inventing a new world is about 80% of the fun. That said, I did write one novelette-length followup (not really a sequel) to Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, this story right here, Truncat.
This is yet another one of those stories that I’ve written at a summer writers’ retreat with old Clarion classmates and friends. This one came out of a workshop at Cynthia Zender’s house in Colorado Springs, CO — the same town where Tesla set the world’s record for longest piece of man-made lightning.
It was originally published in BAKKANTHOLOGY, an anthology of stories by writers who’ve worked at Bakka, the Toronto-based science fiction bookstore where I once worked. It was a great little limited-edition book, but I wanted the story to have wider distribution, so I arranged with Salon to have it reprinted in August, just before the next WorldCon.
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Review:
Mitch Kapor
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.
Review:
Gardner Dozois
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
Editor, Asimov’s SF
Review:
Bruce Schneier
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.
Review:
Tim O’Reilly
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.
Review:
Douglas Rushkoff
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.
Review:
Howard Rheingold
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.
Review:
Rudy Rucker
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.
