I’ve just gotten word that Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom has qualified for the Preliminary Ballot for the 2004 Nebula Awards. That’s still a ways off — the book still has to make the final ballot in spring 2005, and then the award will be announced in April 2005. But this is a hell of a mitzvah, I gotta say.

Yoz Grahame has remixed Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom with a bunch of really whacky and wildly imaginative perl scripts:

* Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom (CAPIPA Remix) – in which the original has its words reordered alphabetically, using PIPA’s new cousin, CAPIPA, which retains capitalisation.

“Beautiful,” BEAUTY beauty, became. BECAME because because because because because because — because because because because because because because because because because because because because because become become become become become become become bed bed bed. bed bed bed bed bed bed bed bed bed bed bed, bed bed bedroom bedroom bedroom-bedroom beds bedside bedside bedside.

* Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom (Sausages & Mash Remix) – in which the original has all words beginning with the letters S and M replaced with “Sausage” and “Mash” respectively, in accordance with the classic children’s game.

He chuckled. “No sausage, not mash. I’m into the kind of mash sausage that you only come across on-world.”

* Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom (More And Bloodier Wars Remix) – in which the original is run through Babelfish several times, from English to French to German and back to English again.

I never thought that I would live, in order to arise, where the maintenance would decide A-Movin ‘ Dan at the person in possession of a favour light up to the death of the heat of the universe.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is a Chapters/Indigo Geek Read pick — along with such classics as Crytonomicon, Neuromancer, and Microserfs. Good company to be in! (Thanks, Mark!)

Ivan Appel, a Russian fan of mine, has begun translating Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom into Russian, posting a chapter at a time as he goes. Sweet!

Trevor Smith, who produced the speed-reader edition of Eastern Standard Tribe has released a remixed speed-reader edition of Down and Out as well.

Just over a year ago, I released my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, as an experiment in what would happen if I allowed my precious copyright to be slightly eroded by one of the Creative Commons licenses. I chose the most restrictive CC license available to me, staying cautious, and I waited to see if the sky would fall.

It didn’t.

So here we are, just a little over a year later, and I am currently, at this moment, standing on a stage at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, delivering a talk called Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books, in which I lay out the case for what I’ve done and explain the myraid ways in which the sky has not fallen on me, and just about now, I’m announcing what’ sin this blog post:

That I am re-licensing Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, effective today, under the terms of one of the least restrictive Creative Commons licenses, the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, which explicitly allows anyone in the world to make any non-commercial adaptation of my book s/he can think of: translations, radio plays, movies, sequels, fanfic, slashfic…you get the picture.

I can’t wait to see what you-all make of this. Surprise me, please!

I have just given a talk at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Confernece called Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books, which is something of an anomaly for me in three ways:

1. I wrote out this talk, word for word, in advance of the presentation
2. I am releasing that written text as a free, public domain file, right now, moments before I get off the stage

So here’s the text of that talk, dedicated to the Public Domain, for you to do with what you will.

This isn’t to say that copyright is bad, but that there’s such a thing as good copyright and bad copyright, and that sometimes, too much good copyright is a bad thing. It’s like chilis in soup: a little goes a long way, and too much spoils the broth.

From the Luther Bible to the first phonorecords, from radio to the pulps, from cable to MP3, the world has shown that its first preference for new media is its “democratic-ness” — the ease with which it can reproduced.

(And please, before we get any farther, forget all that business about how the Internet’s copying model is more disruptive than the technologies that proceeded it. For Christ’s sake, the Vaudeville performers who sued Marconi for inventing the radio had to go from a regime where they had *one hundred percent* control over who could get into the theater and hear them perform to a regime where they had *zero* percent control over who could build or acquire a radio and tune into a recording of them performing. For that matter, look at the difference between a monkish Bible and a Luther Bible — next to that phase-change, Napster is peanuts)

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom has been integrated into the coursework at a Stanford university Information systems course:

Choose one of he following projects, or devise something of your own by Jan 15th, and let us know….

3) Reputation systems: this is the most speculative of the three project suggestions. Identify what kind of reputation systems would be important in the context of online communities and market places of the future, what their vulnerabilities are likely to be, and how these vulnerabilities can be tackled. Alternatively, read the science fiction book by Cory Doctorow, “Down and out in the magic kingdom (available for free or on amazon.com, bn.com etc)�, and architect the reputation system used in that book. Remember to address the issues of whether data needed to compute the reputations is stored centrally or in a distributed fashion. In the absence of any real currency, how would you provide a guarantee to the average Joe and Jane that the “system� does not shortchange them in terms of their reputation? If you decide that the reputation system used in this book is not realizable or has significant internal flaws, then make a cogent argument to this effect.

This week’s Entertainment Weekly lists the 10 Best Novels of 2003. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is number five. It’s also one of Sunday, December 28th’s NYT’s “New and Notable” paperbacks.

My novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, has made the Amazon and Chapters/Indigo editors’ picks lists for best science fiction novels of 2003. Also, it’s only three recommendations short of making the preliminary Nebula ballot (any SFWA members out there who dug the book?). Oh yah, and the Livejournal people are considering adding Whuffie to their system. Killer news, all ’round.

(Thanks, Amanda and Bo and Micah!)