Backup, the German edition of my novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom has just been published by Heyne. Down and Out was the first novel released under a Creative Commons licensed, distributed for free on the same day the book was shipped to stores — and I’m pleased to announce that Backup is the first German translated novel to be released under a CC license on publication day!

Random House is also working on a German translation of my second novel, Eastern Standard Tribe, working with Michael Iwoleit, the translator who worked on Down and Out.

Many thanks to Johannes and Evelyn at Monochrom for their help in translating the oddball concepts like “Whuffie” and “Bitchun Society.”

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This is sweet — the McMaster University Daily News Summer Book Club has chosen my novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom as their summer reading pick.

“I chose Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom because I am a science fiction fan first and foremost, and because he’s a Canadian author,” says Trzeciak. “Doctorow publishes under the Creative Commons license, which makes his work freely available in any language, which I think is really interesting. His work isn’t way-out sci-fi, but it gives us a glimpse into the possible future.”

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(Thanks, Derek!)

José Rafael Zullo has translated my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, into Brazilian Portuguese, using the Creative Commons license to make a free and freely reusable version of the text in his language. This is so cool.

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Update: Rev. Ibrahim Cesar, Discordian Pope, KSC, Brazil has posted his own variant translation

The folks at DailyLit have just converted my novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom to an email-based serial. Sign up for the free service, specify how often you’d like a little chunk emailed to you, and then sit back and read by email, on your schedule.

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(Thanks, Albert!)

Sweet! “Whuffie” worked its way into today’s episode of the web-comic “Terror Island!”

The talented folks at DaveFilms have produced a full-cast audiobook adaptation of my award-winning novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. They’re transmitting it in ten parts, as a podcast — part 1 just went live.

This is the second audio adaptation of Down and Out — the podcaster Mark Forman read the book aloud on his podcast in August 2005.

I love the different adaptations of the book — it’s amazing to hear my words read by so many different people, with so many different choices about how to dramatize it. Often, the reading isn’t how I heard it in my own head when I wrote it, which is cool — it’s wild to hear how your own words sound to someone else.

Link to part 1 as MP3, Link to part 1 as streaming Quicktime, Podcast feed

Joseph Petviashvili is a fan of my novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom — he likes it so much that he’s created a software version of “Whuffie,” the reputation currency that forms the basis of the Bitchun Society I described in the book.

Bitchun.org is runs on open source code (still in alpha release), creating a marketplace for trading and rewarding favors for your friends and like-minded strangers. It’s pretty amazing to have something I invented for a science fiction novel turned into running code!

What’s the Bitchun Society and what’s whuffie?
Whuffie is a high five, it’s that look of appreciation you give for a job well done, it’s a thumbs up. It’s your personal capital with your friends and neighbors. It’s whuffie! People who give out and receive whuffie are in the Bitchun Society. It was first mentioned in Cory Doctorow’s novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.

What is the Bitchun Society for?
Right now, being part of the Bitchun Society lets you find people who share your interests and can help you through the use of a special Skype bot we call the Bitchun Butler.

(Thanks, Joe!)

Aki Kyozoku, a fan of my novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, has converted the entire text of the book to a
poster that depicts the type and graphics from the book’s cover. By shading the type and inserting spaces in it, Aki was able to use the type itself as pixels in a giant bitmap that you can print on your favorite large-format printer and stick on your wall. Man, that’s cool!

Andrew Crocker writes, “I’m a senior art student at Colorado State University. Recently we
had an assignment where we were supposed to make a “3D
illustration”
(make a sculpture, light it and photograph it) dust jacket and 2
page
spread for one of our favorite books. I chose Down and Out, and
thought I might send you the cover.”

This is really striking and lovely design work. Nice job, Andrew! Thanks so much!

(see also these fan-covers for the book)

Here’s the introduction Javier Candeira wrote for Tocando Fondo, the Spanish edition of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom — Javier kindly sent me an English translation of the piece. I think it’s just awesome (and awfully flattering!).

The cure for death and the death of work (and free energy). The opening line of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is fit for inclusion in one of those novel-opening-line antologies that kids are so crazy about nowadays. Like Gabriel Garc�a M�rquez in One Hundred Years of Solitude (“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buend�a was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”) or Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice (“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”), Cory Doctorow starts off with a perfect pool shot: he considers the vantage point of his preferred audience members, he sets the balls on the table in an alegorical figure, he makes his main character the cue ball and, with a steady pulse, strikes him and sends him in the right direction, bouncing against the world and the rest of the characters, achieving his desired effect

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