“For the Win” is not a perfect book — merely a glorious one. Its end is open, almost ambiguous. It asks more questions than it answers. It stirs up trouble in its readers’ hearts and worries in our minds, presenting problems without providing forever-and-all-time solutions. But it dares much, and daring is the best way humans have of making progress.
Hey, Seattle! Reminder: I’ll be at the Sunset Tavern tonight at 7PM as part of my For the Win tour. Tomorrow (Saturday), it’s Portland, at the Powell’s in Beaverton at 2PM. Then it’s off to SFO, AUS, RDU, NYC and YYZ! (Full tour schedule) Hope to see you!
Athabasca U’s Mark A. McCutcheon has written a smashing essay called “The copyfight, science fiction, and social media,” presented at a Session on Capacity Building and Virtual (Online) Community at the Society for Socialist Studies conference. As the title suggests, the subject matter is the relationship between science fiction, social media, and social change. Mark was good enough to cite several of my works in it, as well as material from William Gibson and Peter Watts.
The “copyfight” over regulating intellectual property (IP) and digital culture pits corporations and states against citizens, who are criminalized en masse as ever-stricter IP laws exert increasing control over cultural production, distribution, and consumption. At the same time, these new laws and regulations increasingly infringe on citizens’ rights to freedom and privacy. As of this writing, the Harper regime is poised to introduce harsh and excessive IP legislation in the guise of “copyright modernization”: legislation based on the punitive, police-state models of the USA’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the UK’s Digital Economy bill, which weaken and restrict provisions for public fair use, while extending protection not only to IP but also to the technological protection measures or “digital locks” that some companies put on devices and content. Looming over these already extreme regulatory changes is the ongoing and secretive negotiation of a global Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (as discussed by Jay Smith in this session).
Hey, Seattlites! I’m doing a talk at the Sunset Tavern tomorrow (Friday) night at 7PM. I’ll do a reading from For the Win and be interviewed by Stranger editor Paul Constant. Live music by Pillow Army.
And for those of you in Chicago, a reminder that I’ll be at the Chicago Public Library Harold Washington Library Center tonight (Thurs) at 5PM.
Coming up: Portland, at the Powell’s Location in Beaverton on May 15, then San Francisco, Austin, Raleigh, NYC and Toronto. Hope to see you!
Hey, Seattlites! I’m doing a talk at the Sunset Tavern tomorrow (Friday) night at 7PM. I’ll do a reading from For the Win and be interviewed by Stranger editor Paul Constant. Live music by Pillow Army.
And for those of you in Chicago, a reminder that I’ll be at the Chicago Public Library Harold Washington Library Center tonight (Thurs) at 5PM.
Coming up: Portland, at the Powell’s Location in Beaverton on May 15, then San Francisco, Austin, Raleigh, NYC and Toronto. Hope to see you!
Wesley Stroupe made this neat visualization of the tag cloud from Little Brother.
Wesley Stroupe made this neat visualization of the tag cloud from Little Brother.
It’s the near future and online labour is globalised: millions work in virtual sweatshops with no rights and no union representation. Gamers Matthew from China, and Mumbai slum-dwellers Mala and Yasmin, among others, labour online to amass millions for exploitative global corporations, until they realise that by overcoming their differences and working together they can defeat their oppressors. Doctorow isn’t afraid of taking on big ideas and difficult themes. Here he mixes online gaming, trades union politics and economics in a realistic near-contemporary setting. In lesser hands, this might make for a dull read, but Doctorow is a fine stylist. In For the Win he has produced an exhilarating, unputdownable novel that’s likely to be nominated for the genre’s top awards.
Lorcav used Wordle to create this great graphic showing word usage and frequency in For the Win. I love these things.
Hey, Chicagoans! I’m headed your way this week for the kick-off of the tour for my new young adult novel, For the Win. I’ll be at Anderson’s Books in Naperville on Weds, May 12 at 7PM and at the Chicago Public Library Harold Washington Library Center on Thurs, May 13 at 5PM.
My next city is Portland, OR, where I’ll be at the Powell’s Location in Beaverton on May 15. From there, I head to San Francisco (EFF benefit!), Austin, Raleigh and NYC. Hope I get a chance to see you!
