I appeared on this week’s Canadaland podcast (MP3) with Jesse Brown to talk about the promise of the internet 20 years ago, when it seemed that we were headed for an open, diverse internet with decentralized power and control, and how we ended up with an internet composed of five giant websites filled with screenshots from the other four. Jesse has been covering this for more than a decade (I was a columnist on his CBC podcast Search Engine, back in the 2000s) and has launched a successful independent internet business with Canadaland, but as he says, the monopolistic gentrification of the internet is heading for podcasting like a meteor.
Joel Boyce:
The tagline of Cory Doctorow’s latest release is “dystopia is now.” In four novellas, the Canadian ex-pat ably covers a broad swath of pressing social concerns ranging from police racism to affordable American health care through an only slightly science-fictional lens.
No prior volume has so perfectly encapsulated who Doctorow is or what he thinks we should be worrying about as this one does. In the past, a new reader might have had to read lots of long essays about Makerspaces and net neutrality and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act on his website to get the whole picture.
But now, the answer to the question of where to start with Doctorow can be answered with “right here.”
Previous novels Little Brother and Homeland were like instruction manuals for millennial and generation Z activists, written in the shadow of George W. Bush’s war on terror and the 2008 financial crisis, respectively. They represented moments in time when government curtailment of civil liberties and economic oppression by corporate interests seemed to demand a response.
But that response — a particular brand of socialist and technogeek activism that blends community organizing with internet crowd-sourcing — is even better encapsulated in Unauthorized Bread, in which a young newcomer to the United States risks everything to bust open the operating system of her smart toaster so that she, and an entire building full of refugees, can actually afford to eat.
Tomorrow night at 7:30PM, I’m giving a presentation about my new book, Radicalized, as part of the Ottawa Writers Festival, at Christ Church Cathedral (414 Sparks St.) — I haven’t spoken in Ottawa for years (maybe a decade?!) so I’m really looking forward to it.
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I’m one of the guest instructors on this year’s Writing Excuses Cruise, a nine-day intensive writing program on land and at sea, departing from Galveston and putting into port at Cozumel, Georgetown, and Falmouth, with a roster of instructors including Brandon Sanderson, Piper Drake, Kathy Chung, K Tempest Bradford, DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler. The program starts with a two-day workshop at a Houston hotel and then sets sail, running Sept 22-30 altogether. I’ve taught many other workshops, but this is my first Writing Excuses Cruise and I’m really looking forward to it. I hope to see you there!
Cory Doctorow, blogger, journalist, science fiction author, and co-editor of the blog Boing Boing, talks about why he’s a great believer in the Internet, warts and all; how, as a white male, he became aware of the struggles of people furthest from opportunity; and how he keeps a positive outlook on life. Cory’s latest book is Radicalized: Four Tales of Our Present Moment.
I’m on this week’s Techdirt podcast (MP3) talking about my latest book Radicalized — this being Techdirt, the talk quickly moved to DRM, and then to tech policy, monopolism, breaking up the Big Tech platforms, and neofeudalism.
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This Saturday, May 4, at 7:30PM, I’ll be presenting at the Ottawa Writers Festival, talking about my novel Radicalized and how it ties into surveillance, monopoly, refugees, climate change, racism and oligarchy — all the good stuff!
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The LA Public Library’s Daryl M interviewed me about my new book, Radicalized, specifically, about how my Trump anxiety (created, in part, by the platforms’ relentless use of “engagement” tools to nonconsensually eyeball-fuck me with Trump headlines) led to the book’s germination, as well as the specific inspirations for each of the four novellas, and the delights of working in novella form.
I’m coming to Halifax to give the closing keynote on day one of Atlseccon on April 24th: it’s only my second-ever visit to the city and the first time I’ve given a talk there, so I really hope you can make it!
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Every month, Tor Books’ free Ebook Club gives away a different novel to people who have signed up; this month, the selection is my most recent novel, Walkaway! Sign up between now and the 20th to get your free copy (this only works in Canada and the US; different publishers have the rights in other countries and I’ll be sure to let you know when/if they do their own giveaways).
