It’s only natural that Alan, the broadminded hero of Doctorow’s fresh, unconventional SF novel, is willing to help everybody he meets. After all, he’s the product of a mixed marriage (his father is a mountain and his mother is a washing machine), so he knows how much being an outcast can hurt. Alan tries desperately to behave like a human being�or at least like his idealized version of one. He joins a cyber-anarchist’s plot to spread a free wireless Internet through Toronto at the same time he agrees to protect his youngest brothers (members of a set of Russian nesting dolls) from their dead brother who’s now resurrected and bent on revenge. Life gets even more chaotic after he becomes the lover and protector of the girl next door, whom he tries to restrain from periodically cutting off her wings. Doctorow (Eastern Standard Tribe) treats these and other bizarre images and themes with deadpan wit. In this inventive parable about tolerance and acceptance, he demonstrates how memorably the outrageous and the everyday can coexist.
An article and a short story of mine from Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine have been translated into Spanish and I’ve released the translations under Creative Commons licenses.
When the Singularity is More Than a Literary Device: An Interview with Futurist-Inventor Ray Kurzweil (pub. June 2005) was translated by Domingo Santos as Cuando La Singularidad Es Más Que Un Recurso Literario: Una Entrevista Con El Inventor-Futurista Ray Kurzweil.
NIMBY and the D-Hoppers, a short story (pub June 2003), was translated by Sebastián Castro as Nimby Y Los Saltadimensiones. Other languages this story has been translated into: French, Chinese, Russian and Hebrew.
They’re both released under Creative Commons By/Share-Alike/Noncommercial licenses that allow you to make your own stuff out of them provided you don’t do so commercially.
I’ve accepted a Fulbright Chair at the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, starting this August. I’ll be researching and writing a book on DRM called SET TOP COP: HOLLYWOOD’S SECRET WAR ON AMERICA’S LIVING ROOMS and teaching a course on the same subject.
I’m really, really excited about this! I’m moving to Los Angeles for a year, and I’ll be dipping my toe in academic waters with more seriousness than I’ve had since I dropped out of the University of Waterloo to program CD ROMs for Bob Stein’s Voyager Company, ten years ago (Small world: Bob’s also at USC).
Even more exciting is the idea of being able to teach and write about this subject that’s so important to me. I think the world has yet to see a really cogent book on how DRM is bad for democracy, speech, and discourse — how it turns technology from something that enables into something that denies. This has profound implications for public diplomacy, and for communications, which is why the USC Annenberg School for Communication is also sponsoring my position at USC.
I’m even planning on trying to transplant the London Copyfighters Drunken Brunch and Talking Shops (where we have a fake-Champagne brunch and give speeches on copyright at Speakers’ Corner) to Venice Beach, substituting Bible-bashers for roller-bladers.
Neil Gaiman
Cory Doctorow straps on his miner’s helmet and takes you deep into the caverns and underground rivers of Pop Culture, here filtered through SF-coloured glasses. Enjoy.
Author of American Gods and Sandman
I’m giving a talks in three Australian cities in April — hope to see you!
April 13-17: Brisbane — Guest of Honour, ConJure, the Australian national science fiction convention
April 18: Melbourne — Speaking at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, 7PM, AU$15/13 conc (at Federation Square, Flinders Street)
April 19: Sydney — Speaking at Greater Union Bondi Junction, 7PM, Free (Level 6, 500 Oxford Street, Westfield Bondi Junction)
I’m going on holidays until April 12, and probably won’t have any Internet connectivity for the whole time (yay!). If you want to say something to me, email me on April 13 or later!
The final Hugo Ballot is online, and my story I, Robot is a finalist for the best novelette! w00t!
Best Novelette
(207 ballots cast)
“The Calorie Man”, Paolo Bacigalupi (F&SF October/November 2005)
“Two Hearts”, Peter S. Beagle (F&SF October/November 2005)
“TelePresence”, Michael A. Burstein (Analog July/August 2005)
“I, Robotâ€?, Cory Doctorow (The Infinite Matrix February 15, 2005)
“The King of Where-I-Go”, Howard Waldrop (SCI FICTION December 7,
2005)
Sunday was the first public London Copyfighters’ Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop, a monthly fake-champagne brunch followed by impromptu speeches at Hyde Park’s Speaker’s Corner. Jose recorded the event and turned it into a podcast. (see Flickr for the pics.)
I was one of the guests of honor at Boskone in Boston last month, and as such, I gave an hour-long speech about copyright, DRM and so forth. James “Citizen Cyborg” Hughes has posted the MP3s of my talk to Changesurfer Radio:
I’ve just posted the final installment of my podcast of my story, “Nimby and the D-Hoppers,” originally published in Asimov’s, reprinted in a Year’s Best anthology, and translated into French, Russian, Chinese and Hebrew. I read the story in three installments and they’re all online now. Next up, the three-story “Bugouts” trilogy, starting with Shadow of the Mothaship.
