Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom: A Great little book- and it's FREE!

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Whoa... just got done reading Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow... a dandy little novel, and better yet, you don't have to pay a cent for it. I highly recommend going to Cory's site (http://www.craphound.com/down/) and downloading the PDF... Fans of Neil Stephenson and John Varley shouldn't miss this one. It's near-future sci-fi in a very similar style to theirs.

Of course, if you feel that Cory deserves compensation for the book (he is giving it away, after all), you can order it off his site, or go pick up a copy at B&N (I saw a few there the other day)... just read it!

 

[Ace]

Thanks for the pointer

 

[Ryan Koppenhaver]

If you like that, you might also be interested in a couple of his short stories published on salon.com:

Liberation Spectrum

and

0wnz0red

 

[Gizzard]

I havent read Down and Out yet, but I love Doctorow's stuff. A couple years back he wrote a short story called The Rebranding of Billy Bailey which I think only appeared in the British magazine Interzone (and probably some Years Best collections.)

Anyway, it was a very sharp look at the phenomenon of "reality marketing". When I read the story I said to myself, "Thats a parody that cuts so close to the bone its almost true." I don't know whether Doctorow was 6 months ahead of the curve or I was just 6 months behind, but before long I began to see newspaper exposes of exactly the practice he describes (and others even more sleazy.) If you can find this story, check it out, I think its great.

I'll also vouch for 0wnZ0red. If I remember rightly, theres some stuff not suitable for those easily offended - if Dragon's covers or GRR Martins writings are too much for you, you may wish to skip it. But otherwise, I say check it out!