Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom Read online

  Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

  Cory Doctorow

  Copyright 2003 Cory Doctorow

  [email protected]

  https://www.craphound.com/down

  Tor Books, January 2003

  ISBN: 0765304368

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  ======= Blurbs: =======

  He sparkles! He fizzes! He does backflips and breaks the furniture!Science fiction needs Cory Doctorow!

  Bruce Sterling Author, The Hacker Crackdown and Distraction

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  In the true spirit of Walt Disney, Doctorow has ripped a part of ourcommon culture, mixed it with a brilliant story, and burned into ourculture a new set of memes that will be with us for a generation atleast.

  Lawrence Lessig Author, The Future of Ideas

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  Cory Doctorow doesn't just write about the future - I think he livesthere. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom isn't just a really good read,it's also, like the best kind of fiction, a kind of guide book. See theTomorrowland of Tomorrow today, and while you're there, why not drop byFrontierland, and the Haunted Mansion as well? (It's the Mansion that'sthe haunted heart of this book.) Cory makes me feel nostalgic for thefuture - a dizzying, yet rather pleasant sensation, as if I'm spiralingdown the tracks of Space Mountain over and over again. Visit the MagicKingdom and live forever!

  Kelly Link Author, Stranger Things Happen

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  Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is the most entertaining and excitingscience fiction story I've read in the last few years. I love page-turners, especially when they are as unusual as this novel. I predictbig things for Down and Out -- it could easily become a breakout genre-buster.

  Mark Frauenfelder Contributing Editor, Wired Magazine

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  Imagine you woke up one day and Walt Disney had taken over the world.Not only that, but money's been abolished and somebody's developed theCure for Death. Welcome to the Bitchun Society--and make sure you'restrapped in tight, because it's going to be a wild ride. In a worldwhere everyone's wishes can come true, one man returns to the original,crumbling city of dreams--Disney World. Here in the spiritual centerof the Bitchun Society he struggles to find and preserve the original,human face of the Magic Kingdom against the young, post-human andincreasingly alien inheritors of the Earth. Now that any experience canbe simulated, human relationships become ever more fragile; and toJulius, the corny, mechanical ghosts of the Haunted Mansion have come toseem like a precious link to a past when we could tell the real from thesimulated, the true from the false.

  Cory Doctorow--cultural critic, Disneyphile, and ultimate Early Adopter--uses language with the reckless confidence of the Beat poets. Yetbehind the dazzling prose and vibrant characters lie ideas we should allpay heed to. The future rushes on like a plummeting roller coaster, andit's hard to see where we're going. But at least with this bookDoctorow has given us a map of the park.

  Karl Schroeder Author, Permanence

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  Cory Doctorow is the most interesting new SF writer I've come across inyears.E He starts out at the point where older SF writers' speculationsend.E It's a distinct pleasure to give him some Whuffie.

  Rudy Rucker Author, Spaceland

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  Cory Doctorow rocks! I check his blog about ten times a day, becausehe's always one of the first to notice a major incursion from thesocial-technological-pop-cultural future, and his voice is a compellingvehicle for news from the future. Down and Out in The Magic Kingdom isabout a world that is visible in its outlines today, if you know whereto look, from reputation systems to peer-to-peer adhocracies. Doctorowknows where to look, and how to word-paint the rest of us into thepicture.

  Howard Rheingold Author, Smart Mobs

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  Doctorow is more than just a sick mind looking to twist the perceptionsof those whose realities remain uncorrupted - though that should beenough recommendation to read his work. *Down and Out in the MagicKingdom* is black comedic, sci-fi prophecy on the dangers ofsurrendering our consensual hallucination to the regime. Fun to read,but difficult to sleep afterwards.

  Douglas Rushkoff Author of Cyberia and Media Virus!

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  "Wow! Disney imagineering meets nanotechnology, the reputation economy,and Ray Kurzweil's transhuman future. As much fun as Neal Stephenson'sSnow Crash, and as packed with mind bending ideas about social changescascading from the frontiers of science."

  Tim O'Reilly Publisher and Founder, O'Reilly and Associates

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  Doctorow has created a rich and exciting vision of the future, and thenwrote a page-turner of a story in it. I couldn't put the book down.

  Bruce Schneier Author, Secrets and Lies

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  Cory Doctorow is one of our best new writers: smart, daring, savvy,entertaining, ambitious, plugged-in, and as good a guide to the wiredworld of the twenty-first century that stretches out before us as you'regoing to find.

  Gardner Dozois Editor, Asimov's SF

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  Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" tells a gripping,fast-paced story that hinges on thought-provoking extrapolation fromtoday's technical realities. This is the sort of book that captures anddefines the spirit of a turning point in human history when our toolsremake ourselves and our world.

  Mitch Kapor Founder, Lotus, Inc., co-founder Electronic FrontierFoundation

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  ======================= A note about this book: =======================

  "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" is my first novel. It's an actual,no-foolin' words-on-paper book, published by the good people at TorBooks in New York City. You can buy this book in stores or online, byfollowing links like this one:

  https://www.craphound.com/down/buy.php

  So, what's with this file? Good question.

  I'm releasing the entire text of this book as a free, freelyredistributable e-book. You can download it, put it on a P2P net, put iton your site, email it to a friend, and, if you're addicted to deadtrees, you can even print it.

  Why am I doing this thing? Well, it's a long story, but to shorten itup: first-time novelists have a tough row to hoe. Our publishers don'thave a lot of promotional budget to throw at unknown factors like us.Mostly, we rise and fall based on word-of-mouth. I'm not bad at word-of-mouth. I have a blog, Boing Boing (https://boingboing.net), where I do a*lot* of word-of-mouthing. I compulsively tell friends and strangersabout things that I like.

  And telling people about stuff I like is *way*, *way* easier if I canjust send it to 'em. Way easier.

  What's more, P2P nets kick all kinds of ass. Most of the books, musicand movies ever released are not available for sale, anywhere in theworld. In the brief time that P2P nets have flourished, the ad-hocmasses of the Internet have managed to put just about *everything*online. What's more, they've done it for cheaper than any otherarchiving/revival effort ever. I'm a stone infovore and this kindaInternet mishegas gives me a serious frisson of futurosity.

  Yeah, there are legal problems. Yeah, it's hard to figure out how peopleare gonna make money doing it. Yeah, there is a lot of social upheavaland a serious threat to innovation, freedom, business, and whatnot. It'syour basic end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario, and as a sciencefiction writer, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenaria are my stock-in-trade.

  I'm especially grateful to my publisher, Tor Books (https://www.tor.com)and my editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden(https://nielsenhayden.com/electrolite) for being hep enough to let metry out this experiment.

  All that said, here's the deal: I'm releasing this book under a licensedeveloped by the Creative Commons project (https://creativecommons.org/).This is a project that lets people
like me roll our own licenseagreements for the distribution of our creative work under terms similarto those employed by the Free/Open Source Software movement. It's agreat project, and I'm proud to be a part of it.

  Here's a summary of the license:

  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0

  Attribution. The licensor permits others to copy, distribute, display,and perform the work. In return, licensees must give the original authorcredit.

  No Derivative Works. The licensor permits others to copy, distribute,display and perform only unaltered copies of the work -- not derivativeworks based on it.

  Noncommercial. The licensor permits others to copy, distribute, display,and perform the work. In return, licensees may not use the work forcommercial purposes -- unless they get the licensor's permission.

  And here's the license itself:

  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0-legalcode

  THE WORK (AS DEFINED BELOW) IS PROVIDED UNDER THE TERMS OF THIS