Eastern Standard Tribe Read online

  Eastern Standard Tribe

  Cory Doctorow

  Copyright 2004 Cory Doctorow

  [email protected]

  https://www.craphound.com/est

  Tor Books, March 2004

  ISBN: 0765307596

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  =======Blurbs:=======

  "Utterly contemporary and deeply peculiar -- a hard combination to beat(or, these days, to find)."

  - William Gibson,Author of Neuromancer

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  "Cory Doctorow knocks me out. In a good way."

  - Pat Cadigan,Author of Synners

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  "Cory Doctorow is just far enough ahead of the game to give you that authenticchill of the future, and close enough to home for us to know that he's talkingabout where we live as well as where we're going to live; a connected worldfull of disconnected people. One of whom is about to lobotomise himself throughthe nostril with a pencil. Funny as hell and sharp as steel."

  - Warren Ellis,Author of Transmetropolitan

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

  Last year, in January 2003, my first novel [ https://craphound.com/down ] cameout. I was 31 years old, and I'd been calling myself a novelist since the age of12. It was the storied dream-of-a-lifetime, come-true-at-last. I was and amproud as hell of that book, even though it is just one book among many releasedlast year, better than some, poorer than others; and even though the print-run(which sold out very quickly!) though generous by science fiction standards,hardly qualifies it as a work of mass entertainment.

  The thing that's extraordinary about that first novel is that it was releasedunder terms governed by a Creative Commons [ https://creativecommons.org ]license that allowed my readers to copy the book freely and distribute it farand wide. Hundreds of thousands of copies of the book were made and distributedthis way. *Hundreds* of *thousands*.

  Today, I release my second novel, and my third [https://www.argosymag.com/NextIssue.html ], a collaboration with Charlie Strossis due any day, and two [https://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/show.html?fn.preview_doctorow ] more [https://www.craphound.com/usrbingodexcerpt.txt ] are under contract. My career asa novelist is now well underway -- in other words, I am firmly afoot on a longroad that stretches into the future: my future, science fiction's future,publishing's future and the future of the world.

  The future is my business, more or less. I'm a science fiction writer. One wayto know the future is to look good and hard at the present. Here's a thing I'venoticed about the present: MORE PEOPLE ARE READING MORE WORDS OFF OF MORESCREENS THAN EVER BEFORE. Here's another thing I've noticed about the present:FEWER PEOPLE ARE READING FEWER WORDS OFF OF FEWER PAGES THAN EVER BEFORE. Thatdoesn't mean that the book is *dying* -- no more than the advent of the printingpress and the de-emphasis of Bible-copying monks meant that the book was dying-- but it does mean that the book is changing. I think that *literature* isalive and well: we're reading our brains out! I just think that the complexsocial practice of "book" -- of which a bunch of paper pages between two coversis the mere expression -- is transforming and will transform further.

  I intend on figuring out what it's transforming into. I intend on figuring outthe way that some writers -- that *this writer*, right here, wearing myunderwear -- is going to get rich and famous from his craft. I intend onfiguring out how *this writer's* words can become part of the social discourse,can be relevant in the way that literature at its best can be.

  I don't know what the future of book looks like. To figure it out, I'm doingsome pretty basic science. I'm peering into this opaque, inscrutable system ofpublishing as it sits in the year 2004, and I'm making a perturbation. I'mstirring the pot to see what surfaces, so that I can see if the system revealsitself to me any more thoroughly as it roils. Once that happens, maybe I'll beable to formulate an hypothesis and try an experiment or two and maybe -- justmaybe -- I'll get to the bottom of book-in-2004 and beat the competition tomaking it work, and maybe I'll go home with all (or most) of the marbles.

  It's a long shot, but I'm a pretty sharp guy, and I know as much about thisstuff as anyone out there. More to the point, trying stuff and doing researchyields a non-zero chance of success. The alternatives -- sitting pat, or worse,getting into a moral panic about "piracy" and accusing the readers who areblazing new trail of "the moral equivalent of shoplifting" -- have a *zero*percent chance of success.

  Most artists never "succeed" in the sense of attaining fame and modest fortune.A career in the arts is a risky long-shot kind of business. I'm doing what I canto sweeten my odds.

  So here we are, and here is novel number two, a book called Eastern StandardTribe, which you can walk into shops all over the world and buy [https://craphound.com/est/buy.php ] as a physical artifact -- a very nicephysical artifact, designed by Chesley-award-winning art director Irene Galloand her designer Shelley Eshkar, published by Tor Books, a huge, profit-makingarm of an enormous, multinational publishing concern. Tor is watching whathappens to this book nearly as keenly as I am, because we're all very interestedin what the book is turning into.

  To that end, here is the book as a non-physical artifact. A file. A bunch oftext, slithery bits that can cross the world in an instant, using the Internet,a tool designed to copy things very quickly from one place to another; and usingpersonal computers, tools designed to slice, dice and rearrange collections ofbits. These tools demand that their users copy and slice and dice -- rip, mixand burn! -- and that's what I'm hoping you will do with this.

  Not (just) because I'm a swell guy, a big-hearted slob. Not because Tor is runby addlepated dot-com refugees who have been sold some snake-oil about thee-book revolution. Because you -- the readers, the slicers, dicers and copiers-- hold in your collective action the secret of the future of publishing.Writers are a dime a dozen. Everybody's got a novel in her or him. Readers are aprecious commodity. You've got all the money and all the attention and you runthe word-of-mouth network that marks the difference between a little book, soonforgotten, and a book that becomes a lasting piece of posterity for its author,changing the world in some meaningful way.

  I'm unashamedly exploiting your imagination. Imagine me a new practice of book,readers. Take this novel and pass it from inbox to inbox, through your IMclients, over P2P networks. Put it on webservers. Convert it to weird, obscureebook formats. Show me -- and my colleagues, and my publisher -- what the futureof book looks like.

  I'll keep on writing them if you keep on reading them. But as cool and wonderfulas writing is, it's not half so cool as inventing the future. Thanks for helpingme do 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 theoriginal author credit.

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

  Noncommercial. The licensor permits others to copy, distribute,display, and perform the work. In return, licensees may not usethe work for commercial purposes -- unless they get thelicensor'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 THISCREATIVE COMMONS PUBLIC LICENSE ("CCPL" OR "LICENSE"). THE WORKIS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT AND/OR OTHER APPLICABLE LAW. ANY USE OFTHE WORK OTHER THAN AS AUTHORIZED UNDER THIS LICENSE ISPROHIBITED.

  BY EXERCISING ANY RIGHTS TO THE WORK PROVIDED HERE, YOU ACCEPTAND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE. THE LICENSORGRA
NTS YOU THE RIGHTS CONTAINED HERE IN CONSIDERATION OF YOURACCEPTANCE OF SUCH TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

  1. Definitions

  a. "Collective Work" means a work, such as a periodical issue,anthology or encyclopedia, in which the Work in its entirety inunmodified form, along with a number of other contributions,constituting separate and independent works in themselves, areassembled into a collective whole. A work that constitutes aCollective Work will not be considered a Derivative Work (asdefined below) for the purposes of this License.

  b. "Derivative Work" means a work based upon the Work or upon theWork and other pre-existing works, such as a translation, musicalarrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion pictureversion, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment,condensation, or any other form in which the Work may be recast,transformed, or adapted, except that a work that constitutes aCollective Work