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Loading... Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)by Cory Doctorow
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No current Talk conversations about this book. A lot of fun. Interesting ideas. ( ![]() A competently written techno-mystery SF book. I should have been more interested in it than I was, given that I generally like attempts to envision future post-scarcity anarchist societies. But this one envisions social credit being run via reputational economics a la every Web 2.0 person-rating site out there. That wasn't a new idea in 2003, it's not a new idea now, and it smells like the usual attempt to fence in something free that so enlivened the Internet bubble. Since the people in the book evidently are mostly satisfied with it without being under duress, you have to feel that they're really pretty dull. i like the premise, but the story itself is a little hackneyed, as is some of the writing. Meh. It was amusing enough, but as I was reading it, I kept thinking, "what's the point?". The plot was kept from being predictable only because it did not really exist. The book was more a series of events to show off the cool world Doctorow had invented. The world was interesting. I just wish that descriptions of it had not been interrupted by actions of characters that I just could not bring myself to care about. both times I read this book I found myself thinking a lot about souls. The way people are reborn as clones in this story means that if souls do exist they died along with the original body. Or maybe the spark of consciousness in the new body births a new soul, or maybe the soul carries over with the consciousness, or maybe souls dont exist. Basically all the people in this are meat computers and I spent a lot of time thinking about that. in regards to the actual story i was kinda meh on it. The plot was interesting but I grew to dislike the main character so by the end of the story i didnt really care what happened to him. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesFolio SF (308)
The prophetic debut novel from the visionary author fo LITTLE BROTHER, now published for the first time in the UK. Jules is a young man barely a century old. He's lived long enough to see the cure for death and the end of scarcity, to learn ten languages and compose three symphonies ... and to realize his boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World. Disney World! The greatest artistic achievement of the long-ago twentieth century. Now overseen by a network of 'ad hocs' who keep the classic attractions running as they always have, enhanced with only the smallest high-tech touches. But the ad hocs are under attack. A new group has taken over the Hall of Presidents and is replacing its venerable audioanimatronics with new, immersive direct-to-brain interfaces that give guests the illusion of being Washington, Lincoln and all the others. For Jules, this is an attack on the artistic purity of Disney World itself. Worse: it appears that this new group has had Jules killed. This upsets him. (It's only his fourth death and revival after all.) Now it's war. No library descriptions found. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6 — Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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