Cory Doctorow’s “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” would be an ideal book to read. The plot revolves around a concept similar to the Cylon/s/z ‘downloading.’ Even better, it’s available as a free (and legal) download in several formats and languages, so everyone can obtain it easily. (It’s also available at bookstores if you hate reading long works on your computer.)
I finally finished reading ‘Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom’ by Cory Doctorow. A friend of mine told me about it in 2003 but I never checked it out. He would make a reference to it and inquire if I had read it yet and I hadn’t. That friend passed away in 2006 and as a memorial, I picked it up early this year. Just goes to tell you how long it takes me to finish something. Not really but whutever.
What an amazing read. I loved the idea of Whuffie and could totally see that happening in the future. Through the whole thing, I was reminded of the 'cast talk regarding cylon resurrection. Chuck once said he wished he could resurrect into a new body, preferrably a Lee Adama model. This is common place in ‘Down and Out’. It’s a fantastic sci-fi / murder mystery and I recommend it. Besides, it’s free.
I was championing this the first few book clubs, but it never seemed to gain traction. Definitely worth a read.
Hmmm, it sounds interesting… I’ll put it on the list of books to read after I’m ABD 
Thanks for the recommendation!
- If I’m inappropriately resurrecting this thread please let me know.
- I’m glad someone else read this book!!!
My brother is also a sci-fi geek and every year, for his own birthday, shares one of his favorite books with me a couple close friends. How cool is he?
Last year it was this book.
I was leery and slow to start, I’ll admit, beacuse I couldn’t relate to I single thing in the beginning.
The concept of whuffie (a world-wide popularity rating beamed directly into your skull-meat)
Ressurection is common
Crack is legal, ferchrissakes
These ideas and much more are thrown at you SO FAST right at the beginning that it was a bit much for me to understand the characters, I mean, how can I relate to people that live in this world?
Later on of course you see that these characters, no matter how odd their value system is, face a situation we all deal with in our own lives. I’ve noticed lately that even though I’m by no means “old”…
(I’m thirty seven! What? I’m thirty seven, I’m not old! Well I can’t just call you “man”. Well you could say “Dennis”. I didn’t know you were called Dennis. Well you didn’t bother to find out, did you?)
…I’ve begun to understand the concept of maturity (whether I choose to paritcipate in the concept of “maturity” is another thing altogether ;P) and see the value of choosing a path and sticking to it. No longer just flitting about from place to place, lifestyle to lifestyle like I’ve done since the age of sixteen. I treasure my experiences now, good or bad, because I see now how they have made me into the person I am today.
It’s kind of like “If I hadn’t dated that psychopath that later stalked me I wouldn’t have had to leave town and if I hadn’t left town I wouldn’t have walked into that burger joint along the turnpike and met my wife”.
So by the end you see that even though Jules would be hard-pressed to come up with what we at first might consider a “good reason” to keep all the unpleasant experiences from the book “in memory” he still values them and doesn’t want to throw them away because he FINALLY figured it out: We are the sum of our experiences, no matter how we may wish things to be otherwise.
And for the record, this version of the future is NOT one I would like to live in. Does everyone think about that kind of thing or is it just me? Do you read a book, watch a movie, read a comic, play a video game and then evaluate whether or not you would like to exist there and why? It’s kinda fun, certainly a pointless indulgence that gets you through a boring drive…
Anyway, as far as not wanting any part of this future… The shallowness of the Whuffie system does it for me, as well as the pointless existence led by everyone. I mean, if you know you’re immortal (to some degree, anyway) where’s the danger and excitement? What drives you to achieve? Obviously the author intentionally depicted this 'verse as a pointless existence so someone’s childhood dream of working at Disney World seemed like a valid goal, lol.
There are MANY more themes in this book, I could go on and on. But I won’t.
Sci-fi lit (old-school sci-fi lit) is so cool because it’s not about the space ships, it’s not about the aliens, it’s not even about the death rays. It’s about society and society’s problems and if it’s done right it makes you THINK. Starship Troopers (THE BOOK), for example had my head spinning for weeks.
Plus, “Bichun Society” and “Adhocracy” are two really cool terms, ya know?
There’s never an inappropriate resurrection of a book thread Glad to see another recommendation for this one… though my to-read list is so long I wonder that I keep adding to it (kinda like my Netflix queue… :rolleyes:)
Awesome book. Disney’s Haunted Mansion gets mad props in it, too, and I learned much of Grim Grinning Ghosts because of it. 
Cory was just on The Sword & Laser podcast and he discussed Down & Out in great depth. Very interesting (and long) interview.
NOTE: As Cory’s a huge proponent of open source everything, it’s a free listen on iTunes and Podiobooks.com. You can check out lots of his other stuff on his website http://craphound.com/ too.
It’s also available at dailylit which is a neat little service. They divy up books into parts about a few pages long (it varies so that the breaks make sense) and then email them to you on a schedule you set up (e.g., once every weekday.) It makes the sometimes tiring task of reading long works on a computer screen just a small part of your daily inbox maintenance.
Thanks for this! What a cool concept. I signed up for this just now. I’m going to try and read Frankenstein this way.
Be aware that Frankenstein is 85-ish parts, so it’'l take almost three months on ‘daily.’ You can up the length, but that will be a bit more taxing than their ‘standard’ option. (Or you can just resign yourself to finishing later, which is not really a problem. I’m still working on WWZ myself.)
I agree it really would be an awesome book to read (or listen to.) I just finished it and it has a lot of fascinating ideas.
I have to agree this is a really good book. I stop short of saying it’s amazing because there are some parts where I want to reach through the book and slap the main character.
Just out of curiosity, what do you think about the fact he returns to Disney World to “reset.” It seems like he’s returning to his childhood. (Although I don’t want to risk spoilers.) But it does remind me of a line I wrote on the back of a postcard and stuck in my wallet, “You don’t have to die to be reborn.”
Although, I think the society itself promotes achievement. I’m continually fascinated by the last line of the book (Again, I’ll avoid spoilers.) and what it says both about Jules and the Bitchun Society. Honestly, neither the tone nor the plot of the book really struck me as particularly dystopian, just outside of our experience.
To be honest, I would want to live in the Bitchun Society. It solves A LOT of problems we have nowadays. The entire idea that money gets replaced with respect, so as long as your doing something useful you’ll always have a place. I also really enjoy what happens when we see the worst it can possibly get and it doesn’t seem pleasant, although it isn’t panhandling on the street, I don’t think many people would want to live that way for long. The other thing that struck me is Doctorow seems to have a really positive view of people, thinking that with little provocation we will find useful things for ourselves to do.
I don’t think Jules really figures out he is the sum of his experiences. I mean he’s kept a fair share of his own unpleasant memories.
Again this is all me. I could be totally wrong here.
I bought this book on your recommendation and I think I have lost it! Arrgh!
The Book Club selection for May and June is Cory Doctorow’s 2003 novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom!
He’d gone. The Anthro major he’d been torturing with his war-stories said that they’d wrapped up that morning, and he’d headed to the walled city of Tijuana, to take his shot with the descendants of a platoon of US Marines who’d settled there and cut themselves off from the Bitchun society.
So I went to Disney World.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Awesome book. I acquired a whole new appreciation for the cleverness of The Haunted Mansion, and now have Grim Grinning Ghosts stuck in my head once in a while.
Like all of Cory’s stuff, this is CC-licensed, so you’re free to share it online. Cory himself has a page with a ridiculous number of formats and translations. There’s also a narrated podcast version and a full-cast audiobook version.
So, if you don’t read it somehow you’ll lose all your wuffie.