"Cory_Doctorow_-_Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doctorow Cory)

entertaining, ambitious, plugged-in, and as good a guide to the wired world
of the twenty-first century that stretches out before us as you’re going to
find.
Gardner Dozois
Editor, Asimov’s SF
— • —
Cory Doctorow’s “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” tells a gripping,
fast-paced story that hinges on thought-provoking extrapolation from
today’s technical realities. This is the sort of book that captures and defines
the spirit of a turning point in human history when our tools remake
ourselves and our world.
Mitch Kapor
Founder, Lotus, Inc., co-founder Electronic Frontier Foundation

Cory Doctorow Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom 3
A Note About This Book
“Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” is my first novel. It’s an actual, nofoolin’
words-on-paper book, published by the good people at Tor Books in
New York City. You can buy this book in stores or online, by following
links like this one:
http://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, freely redistributable ebook.
You can download it, put it on a P2P net, put it on your site, email it
to a friend, and, if you’re addicted to dead trees, you can even print it.
Why am I doing this thing? Well, it’s a long story, but to shorten it up: firsttime
novelists have a tough row to hoe. Our publishers don’t have 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 (http://boingboing.net), where I do a lot of word-ofmouthing.
I compulsively tell friends and strangers about things that I like.
And telling people about stuff I like is way, way easier if I can just send it to
’em. Way easier.
What’s more, P2P nets kick all kinds of ass. Most of the books, music and
movies ever released are not available for sale, anywhere in the world. In
the brief time that P2P nets have flourished, the ad-hoc masses of the
Internet have managed to put just about everything online. What’s more,
they’ve done it for cheaper than any other archiving/revival effort ever. I’m
a stone infovore and this kinda Internet mishegas gives me a serious frisson
of futurosity.
Yeah, there are legal problems. Yeah, it’s hard to figure out how people are
gonna make money doing it. Yeah, there is a lot of social upheaval and a
serious threat to innovation, freedom, business, and whatnot. It’s your basic
end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario, and as a science fiction writer,
end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenaria are my stock-in-trade.
I’m especially grateful to my publisher, Tor Books (http://www.tor.com)
and my editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden
(http://nielsenhayden.com/electrolite) for being hep enough to let me try out
this experiment.
All that said, here’s the deal: I’m releasing this book under a license