Cory Doctorow's Blog, page 2

January 26, 2025

The Weight of a Feather (The Weight of a Heart)

The Blackstone cover for Harlan Ellison's 'Last Dangerous Visions.'

This week on my podcast, I’m reading “The Weight of a Feather (The Weight of a Heart),” my short story in Harlan Ellison’s The Last Dangerous Visions, commissioned by J. Michael Straczynski.


Margaret came into my office, breaking my unproductive clicktrance. She looked sheepish. “I got given one of those robots that follows you around,” she said. She took a step, revealing the waist-high reinforced cardboard box. “Want to help unbox?


I stood up and unkinked my spine and hips and shoulders wi...


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Published on January 26, 2025 09:08

January 20, 2025

Enshittification isn’t caused by venture capital

A page out of a medieval hand-illuminated grimoire; it is an illustration of a tree, with each branch terminating in a demon; these branches are annotated in an unknown script. The demons have been replaced with 19th century caricatures of shouting millionaire industrialists.

This week on my podcast, I’m reading “Enshittification isn’t caused by venture capital,” the latest post from my Pluralistic.net blog. It’s about the new “Free Our Feeds” project and why I think the existence of Mastodon doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pay attention to making Bluesky as free as possible.


When tech critics fail to ask why good services turn bad, that failure is just as severe as the failure to ask why people stay when the services rot.


Now, the guy who ran Facebook when it was a gr...


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Published on January 20, 2025 13:53

January 10, 2025

Picks and Shovels Chapter One

The cover of Picks and Shovels, depicting a vintage PC on which a pixelated, sillhouetted male figure is escaping out of the frame.

This week on my podcast, I’ve got Wil Wheaton reading the first chapter of the audiobook of Picks and Shovels, the next Martin Hench novel, which is out next month. Please consider supporting my work by pre-ordering the book as a hardcover, DRM-free ebook, or DRM-free audiobook in my Kickstarter!

The year is 1986. The city is San Francisco. Here, Martin Hench will invent the forensic accountant–what a bounty hunter is to people, he is to money–but for now he’s an MIT dropout odd-jobbing his w...

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Published on January 10, 2025 07:53

December 17, 2024

Daddy-Daughter Podcast 2024

My daughter Poesy and me standing in front of our Christmas tree at home. I have my arm around her shoulders.

This week on my podcast, it’s our annual Daddy-Daughter Podcast, a tradition since 2012! The kid’s sixteen now, a senior in high school and getting ready to head off to university next year, so this may well be the final installment in the series.

Here are the previous year’s installments: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023.


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Published on December 17, 2024 06:08

December 8, 2024

Spill, part six (FINALE) (a Little Brother story)

Will Staehle's cover for 'Spill': a white star on an aqua background; a black stylized fist rises out of the star with a red X over its center.

This week on my podcast, I read the sixth and final installment of “Spill“, a new Little Brother story commissioned by Clay F Carlson and published on Reactor, the online publication of Tor Books. Also available in DRM-free ebook form as a Tor Original. Spill will be reprinted in Allen Kaster’s 2025 Year’s Best SF on Earth.


I didn’t plan to go to Oklahoma, but I went to Oklahoma.


My day job is providing phone tech support to people in offices who use my boss’s customer-relationship managemen...


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Published on December 08, 2024 16:31

December 1, 2024

Spill, part five (a Little Brother story)

Will Staehle's cover for 'Spill': a white star on an aqua background; a black stylized fist rises out of the star with a red X over its center.

This week on my podcast, I read part five of “Spill“, a new Little Brother story commissioned by Clay F Carlson and published on Reactor, the online publication of Tor Books. Also available in DRM-free ebook form as a Tor Original.


I didn’t plan to go to Oklahoma, but I went to Oklahoma.


My day job is providing phone tech support to people in offices who use my boss’s customer-relationship management software. In theory, I can do that job from anywhere I can sit quietly on a good Internet co...


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Published on December 01, 2024 12:17

October 28, 2024

Spill, part four (a Little Brother story)

Will Staehle's cover for 'Spill': a white star on an aqua background; a black stylized fist rises out of the star with a red X over its center.

This week on my podcast, I read part four of “Spill“, a new Little Brother story commissioned by Clay F Carlson and published on Reactor, the online publication of Tor Books. Also available in DRM-free ebook form as a Tor Original.


I didn’t plan to go to Oklahoma, but I went to Oklahoma.


My day job is providing phone tech support to people in offices who use my boss’s customer-relationship management software. In theory, I can do that job from anywhere I can sit quietly on a good Internet co...


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Published on October 28, 2024 20:00

October 26, 2024

Spill, part three (a Little Brother story)

Will Staehle's cover for 'Spill': a white star on an aqua background; a black stylized fist rises out of the star with a red X over its center.

This week on my podcast, I read part three of “Spill“, a new Little Brother story commissioned by Clay F Carlson and published on Reactor, the online publication of Tor Books. Also available in DRM-free ebook form as a Tor Original.


I didn’t plan to go to Oklahoma, but I went to Oklahoma.


My day job is providing phone tech support to people in offices who use my boss’s customer-relationship management software. In theory, I can do that job from anywhere I can sit quietly on a good Internet c...


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Published on October 26, 2024 17:32

Spill, part two (a Little Brother story)

Will Staehle's cover for 'Spill': a white star on an aqua background; a black stylized fist rises out of the star with a red X over its center.

This week on my podcast, I read part two of “Spill“, a new Little Brother story commissioned by Clay F Carlson and published on Reactor, the online publication of Tor Books. Also available in DRM-free ebook form as a Tor Original.


I didn’t plan to go to Oklahoma, but I went to Oklahoma.


My day job is providing phone tech support to people in offices who use my boss’s customer-relationship management software. In theory, I can do that job from anywhere I can sit quietly on a good Internet con...


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Published on October 26, 2024 17:23

October 6, 2024

Spill, part one (a Little Brother story)

Will Staehle's cover for 'Spill': a white star on an aqua background; a black stylized fist rises out of the star with a red X over its center.

This week on my podcast, I read part one of “Spill“, a new Little Brother story commissioned by Clay F Carlson and published on Reactor, the online publication of Tor Books. Also available in DRM-free ebook form as a Tor Original.


Doctors smoke. Driving instructors text and drive. Dentists eat sugary snacks before bed. And hackers? Well, we’re no better at taking our own advice than anyone else.


Take “There is no security in obscurity”—if a security system only works when your enemies don’t ...


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Published on October 06, 2024 18:08