Cory Doctorow's Blog, page 20

Talking tech and protests with the Out of Left Field podcast

The kind folks at the Out of Left Field podcast just hosted me for a discussion of protests, surveillance tech and liberation (MP3).

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 05)

Here’s part five of my new reading of my novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (you can follow all the installments, as well as the reading I did in 2008/9, here).

There’s more of Kurt in this week’s episode; as I mentioned in last week’s intro, Kurt is loosely based on my old friend Darren Atkinson, who pulled down a six-figure income by recovering, repairing and reselling high-tech waste from Toronto’s industrial suburbs. Darren was the subject of the first feature I ever sold to W...

Rave for “Poesy the Monster Slayer”

No matter how many books I write (20+ now!), the first review for a new one is always scary. That goes double when the book is a first as well – like Poesy the Monster Slayer, my first-ever picture book, which comes out from First Second on Jul 14.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627

So it was with delight and relief that I read Publishers Weekly’s (rave) review of Poesy:

“Some children fear monsters at bedtime, but Poesy welcomes them. Her pink ‘monster lair’ features gothic art and s...

How Big Tech Monopolies Distort Our Public Discourse

This week, I’m podcasting How Big Tech Monopolies Distort Our Public Discourse, a new article I wrote for the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Deeplinks blog. It’s the most comprehensive of the articles I’ve written about the problems of surveillance capitalism, a subject I’ve also addressed in a forthcoming, book-length essay. In a nutshell, my dispute with the “surveillance capitalism” hypothesis is that I think it overstates how effective Big Tech is at changing our minds with advanced machi...

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 04)

Here’s part four of my new reading of my novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (you can follow all the installments, as well as the reading I did in 2008/9, here).

In this installment, we meet Kurt, the crustypunk high-tech dumpster-diver. Kurt is loosely based on my old friend Darren Atkinson, who pulled down a six-figure income by recovering, repairing and reselling high-tech waste from Toronto’s industrial suburbs. Darren was the subject of the first feature I ever sold to Wired, ...

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 03)

Heres part three of my new reading of my novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (you can follow all the installments, as well as the reading I did in 2008/9, here).

This is easily the weirdest novel I ever wrote. Gene Wolfe (RIP) gave me an amazing quote for it: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is a glorious book, but there are hundreds of those. It is more. It is a glorious book unlike any book youve ever read.

Heres how my publisher described it when it came out:

Alan...

Rules for Writers

For this weeks podcast, I take a break from my reading of my 2009 novel, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, to read aloud my latest Locus column, Rules for Writers. The column sums up a long-overdue revelation I had teaching on the Writing Excuses cruise last fall: that the rules we advise writers to follow are actually just places where its easy to go wrong.

Theres an important distinction between this and the tired injunction, You have to know the rules to break the rules. Its...

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 02)

Heres part two of my new reading of my novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (you can follow all the installments, as well as the reading I did in 2008/9, here).

In this installment, we meet Kurt, the crustypunk high-tech dumpster-diver. Kurt is loosely based on my old friend Darren Atkinson, who pulled down a six-figure income by recovering, repairing and reselling high-tech waste from Torontos industrial suburbs. Darren was the subject of the first feature I ever sold to Wired,...

A new Marcus Yallow/Little Brother story!

On Oct 12, Tor Books will publish ATTACK SURFACE, the third Little Brother book unlike the previous two, its not YA, and unlike the previous two, it stars Masha, the young woman who works for the DHS and then a private security firm.

Its a book about rationalization and redemption: how good people talk themselves into doing bad things, and what it takes to bring them back from the brink. Im incredibly proud of it.

Its available for pre-order now, and if you send your receipt for your...

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 01)

Heres part one (MP3) of my new reading of my novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, which debuted last weekend on the Podapalooza festival.

Its easily the weirdest novel I ever wrote. Gene Wolfe (RIP) gave me an amazing quote for it: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is a glorious book, but there are hundreds of those. It is more. It is a glorious book unlike any book youve ever read.

Heres how my publisher described it when it came out:

Alan is a middle-aged entrepeneur...