Cory Doctorow's Blog, page 44

With repetition, most of us will become inured to all the dirty tricks of Facebook attention-manipulation

In my latest Locus column, “Persuasion, Adaptation, and the Arms Race for Your Attention,” I suggest that we might be too worried about the seemingly unstoppable power of opinion-manipulators and their new social media superweapons.

Not because these techniques don’t work (though when someone who wants to sell you persuasion tools tells you that they’re amazing and unstoppable, some skepticism is warranted), but because a large slice of any population will eventually adapt to any stimulu...

Interview with the National Science Teachers Association’s Lab Out Loud podcast

Back in 2010, I appeared as a guest on the National Science Teachers Association’s Lab Out Loud podcast, and this year, they had me back as part of their celebration of their first decade; they’ve just published the interview, (MP3) which was primarily about my novel Walkaway.

A Hopeful Look At The Apocalypse: An interview with PRI’s Innovation Hub

I chatted with Innovation Hub, distributed by PRI, about the role of science fiction and dystopia in helping to shape the future (MP3).

Three Takeaways

1. Doctorow thinks that science-fiction can give people “ideas for what to do if the future turns out in different ways.” Like how William Gibson’s Neuromancer didn’t just predict the internet, it predicted the intermingling of corporations and the state.

2. When you have story after story about how people turn on each other after disas...

Podcast: The Man Who Sold the Moon, Part 01

Here’s part one of my reading (MP3) of The Man Who Sold the Moon, my award-winning novella first published in 2015’s Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future, edited by Ed Finn and Kathryn Cramer. It’s my Burning Man/maker/first days of a better nation story and was a kind of practice run for my 2017 novel Walkaway.

MP3

Reviving my Christmas daddy-daughter podcast, with Poesy!

For nearly every year since my daughter Poesy was old enough to sing, we’ve recorded a Christmas podcast; but we missed it in 2016, due to the same factors that made the podcast itself dormant for a couple years — my crazy busy schedule.

But this year, we’re back, with my off-key accompaniment to her excellent “Deck the Halls,” as well as some of her favorite slime recipes, and a promise that I’ll be taking up podcasting again in the new year, starting with a serialized reading of my Stu...

Talking Walkaway on the Barnes and Noble podcast

I recorded this interview last summer at San Diego Comic-Con; glad to hear it finally live!

Authors are, without exception, readers, and behind every book there is…another book, and another. In this episode of the podcast, we’re joined by two writers for conversations about the vital books and ideas that influence inform their own work. First, Cory Doctorow talks with B&N’s Josh Perilo about his recent novel of an imagined near future, Walkaway, and the difference between a dystopia and a...

An 8th grader’s brilliant trailer for Walkaway

Net Neutrality is only complicated because monopolists are paying to introduce doubt

My op-ed in New Internationalist,
‘Don’t break the 21st century nervous system’, seeks to cut through the needless complexity in the Net Neutrality debate, which is as clear-cut as climate change or the link between smoking and cancer — and, like those subjects, the complexity is only there because someone paid to introduce it.

When you want to access my web page, you ask your internet service provider to send some data to my ISP, who passes it on to my server, which passes some data bac...

Hey, Kitchener-Waterloo, I’m headed your way next Monday!

I was honoured to be invited to address the University of Waterloo on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Cheriton School of Computer Science; my father is a proud Waterloo grad (and I’m a proud Waterloo dropout!), and so this is indeed a very special opportunity for me.

Moreover, the kind folks at U Waterloo worked with the Kitchener Public Library to book a second event that morning, at the 85 Queen branch.

Both events are free, but they’re ticketed, so book now!

Here’s detai...

How to get a signed, personalized copy of any of my books, shipped anywhere in the world!

The kind folks at Dark Delicacies, my local specialist horror bookstore here in beautiful Burbank, California have volunteered to fill orders for my novels; since they’re walking distance from my front door, I’ll be popping in there a couple of times every week between now and Xmas to sign and inscribe any orders you place; they make fabulous gifts and also excellent firelighters! Call them at +1-818-556-6660, or email darkdel@darkdel.com.