Cory Doctorow's Blog, page 52

How optimistic disaster stories can save us from dystopia

I’ve got an editorial in this month’s Wired magazine about the relationship between the science fiction stories we read and our real-world responses to disasters: Disasters Don’t Have to End in Dystopias; it’s occasioned by the upcoming publication of my “optimistic disaster novel” Walkaway (pre-order signed copies: US/UK; read excerpts: Chapter 1, Chapter 2; US/Canada tour schedule).

The stories we tell ourselves about the way that the people around us will behave in times of crisis deter...

Read: “Communist Party”: the first chapter of Walkaway

There’s still time to pre-order your signed first-edition hardcover of Walkaway, my novel which comes out on April 25 (US/UK), and while you’re waiting for that to ship, here’s chapter one of the novel, “Communist Party” (this is read by Wil Wheaton on the audiobook, where he is joined by such readers as Amanda Palmer and Amber Benson!).

1. Communist Party

[i]

Hubert Vernon Rudolph Clayton Irving Wilson Alva Anton Jeff Harley Timothy Curtis Cleveland Cecil Ollie Edmund Eli Wiley Marvin...

Here’s the schedule for my 25-city US-Canada Walkaway tour!

There’s 25 stops in all on the US/Canada tour for WALKAWAY, my next novel, an “optimistic disaster novel” that comes out on April 25 (more stops coming soon, as well as publication of my UK tour).

I’ll be joined in various cities by many worthies, from Neal Stephenson (Seattle) to Ed Snowden (New York) to John Scalzi (LA, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco); Amber Benson (LA); Amie Stepanovich (DC); Joi Ito (Cambridge, MA); Max Temkin (Chicago); Brian David Johnson (Phoenix); Andy Baio (Portlan...

Fair trade ebooks: how authors could double their royalties without costing their publishers a cent

My latest Publishers Weekly column announces the launch-date for my long-planned “Shut Up and Take My Money” ebook platform, which allows traditionally published authors to serve as retailers for their publishers, selling their ebooks direct to their fans and pocketing the 30% that Amazon would usually take, as well as the 25% the publisher gives back to them later in royalties.

I’ll be launching the platform with my next novel, Walkaway, in late April, and gradually rolling out additional...

Preorder my novel Walkaway and get a pocket multitool

Tor has produced a multitool to commemorate my forthcoming novel Walkaway, and if you pre-order the book, they’ll send you one! Protip: pre-order from Barnes and Noble and you’ll get a signed copy!

The book has received some humblingly great early notices:

Edward Snowden: Is Doctorow’s fictional Utopia bravely idealistic or bitterly ironic? The answer is in our own hands. A dystopian future is in no way inevitable; Walkaway reminds us that the world we choose to build is the one we’ll in...

Fill Your Boots: my column on how technology could let us work like artisans and live like kings

My latest Locus column is “Fill Your Boots,” in which I talk about how scientists, sf writers, economists and environmental activists have wrestled with the question of abundance — how the “green left” transformed left wing politics from the promise of every peasant living like a lord to the promise of every lord living like a peasant.

One thing everyone can agree on is that market competition and technology has made material abundance a lot less material: the labor, energy, and resources...

Reply All covers DRM and the W3C

In the latest episode of Reply All, a fantastic tech podcast, the hosts and producers discuss the situation with DRM, the future of the web, and the W3C — a piece I’ve been working on them with for a year now.

The issue is a complicated and eye-glazingly technical one, and they do a genuinely excellent job presenting the story. Inevitably, there’s some nuance lost in the translation, and so here’s a bit more, for people who are interested.

The story talks about DRM as an anti-piracy techno...

Coming to DC on March 6: a panel on right to repair, DRM, and property rights in the digital age

On Monday, March 6 at 10AM, I’ll be participating in a non-partisan R-Street event on “Property Rights in the Digital Age,” with participants from the Heritage Foundation, R-Street, the Open Technology Institute, and Freedomworks: “As we enter an age near total connectivity, we must ask ourselves, are our laws keeping up with technology? Do we need to rewrite the rules to preserve our traditional notions of property, or embrace the brave new world of licensing everything?” (RSVP)

New Yorkers! Come see Edward Snowden and me onstage at the NYPL on the Walkaway tour!

I’m touring 20 US cities (plus dates in Canada and the UK!) with my forthcoming novel Walkaway; the full tour hasn’t been announced yet, but I’m delighted to reveal that the NYC stop on May 3 will be at the New York Public Library, where my interlocutor will be the whistleblower Edward Snowden. Tickets are $10-25! (Reminder: there are also signed first-edition hardcovers available for pre-order in the USA and UK).

Now in the UK! Pre-order signed copies of the first edition hardcover of Walkaway, my first adult novel since Makers

The UK’s Forbidden Planet is now offering signed hardcovers of Walkaway, my first novel for adults since 2009 — this is in addition to the signed US hardcovers being sold by Barnes and Noble.

Walkaway has scored starred reviews in Booklist (“memorable and engaging” and “ultimately suffused with hope”) and Kirkus (“A truly visionary techno-thriller that not only depicts how we might live tomorrow, but asks why we don’t already”).

Edward Snowden said the book was “a reminder that the wor...