Cory Doctorow's Blog, page 53
March 1, 2017
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)
February 26, 2017
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).
February 11, 2017
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...
February 1, 2017
Pre-order a signed first edition of Walkaway, which got a starred review in Booklist today!
Here’s a reminder that you can pre-order a signed first edition hardcover of Walkaway, my first novel for adults since 2009, which William Gibson called “A wonderful novel” and Edward Snowden called “a reminder that the world we choose to build is the one we’ll inhabit” and Kim Stanley Robinson called “a utopia is both more thought-provoking and more fun than a dystopia” and Neal Stephenson called “the Bhagavad Gita of hacker/maker/burner/open source/git/gnu/wiki/99%/adjunct faculty/Anonym...
January 31, 2017
January 30, 2017
Clarion Workshop now accepting applications for sf writers to learn with Lynda Barry, Nalo Hopkinson, CC Finlay…and me!
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The instructors for this summer’s Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy writers’ workshop are Dan Chaon, Lynda Barry, Nalo Hopkinson, Andrea Hairston, Cory Doctorow, C.C. Finlay and Rae Carson: the workshop runs from Jun 25-Aug 5 at UCSD in La Jolla, California.
It’s an intensive, boot-camp style writing workshop that’s been running annually since 1968. New instructors rotate in every week and students write about one story every week, and learn to improve their work by critiquing one anot...
January 12, 2017
Why the Trump era is the perfect time to go long on freedom and short on surveillance
My new Locus column is “It’s Time to Short Surveillance and Go Long on Freedom,” which starts by observing that Barack Obama’s legacy includes a beautifully operationalized, professional and terrifying surveillance apparatus, which Donald Trump inherits as he assumes office and makes ready to make good on his promise to deport millions of Americans and place Muslims under continuous surveillance.
But Trump supporters shouldn’t get too happy about this: after all, the billions Trump will...
December 27, 2016
Kirkus just gave me an AWESOME Christmas present: this starred review for WALKAWAY
Kirkus Reviews is one of the publishing industry’s toughest gauntlets, used by librarians and bookstore buyers to help sort through the avalanche of new titles, and its reviews often have a sting in their tails aimed at this audience, a pitiless rehearsal of the reasons you wouldn’t want to stock this book — vital intelligence for people making hard choices.
So when I saw the starred, uniformly glowing review for my next novel, Walkaway, with nary a quibble in sight, I did a little victor...
December 21, 2016
Free audiobook of Car Wars, my self-driving car/crypto back-door apocalypse story
Last month, Melbourne’s Deakin University published Car Wars, a short story I wrote to inspire thinking and discussion about the engineering ethics questions in self-driving car design, moving beyond the trite and largely irrelevant trolley problem.
Shortly after, I went into Skyboat Media’s studio and recorded an audio edition of the story, which the Deakin folks mastered with visuals and SFX to produce a smashing video.
I’ve extracted just the audio as an MP3 for your mobile listening...
December 8, 2016
Everything is a Remix, including Star Wars, and that’s how I became a writer
Kirby Ferguson, who created the remarkable Everything is a Remix series, has a new podcast hosted by the Recreate Coalition called Copy This and he hosted me on the debut episode (MP3) where we talked about copying, creativity, artists, and the future of the internet (as you might expect!).
Are you one of the many Star Wars fans eagerly awaiting the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story later this month? As you watch – and rewatch – the trailer, take a break to tune into Re:Create’s n...
