Reading Material

Cory Doctorow's writing is so consistently good that it is a bit frightening. I read his novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom after Warren Ellis talked about it on DiePunyHumans. (you can download the book for free as Cory's site).

It's a good read and worth your time if you like science fiction.

I just finished his book of short stories A Place So Foreign and 8 More. You can read seven of the nine stories online, and they too are very much worth your time.

The stories in the book do a good job of making the reader think about what's happening. Most of the time you are thrown, flailing, into an unfamiliar world and left to find your bearings quickly.
Often it would take until after I had finished a story for everything to gel in my head (though that could be due to my reading the stories largely in the break room at work).

The titular story is about a boy from New Jerusalem, Utah, in 1898 who finds out that his father is the ambassador to 1975 which they travel to through a hidden door in their barn. It's a sci-fi Tom Sawyer.

Three of the stories in the book take place in the same universe where an alien race, the Bugouts, have come to Earth and taken over. One, "Shadow of the Mothaship" tells the story of a man who is in constant rebellion against his father and the bugouts. "Home Again, Home Again," tells of a man who was raised inside a Bugout insane asylum. Finally "The Super Man and the Bugouts" presents a story of a very Jewish Super-Man and his dealings with humanity and the aliens.

Another story Beat Me Daddy (Eight to the Bar) is available online at Fortean Bureau. A post-apocalyptic story of survival over idiocy.

Go check them out and buy Cory's books.