Cory Doctorow’s “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom”

I was surprised recently to find out that only one of my geek friends has ever heard of Cory Doctorow, and he had only heard of him because of an XKCD comic, and even then he only knew that ‘he is a blogger or something’. I always thought that anyone that was even partially involved in internet life would know who he was. It was a bit of a shock. Once again I’ll rely on Wikipedia to help me with the details.

Cory, as an author, has definitely influenced me in my short time as a writer. Anyone looking at his site will plainly see the similarities with my own. When I started writing I was running blind. I knew that I wanted to write but I had no guidelines, no clear path. I am still pretty lost, to be honest, but things have progressed steadily and I have Cory to thank for some of that development. As time goes on I know that my writing voice will evolve and mature and that my web presence will grow and expand until it is appreciably different from his, but I could never have started out without the guidance that Cory unknowingly provided. He also is the one that introduced me to Creative Commons, without which I would I most likely would have never felt comfortable self-publishing on the web to begin with.

I read his novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom via his website. He provides plaintext versions of most of his works under a Creative Commons license, which is fantastic for people like myself who are new to him. Be honest now: what makes him stand out? I know that I would never have read anything by him except for the fact that his work was freely available. He’s an unknown science fiction writer, he hasn’t won tons of awards (this is obviously not necessary to be a great writer but it certainly helps with publicity), and his publisher was not going to dump a lot of money into promoting a relative unknown. He was basically like every other new writer trying to break into the business. Self-promotion was the key, and the fact that I could just bring up his website and read entire books for free turned me into a fan.

It’s a great novel, and I really enjoyed it. I actually went out afterwards and bought a hard copy to pass around to friends and family, mainly because it is a great example that it was possible to write science fiction that was simply good fiction. Cory has consistently produced work that I would be proud to call my own. He writes stories that are about the future without being completely dominated by technology. First and foremost his stories are about people and how they interact. As I have said before this is one kind of story that I would like to write.

A while back I read a quote from Cory that I really wish I could find, but…in searching for it, I am wondering if I just made it up and attributed it to him. I’ll paraphrase the thought: the greatest problem for new writers is obscurity. In my own case this could not be more true. I am learning and increasing my ability with every line that I write, but I am not ready to start submitting my work to publishers. I would be rejected out of hand. But by self-publishing on this site I can practice and improve, feel as if I am making progress by learning how to produce and edit a ‘final’ product, and at the same time put work out for others to enjoy. It’s the best system for someone like myself, and Cory is the first I have seen that has fully embraced it. Without him I would still be floundering, and so I am grateful.

I’ll finish up with a link to the download page for his book: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Posted on May 3rd, 2008 at 2:59 pm by Phil | Filed under Discussion | No Comments »