Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Paperback, 208 pages

English language

Published Dec. 5, 2003 by Tor.

ISBN:
978-0-7653-0953-2
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
761625

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4 stars (13 reviews)

Bursting with cutting-edge speculation and human insight, Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is a coming-of-age romantic comedy and a kick-butt cybernetic tour de force

Jules is a young man barely a century old. He's lived long enough to see the cure for death and the end of scarcity, to learn ten languages and compose three symphonies...and to realize his boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World.

Disney World! The greatest artistic achievement of the long-ago twentieth century. Now in the care of a network of volunteer "ad-hocs" who keep the classic attractions running as they always have, enhanced with only the smallest high-tech touches.

Now, though, it seems the "ad hocs" are under attack. A new group has taken over the Hall of the Presidents and is replacing its venerable audioanimatronics with new, immersive direct-to-brain interfaces that give guests the illusion of being Washington, …

12 editions

review of clone-rejuv resistance in a world where normal medicine is just make a new body and transfer you !

4 stars

A weird trip in Disneyland +1000yrs and ∞ lives/clones.

Quite poetic on some levels, but I got stuck on the page-by-page degradation of the main protagonist's frenetic life. It echoed some things in me, and it still resonates now.

Much stronger for me surprisingly, than Little Brother for example, or the copyright book, Pirate Cinema, both hitting more politically than emotionally for me (albeit I felt sympathy for the characters there as well).

A good read thought ! GG Cory !

Review of 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom: A Novel' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

I'm vaguely a fan of Doctorow in the real world. I've read BoingBoing on and off, I relate to the perspective he brings to his work, of a sort of radical technologist concerned with information freedom. I identify with and align with that point of view.

That said, this novel was meh. I ended up giving it a 2 because it just reads too plainly and the conflict was utterly neutered by the utopian setting. The society Doctorow portrays is like Star Trek (post-scarcity) meets Altered Carbon (post-death) but it's really hard to have consequences when you live in a world in which the worst possible thing to happen to you is your social score goes down.

There are two components to the overall story. The main one is Julius, Lil, and Dan effectively defending their slice of Disney World from Debra - who represents a social threat of modernizing …

Review of 'Down and out in the Magic Kingdom' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Ad-hocracy? An economy based on, well, karma? Hmm. Cary Doctorow has written a story that takes place in a Wired paradise, with a murder mystery that's investigated by an immortal victim in Walt Disney World. I downloaded this book for free from Doctorow's web-site and read it on my off-time at work. At that price, this is a great read, and I'd even recommend the non-free dead-tree version as a great mystery for computer nerds.

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Subjects

  • Florida -- Walt Disney World
  • Immortalism
  • Florida
  • Science fiction

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