Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

paperback, 208 pages

Published Dec. 5, 2003 by Tor Books.

ISBN:
978-0-7653-0953-2
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4 stars (67 reviews)

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, Lincoln, and all the others. For Jules, this is an attack on the artistic purity of Disney World itself.

Worse: it appears this new group has had Jules …

1 edition

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

2 stars

There were some interesting ideas about society in a post-scarcity, post-death future, like the "currency" based on how others feel about you. Which is a bit like how self published Creative Commons authors make money now. But the characters and story were not very engaging and I took way longer than I should have to get through this book.

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

3 stars

short review in ukrainian:
http://www.tivasyk.info/2010/08/blog-post_17.html
----->8-----
ось ще один канадець, ім’я котрого варте уваги, — і котре навряд чи втрапляло на очі пересічним цінителям сучукрлітів (от вже ж запало мені це словечко…а що, хороше діло сучукрлітом не назвуть). втім, припускаю, що декому таки ім’я знайоме, головне через активну громадянську позицію в питаннях авторського права і лецензування літературних творів.

down and out in the magic kingdom — дебютна повість автора, коротка, але динамічна і не позбавлена інтересу. за жанром це, мабуть, якийсь мікс фантастики (хоча практично всі згадувані технології існують та використовуються… тож вирішуйте самі) та детективу в світі недалекого вже майбутнього.

повість доступна вільно на сайті автора в багатьох форматах — як і решта згадуваних мною його творів, на умовах ліцензії creative commons (by-nd-nc).

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

4 stars

The first and best of Doctorow's books, Down and Out touches is one of those books that are "relevant" today, but likely won't be in 20 years or so once many of the issues that Cory cares about are either resolved or we're living in a post-apocalyptic world and therefore they don't matter anyway.

While the concept of Whuffie is a bit too utopian for me (and a logistical nightmare when you think about the massive computational power that would be required to crunch the complex algorithms to calculate Whuffie scores in real time), this book is a pretty fun read. Don't expect a whole lot of depth from it, though.

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