Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
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back the way it was.Tim called me to say that with enough support from Imagineering, theythought they could get it up and running in a week. Suneep was ready tokill someone, I swear. _A house divided against itself can_not_ stand_,as Mr. Lincoln used to say at the Hall of Presidents.
I packed three changes of clothes and a toothbrush in my shoulderbag andchecked out of my suite at the Polynesian at ten a.m., then met Jeanineand Dan at the valet parking out front. Dan had a runabout he'd pickedup with my Whuffie, and I piled in with Jeanine in the middle. We playedold Beatles tunes on the stereo all the long way to Cape Canaveral. Ourshuttle lifted at noon.
The shuttle docked four hours later, but by the time we'd been throughdecontam and orientation, it was suppertime. Dan, nearly as Whuffie-pooras Debra after his confession, nevertheless treated us to a meal in thebig bubble, squeeze-tubes of heady booze and steaky paste, and wewatched the universe get colder for a while.
There were a couple guys jamming, tethered to a guitar and a set oftubs, and they weren't half bad.
Jeanine was uncomfortable hanging there naked. She'd gone to space withher folks after Dan had left the mountain, but it was in a long-haulgeneration ship. She'd abandoned it after a year or two and deadheadedback to Earth in a support-pod. She'd get used to life in space after awhile. Or she wouldn't.
"Well," Dan said.
"Yup," I said, aping his laconic drawl. He smiled.
"It's that time," he said.
Spheres of saline tears formed in Jeanine's eyes, and I brushed themaway, setting them adrift in the bubble. I'd developed some real tender,brother-sister type feelings for her since I'd watched her saucer-eyeher way through the Magic Kingdom. No romance -- not for me, thanks! Butcamaraderie and a sense of responsibility.
"See you in ten to the hundred," Dan said, and headed to the airlock. Istarted after him, but Jeanine caught my hand.
"He hates long good-byes," she said.
"I know," I said, and watched him go.
#
The universe gets older. So do I. So does my backup, sitting inredundant distributed storage dirtside, ready for the day that space orage or stupidity kills me. It recedes with the years, and I write out mylife longhand, a letter to the me that I'll be when it's restored into aclone somewhere, somewhen. It's important that whoever I am then knowsabout this year, and it's going to take a lot of tries for me to get itright.
In the meantime, I'm working on another symphony, one with a little bitof "Grim Grinning Ghosts," and a nod to "It's a Small World After All,"and especially "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow."
Jeanine says it's pretty good, but what does she know? She's barelyfifty.
We've both got a lot of living to do before we know what's what.
--
================= Acknowledgements: =================
I could never have written this book without the personal support of myfriends and family, especially Roz Doctorow, Gord Doctorow and NeilDoctorow, Amanda Foubister, Steve Samenski, Pat York, Grad Conn, JohnHenson, John Rose, the writers at the Cecil Street Irregulars and MarkFrauenfelder.
I owe a great debt to the writers and editors who mentored andencouraged me: James Patrick Kelly, Judith Merril, Damon Knight, MarthaSoukup, Scott Edelman, Gardner Dozois, Renee Wilmeth, Teresa NielsenHayden, Claire Eddy, Bob Parks and Robert Killheffer.
I am also indebted to my editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden and my agentDonald Maass, who believed in this book and helped me bring it tofruition.
Finally, I must thank the readers, the geeks and the Imagineers whoinspired this book.
Cory Doctorow San Francisco September 2002
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================= About the author: =================
Cory Doctorow is Outreach Coordinator for the Electronic FrontierFoundation, www.eff.org, and maintains a personal site atwww.craphound.com. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boingat www.boingboing.net, with more than 250,000 visitors a month. He wonthe John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the 2000 Hugo Awards.Born and raised in Toronto, he now lives in San Francisco. He enjoysusing Google to look up interesting facts about long walks on the beach.
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============================= Other books by Cory Doctorow:=============================
A Place So Foreign and Eight More - short story collection, forthcomingfrom Four Walls Eight Windows in fall 2003, with an introduction byBruce Sterling
Essential Blogging, O'Reilly and Associates, 2002 - with Rael Dornfest,J. Scott Johnson, Shelley Powers, Benjamin Trott and Mena G. Trott
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Science Fiction, Alpha Books,2000 - co-written with Karl Schroeder
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Down and Out in theMagic Kingdom 2003-1-9 Anovel by Cory Doctorow:
Jules is a young man barely a century old. He's lived long enough to seethe cure for death and the end of scarcity, to learn ten languages andcompose three symphonies...and to realize his boyhood dream of taking upresidence in Disney World.
Disney World! The greatest artistic achievement of the long-agotwentieth century. Now in the care of a network of volunteer"ad-hocs" who keep the classic attractions running as they alwayshave, enhanced with only the smallest high-tech touches.
Now, though, it seems the "ad hocs" are under attack. A new group hastaken over the Hall of the Presidents and is replacing its venerableaudioanimatronics with new, immersive direct-to-brain interfacesthat give guests the illusion of being Washington, Lincoln, and all theothers. For Jules, this is an attack on the artistic purity of DisneyWorld itself. Worse: it appears this new group has had Jules killed.This upsets him. (It's only his fourth death and revival, after all.)Now it's war: war for the soul of the Magic Kingdom, a war ofever-shifting reputations, technical wizardry, and entirelyunpredictable outcomes.
Bursting with cutting-edge speculation and human insight, Down andOut in the Magic Kingdom reads like Neal Stephenson meets Nick Hornby: acoming-of-age romantic comedy and a kick-butt cybernetictour de force. CoryDoctorow Cory Doctorow
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