Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Thank god for Cory Doctorow. Thanks to him and his quest to Understand the Future one's reading device can be packed full of Corey Doctorow novels for free and guilt free.
And his novels are fun, light gooey balls of science fictional zanyness. Bonus!
That's not to say that these novels are actually good. Near as I can tell Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is an exercise in whether or not one can produce a compelling story where absolutely nothing is at stake.
I mean, the premise is that in the {not-too|extremely distant} future, death has been conquered, as has scarcity of resources. One backs up one's digital brain weekly, and should one meet death, one is simply restored from a backup. Likewise, one does not have to work for a living--food is free, instead the coin of the realm is the deploringly named whuffie: a weird hybrid of facebook ''likes'' and brownie points, where good deeds, hard work, or just generally being awesome are rewarded, aparently in proportion to how far out of your social network you've managed to advertise yourself.
The plot then, involves a plucky group of deathless characters trying to save The Haunted Castle exhibit at Disneyworld. Wait. what? Why do I care about that?
The book is highly engaging, and there's several levels of nested irony. This book released on a creative commons license and is about how great disneyworld is. Of course, Mickey Mouse isn't in it because Mickey Mouse will ALWAYS be under Disney's copywrite.
Likewise there's a wink and a nod to the fact that on one hand Disneyland is a magical place, where the details of the user's experience is given foremost attention, but on the other hand, lurking in the background are the secret disney police whose job it is to stamp out any rebellion before it starts. All in the name of preserving the good time of the paying customers, of course.
In fact, these are things I was interested in! I wish they'd been explored more fully. But again, ironically, I suspect it was the fear of ramifications of besmirching Disney's precious reputation, that caused the author to pull quite a few of his punches.
Despite the lack of grave consequences in a world without death, Mr. Doctorow convincingly creates a plot hook that is both convincing and compelling, and there are moments of brilliance as the duality of being an artist and a fan are explored, along with the conflicting desire to both conquer and appreciate the objects of our affection.
But ultimately, the setting (no one can die, everyone lives in fucking disneyworld) gets in the way of the gravitas of the ending and I am left wondering why I should care, and finding that I don't, much.
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