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Cory in Locus in Praise of "Fan-fic"

I remember a 6th grade class-mate writing a sequel for Star Wars when there was no such thing in the theaters yet. It's been going on for a long time, though the net gives the writers a way to "publish", and authors like Cory are cool with that if they don't try to sell it.

Yes, it does seem inevitable that an author will eventually get sued for stealing ideas from someone writing with his/her characters in his/her universe!

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Cory takes his "copyfighting" crusade to Locus!!

We are excited to announce that the group book read at the Science Fiction Message Board for December, 2007 will be the 2004 nominee for the Nebula award Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, the first publsihed novel by Cory Doctorow!

Taylor Antrim wrote in The New York Times of this 22nd Century romp through Walt Disney World, "the impressively imagined world of the novel is tricked out in lively prose", while Tim Pratt of Strange Horizons went so far as to enthuse, "It would not be an exaggeration to say that Doctorow's work is one of the main reasons I still read science fiction". Nisi Shawl said in the Seattle Times of this debut novel, "Even when science fiction is based on solid predictions, it can demonstrate the pinwheeling pyrotechnics of a first-class fireworks display."

Cory Doctorow is arguably know better as one of the key contributors to the hugely popular Boing Boing blog/e-zine than he is as a science fiction author (though a clue is that a majority of his Boing Boing posts are about SF!) He is also an unabashed "Copyfighter", who firmly believes that "intellectual property" laws and their all too frequent strong-arm enforcement are doing much more damage to the arts than good. He completely puts his money where his keystroke is on this belief by allowing internet users many ways to download his books for free as easily as purchase signed copies from his own webpage. He has written two more novels since Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, but we opted to begin with his first as many of our board members had not yet read any of his novels, and we like to begin at the beginning!

For those who want to participate in our group read, but who don't have the funds, and hesitate to read e-books, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is also readily available in many public libraries!

As always, our bi-monthly group book discussions are open to everyone and may be be joined at any time during the month put aside for the book. While the basic idea is that we will read and post along together as new readers to the book, we also welcome insights from those who have read the book previously (just don't divulge spoilers before the group gets there, and warn other readers whenever you do!) All you need do for this particular group read is locate our Cory Doctorow author thread and join the discussion!