Super fun and nuts-yet-realistic-honestly look at a future where Disney World (along with everything else) is run by groups of "ad hoc" governments. Julius, a young man of barely a century, is part of the group that rules/maintains Liberty Square, and his favorite part is The Haunted Mansion. When a hostile takeover starts to happen, Julius scrambles to fight back. Hilariously fun for Disney fans, as Doctorow himself is a big Disney nerd. There's a lot of clear love for the park here, and for al...

This is a debut novel by Cory Doctorow, which was nominated for Nebula in 2004 (lost to Paladin of Souls). I read is as a part of monthly reading for January 2021 at Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels group.This is a strange utopia – just like living now it is much better than quality of living for 99% of population during 99% of the history but we (quite correctly) find a lot to be dissatisfied about. In this post scarcity future everyone has enough to live forever – there is a system of cloning...

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Cory Doctorow’s debut novel first published in 2003 is a uniquely anti-dystopian science fiction offering in a landscape of post-apocalyptic also-rans.In a world where many writers are dreaming up new variations on the old 1984 theme, Doctorow delivers a pleasingly nonconformist tale where most pestilential elements of the dystopian brand have been made a thing of the past. There is enough food in the world, illness has been all but eliminated and people get to...

Like I often do, I went into this book blind, not knowing anything about the plot, and I assumed the title was some sort of a metaphor for a superficial society. In fact, most of the book is actually set within Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. My progress through the book went something like this:1. At the end of the prologue, I was positive I would hate this book. 2. At the end of chapter 1, I decided there might be some hope after all. 3. Somewhere around the middle of the book, I realized my Kin...

Damn, now I want to go to Disneyland. This book has everything I love about Doctorow- cool sci-fi concepts with interesting characters and plot that don't involve the world ending. So much current sci-fi is about space battles or apocalypses, and his stories are always about people. I thought Julius was a hilarious main character, and I totally felt for him when he did everything with good intentions and still never came out on top. The ruling thought/philosophy in this society is called "Bitchu...

In Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, times sure seem to have changed from today. Something called "Free Energy" has basically eliminated scarcity, while the ability to make computer backups of the self and download them into cloned bodies has eliminated death (and, for that matter, revolutionized medicine, since all defects can be fixed by downloading to a new body). Without scarcity, both work and money have become more or less obsolete, and been replaced by Whuffie, which meas...

Cory Doctorow's novella spins a tale set in the "Bitchun society" - a time in the future where death has been cured and money has been replaced by a system of respect/popularity points that's immediately accessible since everyone somehow has the internet in their heads now.The "Magic Kingdom" referenced in the title is THE Magic Kingdom - the story takes place in Disney World, which has taken on an elevated importance in a world where people no longer have jobs or, essentially, purpose. It's sho...

Amendment to review 1_14_21 -- Although I originally gave this 2 stars, I have had to come back and make the rating higher. Why? Because even though I did not like the MC here, I had a lot more fun reading this book than I did reading Attack Surface, which I just finished, and which is also by Doctorow. So it seems that this one should be rated higher than 2. It's funny, I really think Doctorow is a wonderful wordsmith and worldbuilder, but I am not all that crazy about what I have read of his.

Don't be drawn in by the author's reputation. Don't be drawn in by an interesting premise. Don't be drawn in by some of the impassioned defenses here. This book had no redeeming qualities. It reads like fan fiction, and bad fan fiction at that – very poorly written, laden with typos. All the characters are two dimensional, and the women are pure male fantasy. Frankly, the whole thing didn't add up for me. This is a world in which there is no death, but the narrative tension is dependent on murde...

Even though I find him massively annoying in the way I always find professional bloggers annoying (read: if I am honest with myself, it probably has mostly to do with jealousy), I have to admit, I think it is pretty cool that Cory Doctorow gives away all of his books for free (the smug bastard). I listened to a surprisingly well-produced amateur audiobook of this one about a year ago (you can probably still grab it free from... wherever it was I found it. Podiobooks.com?) and even though I didn'...

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is only 200 pages long, and it's far too short. The plot is rushed through at breakneck speed, and wrapped up far, far too quickly, with almost no time given to bringing the whole thing in for a landing.Part of that is because Doctorow puts quite a bit of time into developing his Bitchun society. Death has been essentially eliminated. If you die, your consciousness is uploaded into a clone and you start over again. Tired of living? "Deadhead" for awhile by havin...

Out of every sci-fi movement that has come and gone, my absolute favorites are the glorious post-cyberpunk transhumanism movement. Can I have the application form now, please? Thanks to Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow, I get to be giddy on the tides of consciousness uploads and post-scarcity economics. Who said utopian fiction was dead? Please, oh please, give me MORE!

As a native Southern Californian who has been to Disneyland a minimum of once per year since before birth, how could I pass up a book that combines science fiction with Disney? I was really torn between giving this three stars or four. It scores high for creativity. It's got a very tight plot and some interesting ideas. It takes place at Disney World's Magic Kingdom. I've been there once, but it's so much like Disneyland that all the ride references made sense even if the geography changed. It's...

One of the many complaints I hear about Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is that it is "shallow." Readers see a shallowness in character, a shallowness in the work they choose, a shallowness in story depth, and a shallowness in the story's morality. I don't see it myself. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom may seem shallow, but there is a great deal of depth to be found if one approaches the book with a willingness to overcome the prejudices and perspectives of our current cultur...

It’s a future post scarcity, post death and reputation(popularity) matters. Permanently connected, enhanced bodies, clones waiting if you get ill or have an accident, backup regularly so you don’t lose any memories. It’d an interesting world that the author has created here. Unfortunately the setting for the story is Disneyworld and I just couldn’t get into it that much. I’m not really a theme park kind of person. The main storyline revolves around either keeping attractions traditional or using...

Cory Doctorow is one of the high profile current crop of sci-fi authors, he is also famous for his blogs on Boing Boing, and his stance on liberalising copyright laws (he even got into a trouble with the legendary Ursula K. Le Guin for posting an article she wrote on his web site.The first book I read of Doctorow’s was Little Brother I enjoyed it very much though I felt that the prose and dialog could be a little better. Three years later I just got around to Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, h...

This was my first Doctorow book and it did not disappoint. A short, charming, and surprisingly emotional read.

Messy, unfocused. Characters are poorly-formed and unlikeable. Doctorow starts out with several intriguing conceits -- eternal life though computer-style backups and clones, the evolution of themed environments, hard currency replaced by popular esteem -- but he can't decide which one he finds most intriguing, and he even loses those prime notions a few times through needless tangents.Doctorow obviously loves the cyberpunk novels of Neal Stephenson (which are themselves a tangle of ideas and tan...

Here we are, living and dying (again) in Orange County, FLA.Thought provoking cocktail party fodder. I disliked Doctorow’s mitten-fisted writing, banal hippie-dippy characters (Beatles references included); however, the points I found interesting don’t concern the people as much as the technology.Don't bother to savor the words. Read it quickly for the premise, then debate the promise of "TomorrowLand."Essentially a problematic book that I disliked in execution, but highly discussable.

The man child of a protagonist who lived multiple lives but always found someone to blame for his lot grew tiresome, but I guess that's just part of the Disney World experience.2.5 stars