World Famous Comics: A Place So Foreign and Eight More
A Place So Foreign and Eight More
By: Cory Doctorow Publisher: Running Press Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Running Press Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 352 Publication Date: September 07, 2003
Considered one of the most promising science fiction writers, Cory Doctorow's name is already mentioned with such SF greats as J.G. Ballard, Michael Moorcock, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. He was awarded the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Writer at the 2000 Hugo Awards. Cory's singular tales push the boundaries of the genre, exploring pop culture, trash, nerd pride, and the nexus of technology and social change. His work is a roadmap to the possible futures that may arise in our lifetimes. Additional stories include "Craphound", "All Day Sucker", "Shadow of the Mothaship", "The Superman and the Bugout", "Home Again, Home Again", and "Return to the Pleasure Island".
Amazon.com Review: Wunderkind Cory Doctrow continues to display his orientation skills at the intersection of Humanity and Technology with the collection of short stories A Place So Foreign and 8 More. In the collection's titular tale, "A Place So Foreign," a 19th-century boy travels with his father, the Ambassador to 1975. But when Pa meets with an accident, young James becomes a living anachronism in 1898. Doctrow twists the time travel tale into a parable of data mining, as mysterious forces work to plunder the past for corporate gain. In one of several stories about a mysterious alien race who offers to give Earthers a hand up, he documents the adolescent rage of those left behind when the "mothaship" takes the anointed few into the brave new world. Finally, in "0wnz0red", Doctrow explores the dark side of Silicon Valley's connection to the military industrial complex by posing the question: What happens when hackers learn to hack the human body?
Doctrow is a new breed in an increasingly literate and valid subgenre of science fiction. He uses the traditional allegories of the form to explore more human and fragile connections. As the 21st century rockets ahead, he examines the consequences of our frenzy to embrace technology and predicts outcomes that are both charmingly optimistic and bleakly hollow. --Jeremy Pugh
Imaginative stories that defy easy classification The nine stories contained in _A Place So Foreign_ can only be easily classified together as "imaginative" - any other grouping fails to do them justice. From the cyberpunk (or "Nerdc0re" as the author describes it) story "0wnz0red," the alien buddy story "Craphound," the time-travelling caper "A Place so Foreign," and the dark fantasy "Return to Pleasure Island," the author shows that he can be creative and interesting in many different areas of fiction. "All Day Sucker" and "The Re-Branding of Billy Bailey" represent commentaries on aspects of society, and the three "bugout" stories ("Shadow of the Mothaship," "Home Again, Home Again," and "The Super Man and the Bugout") are also included.
If you're interested in reading imaginative science fiction, then this is the anthology for you. It is one of the most interesting works I've read in years.
The genre at its best As a co-editor of Boing Boing, former director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, USC professor and anti-DRM activist (to scratch the surface) Mr. Doctorow has his bone fides when it comes to understanding how technology is changing the world. His writing follows in the tradition of the best of science fiction as a poigniant fun house mirror held up to our own time. No busty women in skintight space suits or ridiculously biceped rogues fighting off alien overlords. If you are looking for stories about them, look elsewhere. If you're looking for stories about people dealing with normal problems in extraordinary (but plausible) circumstance, you'll feel right at home here.
From before he was down and out in the Magic Kingdom Doctorow (no provable relation to E. L., by the way) made his first big splash with his off-the-wall short stories -- especially the last one in this collection, "Ownz0red," which is a Leet Geek work of narrative art about taking copyright commons to the next level, by way of the personal biosphere. "Craphound," on the other hand, while it's a well-written and entertaining story about junk-hawks, is almost the sort of thing you might have found in the old Analog. "To Market, to Market: The Rebranding of Billy Bailey," has a strong Gibsonian flavor and is probably the second-best thing in this collection. The title story is a not entirely successful time travel yarn that seems to lose its way at several points. "Return to Pleasure Island" is just strange, and also not enitrely successful. The remaining three stories are sort of a set, sharing a future in which the aliens have come and are shaping us up whether we like it or not, but none of the three shares characters. This is the best single-author collection I've read in several years.
Doctorow's first collection, and it's a nice one _____________________________________________
This is newish writer Doctorow's first collection, and it's a nice one. You can easily judge this for yourself, as he's put up six of the nine stories in the book for free download, along with Bruce Sterling's perceptive intro, at http://craphound.com/place/
Still, I'm supposed to provide guidance here, right? OK: the newest and hottest story here is "0wnz0red".... But why listen to me? Here's Chairman Bruce Sterling's opinion:
[quote]There has been a chunk of science fiction influenced by Silicon Valley, but "0wnz0red" captures the disturbed inner world of the technically sociopathic... This story is fully realized, and it is sarcastic, abrasive, and mind-boggling in a truly novel way. Like Beat writing in its early period, "0wnz0red" has the dual virtues of being both really offensive and genuinely hard for normal people to understand. This work is therefore truly advanced.[end quote]
Well, um, AOL. "If your nerd quotient is high enough, ["0wnz0red"] will blow you away" -- Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder.
My favorite Doctorow story so far, the gonzo "Jury Service", isn't here, maybe because it's a collab with Charlie Stross? --but it's just a click away: [OK, a few clicks, since Ammy usually bounces URLS-- g00gle scifi[dot]com]
[quote] Welcome to the fractured future, at the dusk of the twenty-first century.
Earth has a population of roughly a billion hominids. For the most part, they are happy with their lot, living in a preserve at the bottom of a gravity well. Those who are unhappy have emigrated, joining one or another of the swarming densethinker clades that fog the inner solar system with a dust of molecular machinery so thick that it obscures the sun. Except for the solitary lighthouse beam that perpetually tracks the Earth in its orbit, the system from outside resembles a spherical fogbank radiating in the infrared spectrum; a matrioshka brain, nested Dyson orbitals built from the dismantled bones of moons and planets...[end quote]
Absolutely not to be missed. See my (and others) comments on "Jury Service" at g00gle groups.
OK, back to what *is* in the book. "Craphound", the leadoff story, was Doctorow's first published story, about an alien who likes thrift shops. Good weird stuff, and online, too.
"A Place So Foreign", an 18,000 word novella (also online) about time-travel from 1898 to 1975, is a fresh take on an old theme, and well-worth reading, though not quite to my taste.
"All Day Sucker" is a neat, clever short-short original. "To Market, To Market: The Rebranding of Billy Bailey", personal brand-management at Pepsi Elementary, is crackerjack, my second-favorite in the collection (and overall). Neither is online.
"Return to Pleasure Island" is sort of a Disney satire and didn't do much for me. And "Shadow of the Mothaship", a weird scientology/alien invasion tale, went completely by me, though it's a favorite of the author. Go figure. Both are online, so you can judge for yourself (and calibrate your taste against mine). "Home Again, Home Again", an alien nuthouse tale, and "The Super Man and the Bugout", adventures of a Jewish-Canadian superhero, are good stories that share the "Mothaship" background. Both are online.
So that's it. A good collection, from a hot new writer --but they left out two of his four strongest stories!
... Short story collections tend to frustrate me, as it seems the story hardly gets into the swing of things before a conclusion is hastily tapped on. The best short story collection I have read is "Welcome to the Monkey House" by Kurt Vonnegut, which is one of the most dazzling displays of "modern" writing I've stumbled upon. "A Place SO Foreign and 8 More" does not quite reach Vonnegut level, but is still a very enjoyable collection of stories.
Most of the time I really enjoyed Doctorow's prose. There were a few times he fell into the trap of trying to use too many "smart" phrases in one place, however, overall the writing is sharp and interesting.
The one thing I really like about Doctorow's writing is how he doesn't have to explain things... he SHOWS them. For example, in the story "Return to Pleasure Island," the main character is not human, but Doctorow avoids blantantly saying so. Instead he throws in "clues." Since the story is from the creature's perspective, regular humans are "soft ones." When he takes off his coat, he notices a lot of brown dirt-- a sign he is getting along in age. It's all very nonchalant which allows it to work.
The best story in the collection is "Home Again, Home Again," which is a look at life in a future "bat-house"... a home for mentally unstable people. While Docotorow tinkers with the idea that switching between first person and third person in reference to the same guy is powerful, it's really just confusing and it would have been better in first person only. I understand the concept he was going for, but it just wasn't working. That small bit aside, the story it's self was a stunning peep into different relationships which AREN'T real, but through Doctorow's writing sure do feel like they are.
Indeed, a reoccurring theme in Docotorow's stories is relationships between people-- usually friends and family. Unlike many edgy sci-fi writers who seem to sacrifice the relationships for technology, Docotorow's focus on them keeps the stories grounded and human. Yet his obvious technology obsession gives them the fantasy and future that marks science fiction.
It is exciting to stumble upon such a talent this early in his carreer. Expect bigger and better things from him in the future.
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