Recently in sci-fi Category

I am so torn up about the recent clash between Cory Doctorow and Ursula K. Le Guin. The former being a newly-discovered favourite author of mine; the latter being a staple in my inundated-by-scifi upbringing. A few months ago, Doctorow posted a paragraph Le Guin had written to the fanzine Ansible, operating under the Creative Commons assumption that

reproducing, for the purposes of commentary, a single paragraph originally published in a noncommercial venue, was fair use under 17USC, the American copyright statute.

The paragraph by Ms. Le Guin is a deliciously snarky short story in her own lyrical voice, and was written in response to this particular comment from a review posted on Ansible in May 2007:

'Michael Chabon has spent considerable energy trying to drag the decaying corpse of genre fiction out of the shallow grave where writers of serious literature abandoned it.' Ruth Franklin (Slate, 8 May 2007)

I won't post the paragraph here, obviously, but here's a little taste:

Something woke her in the night. Was it steps she heard, coming up the stairs -- somebody in wet training shoes, climbing the stairs very slowly ... but who? And why wet shoes? It hadn't rained. There, again, the heavy, soggy sound. But it hadn't rained for weeks, it was only sultry, the air close, with a cloying hint of mildew or rot, sweet rot, like very old finiocchiona, or perhaps liverwurst gone green.

Basically, Doctorow posted the whole paragraph and felt he had the right to do so under fair use. I'm with him. Le Guin posted the paragraph to her blog and she doesn't appear to charge her online readership for access to her posts. The letter of the law states "single paragraph," which happened to be the entirety of that particular work. At least Doctorow wasn't an ass about it. He could have posted everything but the last sentence or something along those lines.

From what I understand, this became an issue after the San Francisco Chronicle printed the entire work without permission from Le Guin, possibly because Doctorow's post on BoingBoing skewed the intent of the copyright on Le Guin's site. You can read Le Guin's recount of the conflict here, and Doctorow's apology to her here. Doctorow's been criticized for being self-serving even in his apology, but to me, Le Guin comes off the worst. I understand she feels cheated out of $200 or whatever, much less by some upstart young blogger-activist-SF hack with a penchant for Disney World and Digital Rights. So I won't criticize her for her condescending online rebuke of Doctorow. But I will ask, was it entirely necessary for her to turn into a 13-year-old with that last sentence there? "This letter is not copyrighted and may be excerpted or copied entire."

Really?

I dunno, I'm just a disappointed fan here.

(Photo of Cory by Scott Beale; Photo of Ursula by Marion Wood Kolisch.)

The other day, this post about shot-up polos from Attus Apparel made me think of a great book called Feed, by M.T. Anderson. It's a YA sci-fi novel, but don't let its genre deter you. Feed is smartly written and an entertaining read, even if you're an old-ish adult or don't typically enjoy sci-fi. Told through the eyes of a 14-year-old boy who thinks visiting the moon "completely sucks" and would rather watch the show Oh? Wow! Thing!, Anderson's narrative paints the internet (the feed) as the ultimate marketing tool for corporations. Cultures and subcultures are easily profiled and sculpted to consumerist perfection due to constant interaction with and observation by the feed. For a more in-depth review, follow this link.

A common motif in Feed is the constantly changing trends that get more and more ridiculous every week. One of the fads is remarkably prescient of this concept by Attus Apparel:

When we got there, Calista and Loga were getting out of Calista's car, and it was like, Whoa, because they were wearing all torn-up clothes. They were walking normal, but they looked like they'd been burned up and hit with stuff...

"Yuh," said Loga. "It's Riot Gear. It's retro. It's beat up to look like one of the big twentieth-century riots. It's been big since earlier this week."
- Feed, pp 158-9

Maybe those Attus Apparel guys read Anderson's novel? NOTCOT speculates all this violent pre-distressing of clothing is a response to society's obsession with crime dramas like Law & Order or CSI. I'm thinking it has more to do with conditioning our youth to get used to war, especially since this little vid by the company mentions that one guy's dad used to be a marine...Either way, this fashion statement's straddling some yellow cautionary tape between amusingly ironic and blatantly distasteful. They're not charging a hundred bucks for bullet-holes. I found it interesting that the little logos flashed at the end seem to call out to a number of different youth subsets - the jock, the frat boy, the punk, the xtreme sports lover...it's all a bit too clever.

One of the best things about 2007 for me so far is that I finished all three of Cory Doctorow's novels, and he is now one of my favourite authors. I've been a boingboing reader for the past year, but for some silly reason it never occurred to me to read any of his books. But once I picked up Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, I couldn't put it down. In fact I read six chapters sitting stark naked in my living room because its lovely bright green cover caught my eye on the way to the shower! I had to hide the damn thing under a pillow.

The book is basically about a guy, Jules, who is a "castmember" of Walt Disney World - he lives there and is part of a faction that takes care of part of the park. He loves the Haunted Mansion ride because of its human performers as well as the very clever illusions provided by age-old mechanical tricks - ropes, smoke and mirrors, acoustics. Unfortunately, a faction that got big overseas is moving in with newer, cooler technology that's completely revolutionizing the way rides work in the Magic Kingdom. You know, digital/brain interfacing, better robots. But Jules is convinced that what looks better in theory is not actually what's best for the park. He starts a grassroots movement, involving the castmembers and fans to save the true spirit of Disney World from becoming just another thing you can buy out of a box. The story is brilliant, told in witty, beguiling narrative that will make you want to go out and tell all your friends to read it too! After finishing it, I immediately bought it and his other two novels. He's that good.

Because Cory is so awesome and believes in fair use and all that good stuff, you can see for yourself and download the entire novel right here, in a variety of formats. You can read it on your cell phone, smart phone, palm pilot, etc. Or just right in your web browser. You can even sign up to read it in installments through email!